Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Vatican Mandates Loyalty Oath For Caritas. No Joke

The Church, which screams it's all about freedom of religion and human rights, has a real problem with the concept when it applies to them.


If the LCWR wants a glimpse of what's in store for them all they need do is read what the Vatican has determined constitutes 'dialogue' with Caritas Internationalis.  The following is an excerpt from John Allen's post at this morning's NCR.

 Vatican imposes new controls on charity federation

ROME -- After moving last year to block the re-election of the first laywoman to head Caritas Internationalis, the Rome-based confederation of Catholic charitable agencies around the world, over an alleged “lack of coordination” with papal aides, the Vatican today imposed sweeping new rules that effectively tightens its control over Caritas' finances and global operations.

Among other points, the rules require the top officials of Caritas to make promises of loyalty before a Vatican official, including "Christian obedience" to church leaders.

Aside from its direct importance for Catholic charities, today’s Vatican move is also interesting for the recently decreed overhaul of the Leadership Conference for Women Religious in the United States, the country’s main umbrella group for superiors of women’s orders.

Like LCWR, Caritas Internationalis is a juridical person under church law recognized by the Vatican. The new rules are thus a further indication that the Vatican is in earnest about tightening its grip over groups that enjoy official status and, in some sense, represent the church.

The rules came in the form of a “General Decree,” released today in the name of Italian Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s Secretary of State.
Composed of nine articles, the rules specify that:
  • The Vatican office which oversees Caritas is the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, and it has the power to approve in advance “any text with doctrinal or moral content or orientations,” which may also be submitted to the review of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
  • Cor Unum will appoint an ecclesiastical assistant to Caritas, whose role will be to “promote its Catholic identity.”
  • Cor Unum must approve any cooperative agreements between Caritas and non-governmental organizations, except in cases of dire humanitarian emergencies. (In the past, Caritas had been criticized for entering into agreements with NGOs whose approach to issues such as population control differs from that of the Catholic church.)
  • Caritas officials are required to report any contact with foreign governments or diplomatic missions to the Secretariat of State. (Also in the past, Caritas has been criticized for conducting a sort of "parallel diplomacy" alongside the Vatican's official diplomatic apparatus.)
  • Cor Unum, in consultation with the Secretariat of State, must approve various sectors of Caritas’ financial operations, such as wages, contracts and the review of budgets.
  • Top officials of Caritas Internationalis must pronounce loyalty oaths before the president of Cor Unum, who is currently Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea. The officials are required to vow “always to conserve communion with the Catholic church, both in word and in mode of acting,” to preserve and transmit “faithfully the deposit of faith, rejecting any doctrine contrary to it,” and to “observe Christian obedience to what the Sacred Pastors declare as authentic doctors and teachers of the faith, or stabilize as leaders of the church.”
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What's next arm bands with the Vatican coat of arms?  A special salute for our papal ruler?  If this wasn't so sad, I'd think it was some sort of Monte Python parody.  

Somebody in the Vatican is really afraid of something or someones.  Caritas Internationalis was effective precisely because it had autonomy to deal with situations on the ground in ways which would actually help and the freedom to make cooperative agreements with other NGO's as needed.  I can't wait for the Vatican to define 'humanitarian emergency'.  Undoubtedly it will involve some notion that no humanitarian emergency ever justifies Caritas moving on it's own with out their supervision.  My God a condom might slip through under the smokescreen of an 'humanitarian emergency'.

It also won't surprise me in the least if Caritas loses access to politically sensitive areas because it most certainly won't be seen as a-political any longer.  It will be seen as a papal lackey, an agent of papal politics and that would be the truth.

If the Vatican is hell bent on tainting everything good about Catholicism with it's own heavy handed fascist stench, they are doing a very thorough job of it.  I hope Caritas leadership votes to separate themselves from any Vatican association.  It's the only way they can keep their integrity because the instant they raise their hands and take that oath, they have none when it comes to their mission.  They will have given up all their autonomy.

This is most certainly the kind of 'reform' the LCWR can look forward too in their future.  The first thing they will now have to do is to change their vows to their congregational superiors and take up a new one of obedience to the Pope and his representatives. I wonder how many of them will take such an oath.

This is no longer a Church in which primacy of conscience has any meaning what so ever except to maybe find the nearest exit door.  It's getting harder to stay and feel like one has any kind of integrity at all.  But I guess that's not surprising since personal integrity takes such a very back seat to obedience and loyalty when it comes to the culture of the Vatican.

For all it's bluster about the loyalty oath of the Legion of Christ, the concept sure does seem the be a hit with Pope Benedict.  Wonder why that is.  And finally, if one reads the mandated oath, one will see that fidelity to Jesus Christ or fidelity to the Gospels, is conspicuously absent, but fidelity to our 'Sacred Pastors" is the definition of Christian obedience.  Seriously, it is truly getting harder and harder to even find the name Jesus without having to look behind all the clerical skirts.  Enough already.

