For years now we’ve heard the title “cafeteria Catholics”
disgustedly hurled by the hierarchy as an epithet at thinking people of faith
who discern the Spirit’s movement in the “signs of the times.” It seems the
Vatican “administrators” might be guilty of a similar “picking and choosing” of
tenets of belief regarding dialogue.
Of course, some
may blatantly deny the major of Kevin Aschenbrenner’s NCR article about the
Vatican and LCWR
by
questioning whether Vatican policy really ever seeks dialogue at all with
anyone who disagrees with its point of view.
That being
said, the question arises about the “cafeteria cardinals” picking and choosing
from among the documents of “Tradition” they tell Catholics to reverence in
balance with Scripture. In seeking dialogue, the administrators have chosen to consider
dialogue as a “pathway for the LCWR to ‘remedy serious doctrinal concerns.’” ignoring
the content of Paul VI’s timely first encyclical Ecclesiam Suam, a document whose 50th anniversary we
commemorate next year?
At the time
of that writing, Paul VI—cognizant of the final deliberation of Vatican
II—wanted to clarify some principles helpful in the process of implementation
of the council. He chooses to make the third section of the encyclical an
exposition of the principles of dialogue.
And before a
hew and cry rises within the blogosphere, yes, JS knows this document proceeds
from the same Paul VI who chose to ignore the 1966 majority report of the Pontifical
Commission on Birth Control set up by John XXIII in 1963, writing in Humanae Vitae
that the sexual act must "retain its intrinsic
relationship to the procreation of human life" [§11], and the "direct
interruption of the generative process already begun" [§14] is unlawful.
And while JS
recognize it can be accused of being a “cafeteria blog” for picking and
choosing from among this pope’s documents, please do not judge with disgust
this effort to add some light to the Vatican-LCWR mess.
Paul VI’s
point is to delineate these principles as guidelines for dialogue sought with
other faith communities. But his description might well serve as principles for
any dialogue. Have the administrators forgotten them? Or are they, in their
seeking “dialogue” with the LCWR being Cafeteria Cardinals forgetting this
encyclical? Or are they ignoring that these principles of dialogue from Paul VI
of happy memory exist simply because they really want Vatican II forgotten?
The
paragraphs on dialogue are numbered:
§§ 71 - 80 The Characteristics of the Dialogue of
Salvation
§§ 81 - 82 Using the Dialogue of Salvation as a
Model for the “New Dialogue”
He concludes
summarizing the qualities of a dialogical foresight our “cafeteria church
administrators” are ignoring in approaching the work of the religious
communities represented by LCWR:
Would this not be the dialogue Jesus
seeks with us and between us all?
