Logos

sábado, 15 de janeiro de 2011

RR - uma pervertida insaciável

Hoje, ainda não eram 13h, quando sintonizei a Rádio Renascença – “emissora católica portuguesa” -, fiquei aturdido ao escutar uma veemente defesa do positivismo jurídico, radicalmente relativista, em total contraste quer com o Direito Natural quer com a Doutrina da Igreja. Tratava-se de um programa, transmitido aos Sábados, que tem como comentador residente o juiz desembargador Eurico Reis. Este jurista, cuja posição pública favorável ao aborto era notória, escrevia, em 2007, esta coisa extraordinária: “Todos instintivamente sabemos que responder SIM em 11 de Fevereiro é a solução mais humana, mais fraterna e mais justa.[1] … Nós que votamos SIM somos partidários da dignidade da Vida Humana … E, portanto, voto SIM e peço a todos que em 11 de Fevereiro façam o mesmo.”

Em 2009, assina, como membro da comissão promotora, uma inacreditável e inqualificável petição do “Movimento pela igualdade no acesso ao casamento civil entre pessoas do mesmo sexo”.[2]

Esta estação emissora, e os seus proprietários, tem demonstrado, ao longo de aproximadamente uma década a esta parte, uma tendência maníaca irresistível para convidar abortófilos e outros espécimes moralmente vergonhosos, enfatuados de ideias infestas, perniciosas, sinistras e aberrantes, para pregações habituais aos seus microfones.

Esta sede insatisfazível de esbandalhar, deformar e apeçonhentar os seus ouvintes revela uma perversão insaciável cuja explicação é inexplicável porque tudo parece indicar que estamos diante do mistério da iniquidade, do fortíssimo poder sedutor do Maligno.

Nuno Serras Pereira

15. 01. 2011

[1] O sim refere-se à votação favorável à liberalização do aborto, cujo referendo ocorria nessa data.

[2] Ver o texto da petição e os nomes que constituíram a comissão promotora: http://www.petitiononline.com/mpi/ e http://casamentocivil.org/casamentocivil/igualdade.asp . Ver ainda a sua concepção estapafúrdia do Direito no final do seguinte texto: http://casamentocivil.org/casamentocivil/igualdade.asp

sexta-feira, 14 de janeiro de 2011

Christian anthropology versus the Sexual Revolution

by Peter Kreeft

In CERC

How does Christ revolutionize the Sexual Revolution? Not by turning back the clock, not by a new Victorianism, not by opposing religion to sex, but by showing their real and profound connection.

To see that the Sexual Revolution has been radical in thought as well as behavior, just look at the revolution in language. When people use the word "morality" today they almost always mean sexual morality. That's a remarkable new development, an astonishing narrowing; it's as if we started to use the word "state" to mean only Russia, or the word "technology" to mean only "computers". The reason for the new development is obvious from my two comparisons: sex, Russia, and computers are where there have been the most radical revolutions.

No one speaks of a revolution in any other area of morality. No one speaks of the Property Revolution or the Bearing False Witness Revolution. In fact the rest of the natural moral law is pretty much still in place. Almost no one defends terrorism, sadism, cannibalism, insider trading, nuclear war, environmental pollution, rape, hypocrisy, torture, or murder. We are still "judgmental" about those things. But if it has anything to do with sex we dare no longer be "judgmental".

Look at the non-impeachment of President Clinton. No U.S. President would ever have survived public revelation that he was any of these immoral things I just mentioned, or even a deliberate liar about anything else except sex.

Look at abortion. No one defends killing innocent, defenceless human beings, except for sex. That is what abortion is. The whole purpose of abortion is backup birth control and the whole purpose of birth control is to have sex without babies. If storks brought babies, Planned Parenthood would go broke. Sex is the motor that drives the abortion business.

Look at divorce. Suppose there were some practice that did not involve sex that had the same three scientifically provable effects that divorce has. First, it betrayed your most solemn promise you ever made to the person you said was the most important person in your life. Second, it was child abuse, it maimed your children's psyches, it made a happy life and a happy marriage and family much, much harder for those vulnerable little people you brought into the world and who remained largely dependent on you for their future. Third, it infallibly guaranteed that your society would die, would self destruct. No society in history has ever survived without stable marriages and stable families. It is the one absolutely indispensable foundation of everything else, for it is the first and most intimate way that individuals form communities and emerge from selfishness. But these three things are exactly what divorce does. More than that, it's a form of suicide, the suicide of the new person, the two-in-one-flesh created by marriage. How healthy would you think a society is if half of all its individual citizens committed suicide? But half of our families commit suicide, and society is composed of families, not just of individuals. But divorce is tolerated and accepted because it's about sex. Suppose it was proved that something else, something not connected with sex, had these three effects. For instance, smoking, or single malt scotch, or ferris wheels. You'd have absolute prohibition, not tolerance.

The moral revolution is confined to sex. We are not allowed to steal another man's money without being put into jail, but we can steal another man's wife. You cannot betray your lawyer without being severely penalized, but you can betray your wife, and SHE is severely penalized. You cannot kill bald eagles or blue whales without being a criminal but you can kill your own children as long as you do it a second before the two blades of the scissors meet in the middle of the umbilical cord rather than a second after, or a second before the body emerges from the birth canal rather than a second after. What kind of logic is this?