29 comments:

  1. Thanks for posting this, Colleen. As in the cutbacks to the CCHD in the U.S., I think the prelates are just down-sizing all charities not "in the service of the Church" i.e. building new seminaries, supporting diocesan programs, "evalization," etc. Not only are they tired of maintaining the pretext that they care about the sick and poor, but they don't have to in order to hang on to their current supporters and donors. (Betty Clermont and not anonymous)

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  2. Ugghhhh....
    I told my dear catholic friend to day that I am done (going to catholic Mass). We're attending an Episcopalian church. I'd be thrilled to come back if the hierarchical structure, and, thus, culture, were altered.

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    1. I don't know sometimes whether to find an independent Catholic church or start checking out the Episcopal or Orthodox churches. Denver has a Western Rite Orthodox congregation but I don't know much about them. Knowing myself , I'll end up staying where I'm at as much as it's frustrating at times.

      John Fremont

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    2. John, The Denver area has two Independent Catholic Churches as well as the Orthodox and Episcopal options. Google Ecumenical Catholic Church. dennis

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    3. Thanks Dennis

      John F

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  3. Wow, it just seems to get curiouser and curiouser! I just finished a blog entry that uses a lot of Monty Python and Mel Brooks parodies. I really have to laugh to keep from crying. It has taken a long time but the promise of Vatican II may be gone. so Sad

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  4. Hey, there's money involved. The Vaticanes need to have their hands in pot and purse ALWAYS. And we all know how good they are at managing the sheeple's money.

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    1. Yes, there is money involved. That is their entire point. Isn't it always about money when it comes to thieves, bullies and corporate CEO's??? That is their central focus. They are certainly not centered in Christ, that's for sure. It's all about the money.

      Butterfly

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  5. The Vatican is on such a power trip and are eager for an Inquisition. They obviously do not believe in freedom of conscience. The oath is for the fuerer fascist Herr Ratzinger, the little nazi sympathizer on a self-glorification trip. More of the same old pompous stuff that brought about two world wars. Might as well wear a nazi arm band with Rats face on it. Jesus does not exist for Herr Pope. More sad news from the Ratican.

    Butterfly

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  6. I would think the good sisters will put up a BIG fuss and some orders may go out on their own, esp. those with the financial ability to do so. And, I am sure the Vatican anticipates this. There will be court fights over the property and wealth of these orders. Maybe that is what this really about. Provoke a crisis and then gather up the spoils. Just a thought. I am retired and worked with people all my life so I have learned that following the money often leads to discerning true motivations.

    Another thought: I have known many effective and compassionate sisters who would fall on both sides of this issue of a loyalty oath. Maybe some orders would split up over this, or, loss a serious number of sisters.

    But ii boils down to loving Jesus in those in need and being Jesus to them. If u do this, what is the purpose of a loyalty oath?

    Searcher

    PS fYI I am an ex-Roman church member and a current Episcopalian.

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  7. And Robert Mickens is reporting at "The Tablet" that the unholy trinity of the Knights of Columbus (with their Republican-led Supreme Knight), Lori, and Law is right in the thick of all of this. With oodles of $$$$$ backing them.

    Sick.

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    1. I don't have a Tablet subscription and couldn't read the whole thing, but America, in an article by Fr. Jim Martin has an excerpt. Lori, Law, and Karl Anderson. Sighhhh. Unholy Trinity is right. It angers me a great deal that Law has any say in anything given his utterly criminal record in Boston, but it angers me even more that the Bernie boys keep getting more and more influence in the global church. It seems like if one was a protege of Law or Rigali one has the inside track to advancement. Which is interesting given the amount of clerical abuse in their Archdioceses.

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    2. If a sister takes the loyalty oath, then, the hierachy has the piece of paper that is needed to discipline her and her order. Maybe kick her out of the order, kick the order out of the church.......and who will get the property and financial assets of the order? Who will get the hospitals that the sisters still own? I could spinning fantasy tales as my imagination can run a bit wild at times....but provoking a crisis and then using it to gather up the choice pieces is a proven right-wing practice. Read Naomi Klein's Future Shock about how the Chicago school of Economics under Friedman operated in Chile and in New Orleans. I am beginning to think that this big move to "Orthodoxy" is no more than a front to consolidate power and MONEY in the hands of a few.

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    3. Correct Future Schock" to "Shock Doctrine"
      Searcher

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    4. I have two very ill lapsed Catholic/Tea Party neighbors (mother and son) who are barely scaping by. The widowed mother survived breast cancer and now has a pacemaker. She's living on an airline pension. Her very diabetic son is too old for her health insurance, but also too sick to work and buy his own insurance. I told him the bishops would rather Americans like them suffer to death without medical insurance than for any woman to be in the same room with contraceptives.
      --Heil Mary

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    5. And that is so true it makes me sick.