Obviously the mind behind the Sexual Revolution is not overly attached to logical consistency, and there is little hope of changing the mind that defends that revolution by logical arguments, however infallible they may be. You need more than logic to unscramble the brains of an addict. The argument will find no soil in the brains to grow in because the brains are already scrambled. Do you really think sex addicts can think more clearly than drug addicts? If anything, it's the opposite. Drug addicts don't usually defend their addiction with elaborate rationalizations and new philosophies of moral relativism; sex addicts almost always do. And only about 5-10% of Americans are drug addicts, probably about twice as much as that if we include alcohol. But the vast majority are sex addicts. According to a recent poll, over 50% of the men who attend Church every Sunday are addicted to pornography. That's not 50% of men, or even 50% of Christian man, but 50% of the small, elite cream of the crop who are in church every Sunday. It is a literal epidemic.

What then do we need to defeat this revolution, which has brought about such immense destruction, and eventual death, to families, and eventually to society? Reason, logic, argument, science, facts, common sense, compromise, return to tradition – none of these are strong enough. What is strong enough? Only one thing. Nothing less than Jesus Christ will do.

Why? Because the heart of the error of the Sexual Revolution is the identifying of love with sex. Christ undoes this fundamental confusion by showing us – not just telling us but showing us – what love is.

The Beatles are right: all you need is love. But not the kind of love they mean. Why is it true that all you need is love? Because God is love, and all you need is God. If you have God plus ten million other things, and if I have God alone, you don't have a single thing more than I do. Love and the lack of love transforms everything else. We'd all rather be in love in Detroit than divorced in Hawaii.

Christianity centers on two equations: God is love, and love is (revealed in) Christ. Look at this second equation. Do you want to know what love is? Look at Christ. I Corinthians 13, the most popular chapter in the Bible, read at nearly ever wedding, is a description of Jesus Christ. It's not an abstract definition of an ideal, it's a concrete description of the historical fact of Jesus Christ. As Pope John Paul II loved to say, Jesus Christ shows man to himself. Without Christ we do not know ourselves. We are like a dog in a cage at the airport who has chewed off his own dog tag with his name and his address. He does not know who he is or where his home is. That's us without Christ. For He's the Mind of God! He designed us, for God's sake. I mean that literally, not profanely: He designed us for God's sake. For the God who is love. But what kind of love? A new and different kind, and that difference was so radical that it converted the world. It wasn't theology that converted the world, it was love. Mother Teresa converted souls without number just by being what she was, a saint, an example of this new love, this total love, this Godlike love.

Jesus predicted that would happen. He said, "By this will all men know that you are my disciples, by the love you have for one another." If that love was something already known, if it was romance or erotic love or liking or compassion or philanthropy or civility or fairness or justice or mercy, all of which are wonderful things, but if that was all it was, if the love Christ was talking about was not radically new and different, then He could not possibly have meant what He said. It would contradict itself. It would mean: "The world will see the difference between you and them by the fact that you all share the same kind of love. They will be able to distinguish My disciples from everybody else by the fact that their kind of love is not different from everybody else's."

It means, of course, exactly the opposite. Our human loves are forms of desire, feeling, eros, need. These need-loves are very good things. Men need women and women need men, physically and spiritually and socially and emotionally and biologically. And children need adults and adults need children. And teachers need students and students need teachers. But the love Christ brings is the love God is, and God does not need anything. God is sheer gift.

That's why Jesus came, and why He died, and why He shed so much blood. He didn't have to. One drop would have saved the world. Why did He give 12 quarts? Because He had 12 quarts to give.

Now let's connect this new love, this love that is the very nature of God, with sex. The Sexual Revolution has disconnected it; we need to reconnect it. How? First of all in our thinking, and then in our acting. Without the right thoughts, we won't do the right acts. Without a road map, we won't find the right road.

We've already seen how radical the Sexual Revolution is. It's a radical change in behavior, of course, but even more radically, it's a radical change in thinking. And the most radical change in thinking is not an addition but a subtraction. The single most radical result of all the immense amount of sex education that we've had in the last 50 years has been not a new knowledge but a new ignorance: ignorance of the most essential thing about sex, the essential meaning and purpose of sex, the very essence of sex. Sex creates babies. They're not accidents! Pregnancy is not a disease. They're what sex does if you let it do its thing. Sex makes new immortal persons. Sex is incredibly, magically, supernaturally creative because it images the Creator. It's part of the image of God. That's why the first time the Bible mentions "the image of God," in Genesis, it immediately mentions sex: "And God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God created He him: male and female created He them."

We moderns think sex is for us; it isn't; it's for our children. We moderns think we're so enlightened because we're not legalists any more, we're personalists, we're about people, not about laws or rules or commandments. We think of the people who make sex, and we want those people to have fun and be happy. Which is fine, but we're so fixated on the fact that people make sex that we've ignored the fact that sex makes people.

But we've redesigned it so that it doesn't make people any more. We've contracepted it. But since it is God's way of creating, we've contracepted God. That's exactly like redesigning the Mass so that you put a condom over the priest's mouth when he's about to say This Is My Body so that Jesus can't come and create the miracle of transubstantiation, because you don't want that new life, all you want is the thrill of playing at it. That's what contraception is. It's putting a condom on God, putting a barrier or a diaphragm between God and the miracle He might otherwise perform in you.

No official teaching in the Church's 2000 year history, no official document, has ever been so hated, despised, ignored, and disobeyed as Humanae Vitae. What is the most unpopular teaching of the Church today? Nothing comes even close. It's the teaching of the Church about sex that is by far the main reason the world hates and fears the Church today. For the Church is "judgmental" about our society's addiction and real religion. False religion, false gods, can be overcome only by true religion, by the true God.

Humanae Vitae was prophetic. The Pill was a nuclear bomb. It split the atom of the family by splitting the atom of sex, splitting its pleasure from its fruit, its unitive from its procreative end, splitting sex from life.

How does Christ revolutionize the Sexual Revolution? Not by turning back the clock, not by a new Victorianism, not by opposing religion to sex, but by showing their real and profound connection. What is that connection?

It's exactly the opposite of what Freud thought it was. Freud argued that religion is only a poor substitute for sex. Christ shows that sex is a poor substitute for religion, for real religion, that is, a kind of religion Freud knew nothing about. Freud thought love was a substitute for lust. Christ knew that lust was a substitute for love. If Freud were right, it would follow that the more sex you have the less religion you want, so that happily married people who have a lot of happy sex would become atheists. It doesn't happen. The predictions are not verified. The data falsify the theory. Sexually active people don't become atheists. Even in college. The college hookup culture has turned colleges into free whore houses, a randy man's impossible dream. But even these men, and certainly their free whores, are not happy atheists. They're neither atheists nor happy. Satisfying their sexual hunger is not satisfying their spiritual hunger any more than it did for St. Augustine. It looks as if God isn't a poor substitute for sex but sex is a poor substitute for God.

But let's be honest, among all the substitutes for God, sex is a pretty good one. And that's because it's a kind of icon of God. Eros is an image of agape. And the love between the sexes is an image or icon of the love between the persons of the Trinity. Only very good things can become addictions and idolatries. No one gets addicted to paper clips or worships mud. You can't make a religion out of washing machines. But you can make one out of sex.

Sex is close to religion because the ultimate end and center and point of all true religion is a spiritual marriage to God. That's what we are designed for, that's the only thing that will keep us in unbored ecstasy for ever. That's what the Bible says. The last event in human history, at the end of the Apocalypse, is the marriage between the Lamb and His bride, Christ and His Church, God and man. That's the end, point, purpose, highest value, greatest good, meaning, consummation and perfection of human life.

Why is sex such a thrill? Because it's one of the few things in life that's like that. It's literally an ecstasy – the word means "standing-outside-yourself", self-forgetfulness, self-transcendence, the overcoming of that hidden inner loneliness that every one of us brings into the world with that wonderful and terrible little word "I". The "I" is restless until it becomes a "We". And ultimately, that's because God is a "We".

It's not the physical excitement that's the greatest excitement in sex, it's the personal excitement of knowing that this other person has accepted you into his or her inner sanctum, body and soul. It's the intimacy, the oneness, the we-ness, when we know that the one we love loves us, when the two streams of loving and being loved meet like two beams of light becoming one, or two rivers of volcanic lava blending. The two really do become one, and paradoxically, in that one moment when they are the most totally lost in each other, each one discovers the deepest secret of his and her own individuality. At what other moment do lovers attain the peak of their individual fulfillment if not at that moment when they are the most totally lost in each other? Why does that happen? Because that's what God is: and that's why that's the ultimate law of life: the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, that that's the only way it lives. You lose your life, and that's the only way to find it. You give, and that's the only way to receive. You forget yourself, and that's the only way to find yourself. It's a kind of mystical absentmindedness. You become the other, without ceasing to be yourself.

There are other peak experiences in life that can give you some of that thrill, that are similar to sex, but they are usually much weaker and rarer. Great music, for instance, or surfing a great wave. But God designed sex to be the #1 way. That's why He didn't design babies to come from listening to Beethoven or from hanging ten in the tube.

In short, by God's design in creating us, we are hardwired for the spiritual marriage, for becoming one with God; that's why we are so thrilled at becoming one with each other, as the images of God. As we are images of God, the sexual union is an image of union with God. It is an appetizer of Heaven, a faint image of the Beatific Vision.

St. Thomas Aquinas says: "No man can live without joy" (i.e. without ecstasy, which is much more than happiness, because happiness can be somewhat under your control and therefore boring, but joy is always a gift and a surprise). Aquinas continues: "No man can live without joy; that is why those who are deprived of true, spiritual joys, necessarily go over to carnal pleasures." The origin of the Sexual Revolution is religious. The Revolution could not have happened without the loss of true religion, the loss of spiritual joy, the loss of religious passion, the passionate love of God. The Revolution could not have happened without that, and also without the Pill, of course, which allows us to have sex without consequences and lifelong responsibilities. We have given up the two deepest, longest, greatest joys, the eternity-long love of God and the lifelong love of spouse and family and children, the two joys that come from the most total self-giving, the radical adventure of holding back nothing; and we've given these up these two great dramatic things for what? For the shallower, temporary, smaller pleasures that are so small because they have to hold back something, hold back total self-giving which includes fertility and family and future and commitment. These are crazy adventures. What a crazy adventure kids are! Having fits is less crazy than having kids. And we are bored and therefore unhappy because we are hardwired for the all-or-nothing, wild, total romance and all we find is some cool, controlled kicks.

So we lie. We pretend we are happy. Our most basic social liturgy is "How are you?" And the answer has to be "Fine," even if your dog just died, your mother in law is coming to live with you forever, your kids think you're a dork, and your wife is collecting the phone numbers of divorce lawyers. We're all fine.

If we're all fine, how come the suicide rate for teenagers rose 5000 per cent between 1950 and 1990? What could possibly be a more unarguable index of increasing unhappiness than that?

And how does Jesus Christ answer that? What does Christ have to do with the Sexual Revolution and its causes and its consequences? Everything. Because Christ alone gives us intimacy with God, and that's the thing the Sexual Revolution is looking for but doesn't know it. As Chesterton said, When the adulterer knocks on the door of the brothel, he's really looking for a cathedral.

Therefore Christ alone is the answer to the Sexual Revolution. Because nobody else gives us intimacy with God.

What I've said will strike some of you as bizarre. How dare I bring these two things together, Christ and sex? I must bring them together, because they are the two most passionate things in our lives, and because they both are revelations of the same God, the God of love.

What I've given you is the essential point of John Paul II's Theology of the Body. That is the Church's answer to the Sexual Revolution. The Church always responds to new heresies with new definitions, new insights, new restatements of eternal truths. How important is this response? As important as the Sexual Revolution. The importance of St. George depends on the importance of the dragon. The importance of Dr. Von Helsing depends on the importance of Dracula.

And how important is the dragon, or the Dracula of the Sexual Revolution? Well, that depends on how important the family is, for exactly the same reason: because the Revolution is doing a Dracula on the family.

And how important is the family? It is only the foundation for all human society, and the source of the greatest human happiness (and, when messed up, the greatest human unhappiness), because it is the image of God. God is not a lonely individual. God is a family.

I think the family is even more important to God than doctrinal orthodoxy, because the family is the very image and presence of God among us. Islam and Mormonism are both theological heresies, but they are multiplying faster than Christianity, and God is blessing them because Mormons and Muslims today are much more faithful than Christians are to their families, to sexual morality, to marriage, and to procreation.

Muslims tried to conquer Christian Europe for 13 centuries with the sword, and failed; they are succeeding now with a far more powerful weapon: mothers. They are having children and families, and Christians aren't. Therefore God is giving them Europe because they deserve it and we don't.

This is outrageous because neither Muhammad nor Joseph Smith is the answer to the Sexual Revolution. Christ is. He does not just teach the Big Picture, as the Pope does; He IS the big picture. He does not just teach us the Word of God about sex, he IS the Word of God about sex. He does not merely teach the spiritual marriage, He IS the spiritual marriage. He is the whole meaning and end and point and consummation of sex, and of our whole lives, in this world and in the next. He is the Mind of God, He is the inventor of sex the icon and the mediator of the Heavenly ecstasy, the mystical marriage, of which it is the icon. To know Him is to know the meaning of all things. Outside of Him, we do not know God, or ourselves, or the meaning of life, or the meaning of death, or the meaning of sex.

There is more than that to say about a Christian anthropology and about a Christian philosophy of sex. Many more things than this are needed. But nothing less.

Attorney claims as many as half of priest abuse accusations are ‘fraudulent or entirely false’

by Thaddeus Baklinski

LOS ANGELES, January 13, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - LA attorney Donald H. Steier has filed a declaration with the Los Angeles County Superior Court stating that a large number of sex abuse claims against priests are false or heavily exaggerated, according to a report by TheMediaReport (http://www.themediareport.com/jan2011/special-steier-declaration.htm)

In his declaration Mr. Steier states: “One retired F.B.I. agent who worked with me to investigate many claims in the Clergy Cases told me, in his opinion, about ONE-HALF of the claims made in the Clergy Cases were either entirely false or so greatly exaggerated that the truth would not have supported a prosecutable claim for childhood sexual abuse.” (emphasis is Mr. Steier’s)

“In several cases my investigation has provided objective information that could not be reconciled with the truthfulness of the subjective allegations. In other words, in many cases objective facts showed that accusations were false,” Mr. Steier writes.

Mr. Steier, who reports in the declaration that he has taken part in over 100 investigations involving claims of childhood sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in Los Angeles, says that many plaintiffs had come forward only after hearing about lucrative settlements from an abuse claim.

“I am aware of several plaintiffs who testified that they realized that they had been abused only after learning that some other person - sometimes a relative - had received a financial settlement from the Archdiocese or another Catholic institution,” Mr. Steier states.

He describes plaintiffs’ testimonies changing over time, resulting in increased settlement pay-outs.

“In my investigation of many cases, I have seen the stories of some accusers change significantly over time, sometimes altering years, locations, and what activity was alleged - in every case, the changes seemed to have enabled or enhanced claims against my clients, or drastically increased alleged damages,” the veteran attorney declares.

In addition, Mr. Steier claims that many priests under investigation willingly undertook, and passed, lie-detector tests, while their accusers refused the test.

“I have had accused priest clients take polygraph examinations performed by very experienced former law enforcement experts, including from L.A.P.D., the Sheriff Department, and F.B.I. In many cases the examinations showed my clients’ denial of wrongdoing was ‘truthful,’ and in those cases I offered in writing to the accuser to undergo a similar polygraph examination at my expense. In every case the accuser refused to have his veracity tested by that investigative tool, which is routinely used by intelligence agencies,” Mr. Steier reports.

Mr. Steier implicates the victims’ advocacy group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) for their part in making it a simple matter, by means of their website, for anyone wanting to make a false claim of clerical sexual abuse to find the information they need.

“They maintain an interactive Internet website with a user ‘Forum’ and ‘Message Board,’ among other features, where people can share detailed information between alleged victims pertaining to identity of specific alleged perpetrators, their alleged ‘modus operandi,’ and other details of alleged molestation,” Mr. Steier says.

“In effect, a person who wanted to make a false claim of sexual abuse by a priest could go to that website and find a ‘blueprint’ of factual allegations to make that would coincide with allegations made by other people. Law enforcement also uses the S.N.A.P. website to attempt to locate new victims and allegations against Catholic priests.”

In a press release, SNAP denounced Steier’s report as “among the most outrageous and hurtful ever made by a church defense lawyer,” and indicates it will file a California Bar Association complaint against him.

Images of Mr. Steier’s declaration, filed with the LA County Superior Court on December 15, 2010, are available through TheMediaReport website here.

Un nuevo Syllabus para el siglo XXI

Se implora un documento que condene los errores de interpretación del Concilio Vaticano II. Lo ha pedido un obispo de Kazakhstan, en un congreso en Roma con otros obispos y cardenales. Y suscita reacciones también el anuncio de Benedicto XVI de un nuevo encuentro interreligioso en Asís

por Sandro Magister

In www.chiesa

ROMA, 14 de enero de 2011 – El anuncio, hecho por Benedicto XVI luego del Angelus de año nuevo, de un viaje a Asís, el próximo octubre, para celebrar un nuevo encuentro interreligioso para orar por la paz, ha estimulado las controversias no sólo sobre el llamado "espíritu de Asís", sino también sobre el Concilio Vaticano II y el postconcilio.

El profesor Roberto de Mattei – flamante autor de una redacción de la historia del Concilio que culmina en el pedido a Benedicto XVI para que promueva "un nuevo examen" de los documentos conciliares, y así disipar la sospecha que éstos últimos habían roto con la doctrina tradicional de la Iglesia – ha firmado junto a otras personalidades católicas un pedido al Papa, para que el nuevo encuentro de Asís "no reencienda las confusiones sincretistas" del primero, convocado el 27 de octubre de 1986 por Juan Pablo II en la ciudad de san Francisco.

En efecto, en el año 1986, el entonces cardenal Joseph Ratzinger no fue a ese primer encuentro, del cual fue crítico. Por el contrario, participó en una réplica celebrada también en Asís el 24 de enero del 2002, a la que adhirió "in extremis" luego de haberse asegurado que los equívocos del encuentro anterior no se volverían a repetir.

El equívoco principal alimentado por el encuentro de Asís del año 1986 fue el de equiparar las religiones como fuentes de salvación para la humanidad. Contra este equívoco la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe emitió en el año 2000 la Declaración "Dominus Iesus", para reafirmar que todo hombre no tiene otro salvador que Jesús.

Pero también como Papa, Ratzinger ha vuelto a alertar contra las confusiones. En un mensaje al obispo de Asís, del 2 de setiembre del 2006, ha escrito:

"Para que no haya equívocos con respecto al sentido de lo que Juan Pablo II quiso realizar en 1986, y que se ha calificado con una expresión suya como 'espíritu de Asís', es importante no olvidar el cuidado que se puso entonces para que el encuentro interreligioso de oración no se prestara a interpretaciones sincretistas, fundadas en una concepción relativista. [...] Por eso, también cuando nos reunimos para orar por la paz es necesario que la oración se desarrolle según los distintos caminos que son propios de las diversas religiones. Esta fue la opción que se hizo en 1986, y sigue siendo válida también hoy. La convergencia de personas diversas no debe dar la impresión de que se cae en el relativismo que niega el sentido mismo de la verdad y la posibilidad de alcanzarla".

Y en una visita a Asís el 17 de junio del 2007, ha dicho en la homilía:

"La elección de celebrar ese encuentro en Asís fue sugerida precisamente por el testimonio de Francisco como hombre de paz, al cual tantos miran con simpatía incluso desde otras posiciones culturales y religiosas. Al mismo tiempo, la luz del 'Pobrecillo' sobre esa iniciativa era una garantía de autenticidad cristiana, ya que su vida y su mensaje se apoyan de modo tan visible en la opción por Cristo, que rechaza a priori cualquier tentación de indiferentismo religioso, que nada tendría que ver con el auténtico diálogo religioso. [...] No podría ser actitud evangélica, ni franciscana, el no lograr conjugar la acogida, el diálogo y el respeto por todo con la certeza de fe que cada cristiano, a la par que el santo de Asís, se espera que cultive, anunciando a Cristo como camino, verdad y vida del hombre, único Salvador del mundo".

Volviendo a la controversia sobre el Concilio Vaticano II, hay que señalar un congreso importante celebrado el 16-18 de diciembre pasado en Roma, a pocos pasos de la basílica de san Pedro, "para una justa hermenéutica del Concilio a la luz de la Tradición de la Iglesia".

Bajo el juicio crítico de los expositores estaban sobre todo la naturaleza "pastoral" del Vaticano II y los abusos que se han llevado a cabo en su nombre.

Entre los expositores estuvieron el profesor de Mattei y el teólogo Brunero Gherardini, de 85 años de edad, canónico de la basílica de san Pedro, profesor emérito de la Pontifica Universidad Lateranense y director de la revista de teología tomista "Divinitas".

Gherardini es autor de un volumen sobre el Concilio Vaticano II que concluye con una "Súplica al Santo Padre", en la que se pide que se sometan a revisión los documentos del Concilio, para aclarar de una vez por todas "si, en qué sentido y hasta qué punto " el Vaticano II está o no en continuidad con el anterior magisterio de la Iglesia.

El libro de Gherardini tiene el prefacio de Albert Malcolm Ranjith, arzobispo de Colombo y ex secretario de la Congregación vaticana para el Culto Divino, creado cardenal en el consistorio del pasado mes de noviembre.

Ranjith es uno de los dos obispos a los que www.chiesa ha dedicado recientemente un servicio con este título:

> Los mejores alumnos de Ratzinger están en Sri Lanka y Kazajstán

Y también el segundo de estos obispos, el auxiliar de Karaganda, Athanasius Schneider, estuvo presente como expositor en el congreso romano del 16-18 de diciembre.

A continuación se reproduce la parte final de su conferencia, la cual concluye con el pedido al Papa de dos remedios contra los abusos del postconcilio: la redacción y difusión de un "Syllabus" contra los errores doctrinales de interpretación del Vaticano II y el nombramiento de obispos "santos, valientes y profundamente arraigados en la Tradición de la Iglesia".

Hubo cardenales, funcionarios de la curia y teólogos de relieve que escucharon a Schneider. Basta decir que entre los mismos expositores estuvieron el cardenal Velasio de Paolis, el arzobispo Agostino Marchetto, el obispo Luigi Negri y monseñor Florian Kolfhaus, de la Secretaría de Estado del Vaticano.

Entre los oyentes hubo un nutrido grupo de Franciscanos de la Inmaculada, una joven congregación religiosa surgida en el surco de san Francisco, floreciente de vocaciones y de orientación decididamente ortodoxa, situada en las antípodas del llamado "espíritu de Asís", promotora del mismo congreso.

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EL DESAFÍO DE LAS INTERPRETACIONES CONTRASTANTES

por Athanasius Schneider

[...] Para una interpretación correcta del Concilio Vaticano II es necesario tener en cuenta la intención manifestada en los mismos documentos conciliares y en las palabras específicas de los Papas que lo han convocado y presidido: Juan XXIII y Pablo VI.

Además es necesario descubrir el hilo conductor de toda la obra del Concilio, es decir, su intención pastoral, que es la "salus animarum", la salvación de las almas. Ésta, a su vez, depende y está subordinada a la promoción del culto divino y de la gloria de Dios, es decir, depende del primado de Dios.

Este primado de Dios en la vida y en toda la actividad de la Iglesia se manifiesta inequívocamente por el hecho que la Constitución sobre la liturgia ocupa intencional y cronológicamente el primer puesto en la vasta obra del Concilio. [...]

*

Lo característico de la ruptura en la interpretación de los textos conciliares se manifiesta, en la forma más estereotipada y difundida, en la tesis de un viraje antropológico, secularizante o naturalista del Concilio Vaticano II respecto a la tradición eclesial anterior.

Una de las manifestaciones más conocidas de tal interpretación errónea ha sido, por ejemplo, la llamada teología de la liberación y su consiguiente devastadora praxis pastoral. Cuál es el contraste que hay entre esta teología de la liberación, su praxis y el Concilio, aparece claramente en la siguiente enseñanza conciliar: “La misión propia que Cristo confió a su Iglesia no es de orden político, económico o social. El fin que le asignó es de orden religioso” (cfr. "Gaudium et Spes", n. 42). [...]

Una interpretación de ruptura de peso doctrinalmente más ligero se ha manifestado en el campo pastoral-litúrgico. Se puede mencionar a tal fin la merma del carácter sagrado y sublime de la liturgia y la introducción de elementos gestuales más antropocéntricos.

Este fenómeno se evidencia en tres prácticas litúrgicas demasiado conocidas y difundidas en la casi totalidad de las parroquias del orbe católico: la desaparición casi total del uso de la lengua latina, la recepción del cuerpo eucarístico de Cristo directamente en la mano y de pie y la celebración del sacrificio eucarístico en la modalidad de un círculo cerrado en el que sacerdote y pueblo se observan recíprocamente cara a cara.

Este modo de rezar – el no estar todos orientados en la misma dirección, lo cual es una expresión corporal y simbólica más natural respecto a la verdad de estar todos espiritualmente orientados hacia Dios en el culto público – contradice la práctica que Jesús mismo y sus apóstoles han observado en la oración pública, tanto en el templo como en la sinagoga. Contradice además el testimonio unánime de los Padres de la Iglesia y de toda la tradición posterior de la Iglesia oriental y occidental.

Estas tres prácticas pastorales y litúrgicas, de clamorosa ruptura con la ley de la oración mantenida por generaciones de fieles católicos durante al menos un milenio, no encuentran ningún apoyo en los textos conciliares, por el contrario, más bien contradicen tanto un texto específico del Concilio (en la lengua latina: cfr. "Sacrosanctum Concilium", nn. 36 y 54), como la "mens", la verdadera intención de los Padres conciliares, tal como se puede verificar en las actas del Concilio.

*

En el alboroto hermenéutico de las interpretaciones contrastantes y en la confusión de las aplicaciones pastorales y litúrgicas, aparece como único intérprete auténtico de los textos conciliares el Concilio mismo, en unidad con el Papa.

Se podría plantear una analogía con el clima hermenéutico confuso de los primeros siglos de la Iglesia, provocado por interpretaciones bíblicas y doctrinales arbitrarias por parte de grupos heterodoxos. En su famosa obra "De praescriptione haereticorum", Tertuliano pudo contraponer a los herejes de distintas orientaciones el hecho que solamente la iglesia posee la "praescriptio", es decir, solamente la Iglesia es la legítima propietaria de la fe, de la palabra de Dios y de la tradición. Con esto, en las disputas sobre la verdadera interpretación la Iglesia puede rechazar a los herejes. Solamente la Iglesia puede decir, según Tertuliano: “Ego sum heres Apostolorum”, yo soy la heredera de los apóstoles. Hablando analógicamente, solamente el magisterio supremo del Papa o de un posible futuro concilio ecuménico podrá decir: “Ego sum heres Concilii Vaticani II”, [yo soy el heredero del Concilio Vaticano II].

En las décadas pasadas existían, y todavía existen, reagrupamientos en el interior de la Iglesia que abusan enormemente del carácter pastoral del Concilio y de sus textos, escritos según esta intención pastoral, ya que el Concilio no quería presentar enseñanzas propias definitivas o irreformables. De la misma naturaleza pastoral de los textos del Concilio se evidencia que sus textos están en principio abiertos a perfeccionamientos y a ulteriores precisiones doctrinales. Teniendo en cuenta la experiencia de varias décadas de interpretaciones doctrinal y pastoralmente equivocadas y contrarias a la continuidad bimilenaria de la doctrina y de la oración de la fe, surge entonces la necesidad y la urgencia de una intervención específica y autorizada del magisterio pontificio para una interpretación auténtica de los textos conciliares, con perfeccionamientos y precisiones doctrinales; una especie de "Syllabus" de los errores respecto a la interpretación del Concilio Vaticano II.

Hay necesidad de un nuevo Syllabus, dirigido esta vez no tanto contra los errores provenientes de afuera de la Iglesia, sino contra los errores difundidos dentro de la Iglesia por parte de los partidarios de la tesis de la discontinuidad y de la ruptura, con su aplicación doctrinal, litúrgica y pastoral.

Tal Syllabus debería constar de dos partes: la parte que señala los errores y la parte positiva con las proposiciones aclaratorias, conclusivas y de precisiones doctrinales.

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Se ponen en evidencia dos reagrupamientos que sostienen la teoría de la ruptura. Uno de estos reagrupamientos intenta "protestantizar" doctrinal, litúrgica y pastoralmente la vida de la Iglesia. Del lado opuesto están esos grupos tradicionalistas que, en nombre de la tradición, rechazan el Concilio y se apartan de la sumisión al supremo magisterio viviente de la Iglesia, a la cabeza visible de la Iglesia - que es el vicario de Cristo en la tierra -, sometiéndose entre tanto sólo a la cabeza invisible de la Iglesia, esperando tiempos mejores. [...]

Sustancialmente, ha habido dos impedimentos para que la verdadera intención del Concilio y su magisterio pudieran llevar frutos abundantes y duraderos.

Uno se encontraba fuera de la Iglesia, en el violento proceso de revolución cultural y social de los años ´60, que como todo fuerte fenómeno social penetraba en el interior de la Iglesia, contagiando con su espíritu de ruptura amplios ámbitos de personas y de instituciones.

El otro impedimento se manifestaba en la falta de sabios y al mismo tiempo intrépidos pastores de la Iglesia que estuviesen dispuestos a defender la pureza y la integridad de la fe y de la vida litúrgica y pastoral, no dejándose influenciar ni por el elogio ni por el temor.

Ya el Concilio de Trento afirmaba en uno de sus últimos decretos sobre la reforma general de la Iglesia: “Últimamente el mismo santo Concilio, movido por los gravísimos males que padece la Iglesia, no puede no recordar que nada es más necesario a la Iglesia de Dios escoger pastores óptimos e idóneos; y esto con tanta mayor causa, cuanto nuestro Señor Jesucristo pedirá cuenta de la sangre de las ovejas que perecieren a causa del mal gobierno de los Pastores negligentes y olvidados de su deber” (Sesión XXIV, Decreto "Sobre la reforma", cap. 1).

Seguía diciendo el Concilio: “En cuanto a todos los que por algún motivo tienen por parte de la Sede Apostólica algún derecho para intervenir en la promoción de los futuros prelados o de alguna otra forma participan en ello, el santo Concilio los exhorta y los amonesta para que recuerden ante todo que ellos no pueden hacer nada que sea más útil para la gloria de Dios y la salvación de los pueblos que procurar se promuevan pastores buenos e idóneos para gobernar a la Iglesia”.

Hay entonces verdadera necesidad de un Syllabus conciliar con valor doctrinal, y además existe la necesidad del aumento del número de pastores santos, valientes y profundamente arraigados en la Tradición de la Iglesia, despojados de toda especie de mentalidad de ruptura tanto en el campo doctrinal como en el campo litúrgico.

Estos dos elementos constituyen la condición indispensable para que la confusión doctrinal, litúrgica y pastoral disminuya notablemente y la obra pastoral del Concilio Vaticano II pueda proporcionar muchos y duraderos frutos en el espíritu de la Tradición, que nos enlaza con el espíritu que ha reinado en todo tiempo, en todas partes y en todos los verdaderos hijos de la Iglesia Católica, la cual es la única y la verdadera Iglesia de Dios en la tierra.

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El texto íntegro de la conferencia del obispo Athanasius Schneider, pronunciada en Roma el 17 de diciembre de 2010:

> Il primato del culto di Dio come fondamento di ogni vera teologia pastorale. Proposte per una corretta lettura del Concilio Vaticano II

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La apelación del 11 de enero pasado a Benedicto XVI contra los peligros doctrinales de un nuevo encuentro interreligioso en Asís:

> "Santo Padre Benedetto XVI, siamo alcuni cattolici gratissimi dell'opera da Lei compiuta..."

terça-feira, 11 de janeiro de 2011

A fé dos Demónios

1. Poderá um Sacerdote ou um Bispo aconselhar em quem votar ou desaconselhar de votar. Segundo o Cardeal Pell, que recentemente se pronunciou sobre o assunto, qualquer um deles tem plena legitimidade de o fazer, em circunstancias habituais, pois qualquer um deles é cidadão, como todas as outras pessoas.

Em Maio do ano passado escrevi dois pequenos textos sobre as presidenciais[1] nos quais sugeria que não se votasse em Cavaco Silva, em virtude das “leis” injustas, iníquas e criminosas que promulgou, cooperando desse modo formalmente com o mal intrínseco das mesmas e tornando-se moralmente responsável por todos os males, previstos e imprevistos, cometidos ao abrigo dessa mesmas “leis” [2] . Neles propunha, uma vez que os restantes candidatos padecem do mesmo mal, uma abstenção generalizada, com um propósito determinado. O facto de não sugerir o voto branco não se deveu somente ao facto de ele não contar como voto expresso mas também à circunstância de me parecer praticamente impossível persuadir um número significativo de pessoas a saírem de casa para irem votar desse modo. Continuo pois a favorecer a desmobilização eleitoral, pela abstenção.[3]

2. Desde então, e agora com maior frequência, tem-se advogado a escolha de Cavaco Silva em nome do “mal menor”. Este mal dito menor é defendido fundamentalmente por dois motivos. O primeiro consiste em pensar que Cavaco Silva é uma garantia que muito poderá ajudar na resolução da grave crise económica. Mutatis mutandi essa seria uma razão para votar em Hitler em vez de Estaline, caso a eleição se disputasse entre os dois. Julgue o leitor se seria oportuno e lícito escolher o primeiro. Eu, por mim, recusar-me-ia, evidentemente, a votar em qualquer um deles. O segundo motivo prende-se com a Fé. Cavaco diz que acredita em Deus e que é um católico praticante. Alegre pelo contrário professa o ateísmo. Ora, segundo alguns sempre será melhor eleger alguém que acredita em Deus do que quem n’ Ele não crê. Esta afirmação, porém, parece esquecer duas coisas. A primeira prende-se com o que o Papa Bento XVI e toda a história da Igreja têm ensinado, a saber, que os piores inimigos da mesma se encontram dentro dela e não fora. E a segunda de que há uma fé que é pior do que a ausência dela. Trata-se da fé dos demónios, de que fala S. Tiago na sua Carta. O P. António Vieira, desenvolvendo este tema num dos seus sermões acusa, num tempo dado à perseguição dos judeus, os cristãos de serem piores do que esses nossos irmãos mais velhos, precisamente, por terem uma fé como a dos demónios[4]. Essa fé acredita em todas as verdades acerca de Deus, de Cristo, da Igreja, etc., mas não se conforma com a vontade de Deus, não é operante, ignorando não só a Caridade e a Justiça mas indo mesmo contra elas. É uma fé cadavérica, morta, aquela que não tem obras. E se as que tem são contra o Amor e a Justiça é escabrosa, macabra, pestilencial, diabólica. E essa fé, segundo um filósofo judeu, que era ateu e se converteu ao catolicismo, Fabrice Hadjadj, é pior do que o ateísmo[5].

Alguém tem dúvidas, do tipo de fé que é revelado pelas leis promulgadas pelo actual presidente da república? As árvores conhecem-se pelos seus frutos, diz o Senhor no Evangelho.

3. Dantes, alguns manuais de moral, nos dias de hoje superados pela Encíclica O Esplendor da Verdade, diziam que entre dois males inevitáveis devia-se escolher o menor. Ora ninguém é obrigado a votar em qualquer um dos candidatos pelo que não está perante uma escolha má inevitável. A verdade, porém, é que nunca se pode escolher o mal e mesmo que alguém pense em consciência que deve escolher entre algum deles terá de fazê-lo por um bem e nunca por um mal.

De qualquer modo, parece-me claro que nas últimas décadas os eleitores têm vindo a escolher de “mal menor” em “mal menor” caindo sucessivamente nos piores males.

4. Uma vitória à primeira volta e retumbante do actual presidente-candidato constituiria uma consagração triunfal de todas as infâmias e crueldades de que foi cúmplice, uma sagração das políticas anti-vida, anti-família, anti-liberdade de ensino e de educação, anti-liberdade religiosa, anti, enfim, princípios e valores inegociáveis. Seria uma validação e premiação do maquiavelismo, da mais baixa imoralidade do falso e pernicioso axioma de que os fins justificam os meios. Seria uma proclamação de que tudo é permitido e nada impedido. Se desta vez não é penalizado nem punido nas urnas quem tanto mal fez em tão breve tempo, será imparável e irreversível, por muitos anos, a degradação e estragação dos católicos na política.