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  8. It is now time for all who consider that they are following in The Way of Christ to take the action that Catholic Health Care west did. It is time for all who will follow Christ to continue to be Catholic but to refuse to recognize the Pope. By all that means all the Universities that wish to be seen as Universities looking for truth, all heath care organizations that must be free of the Olmsteads of this world. It is time for those who have worked so hard for Caritas to build a parallel institution and leave. It is time for all who would follow Christ to leave Rome less they be caught in the implosion. dennis

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    1. It sure feels that way Dennis. This latest thing in Germany where Benedict has personally stepped in and mandated the change in the Eucharistic Prayer to 'for many' instead of 'for all' is particularly irritating to me. Who is Benedict to determine the extent of salvation offered by Jesus? To me this is blasphemy intended to placate the SSPX and their objections to Nostrae Aetate. I am firmly convinced at this particular time, a person or group can not be too far to the right or too reactionary.

      I was given an indication about ten years ago that as it got closer to 2012 I would not believe how ugly things would get or how far the old futile energy would go to protect itself and it's power. That was prophecy in the sense I can't believe how ugly and to what lengths the old energy is going to protect itself and it's power.

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    2. In the end they lose. Real change is coming.

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    3. Colleen,

      After the first Mass with the new English "translation" I told my parish priest I objected to the wording. I said:
      1. It is not true to the original when it fails to address "for us men and our salvation". Did he not see that more than 2/3 of those present were women? Were they not included?
      2. "for many" instead of "for all" is not theologically correct.

      I feel sorry for the average parish priest. Do you have a link for that Eucharistic Prayer change coming from Benedict? I'd love to read it. Thanks.
      p2p

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    4. p2p, try this link

      www.praytellblog.com/index.php/2012/04/24/pope-to-german-bishops-on-for-you-and-for-many/

      Good website, good discussion.

      Matt Connolly

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    5. @mjc,

      Thank you Matt. Yes a single word has significance, "for the many" does not exclude the way "the many" does.

      Hard to believe that native speakers of English were responsible for the final result.

      One of the comments at "Pray Tell Blog" mentions the exclusion of women. The use of "for us" or "for humanity" would be a much better translation instead of "for us men" which has a completely different meaning in the context of modern English.

      The use of "under my roof" is literally terrible and archaic. Use of the modern Spanish "enter my home" much better both at conveying the original meaning and for the manner in which it is spoken. Find one English reference to the word "roof" being used to mean "soul" in present or historical literature.

      p2p

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    6. I recall from Church history that someone suggested to Pius IX changes to the Roman Canon to which he replied " I can't , I'm only the Pope." The Pope was bound to Scriptures and Tradition including the the teachings of Church councils. From an article I read a few years ago

      "... Alfons Cardinal Stickler, for one, has his doubts. Stickler, the retired prefect of the Vatican library and archives, was a peritus (expert) on Vatican II's liturgy commission. "I have never cast in doubt the dogmatic or juridical validity of the Novus Ordo Missæ," Stickler recorded in his memoir. But "in the case of the juridical question serious doubts have come to me in view of my intensive work with the medieval canonists. They are of the unanimous opinion that the popes may change anything with the exception of what the Holy Scriptures prescribe or what concerns previously enacted doctrinal decisions of the highest level, and the status ecclesiæ."

      Although the concept of the status ecclesiæ defies perfectly clear definition, it refers to aspects of the Church's life "over which even the pope has no right of disposal." According to Cardinal Stickler, there is good reason to believe that the liturgy itself "should belong to the status ecclesiæ."

      John Fremont

      Msgr. Klaus Gamber likewise doubted the pope had any such power..."

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    7. "...in the case of the juridical question serious doubts have come to me in view of my intensive work with the medieval canonists. They are of the unanimous opinion that the popes may change anything with the exception of what the Holy Scriptures prescribe..."

      ## The Pope's dispensing power extends to being able to dispense from what Scripture commands. A famous example was when Alexander VI (yes, him !) settled the disputed question of whether a Pope could allow a man to marry the widow of his deceased brother, by allowing exactly that, in 1502. Deuteronomy commanded the practice - Leviticus forbade it. The Leviticus text was the linch-pin of Henry VIII's annullment case a quarter-centurt later.

      *Presumably* the canonists in question wrote before 1502. Even if so, it still difficult to see how the Cardinal's point is historically sound. Even if he meant "mediaeval canonists writing on the Liturgy"; for if the Popes & Councils can dispense from the commands of Scripture (which is Divinely-inspired), why can they not alter the Roman Canon (which is not Divinely inspired) ? If OTOH canonists believed the RC was Divinely-inspired (as the Apostles' Creed was thought to be), this would be very hard to sustain. It may have helped that the Church's doctrine regarding Biblical inspiration was still rather vague.

      STM the Cardinal is arguing in recent times on the basis of ideas that would now be regarded as inaccurate or unorthodox, even though they were acceptable doctrinally in the Mediaeval period.

      Besides, Scripture prescribes things Popes & Councils have forbidden, such as circumcision. Quite apart from the fact that the rise of Christianity would have been impossible, if it had not ignored a good deal of what the OT commands as the law of God. The people who were scrupulous about obeying Scripture & its commands, were the *opponents* of Jesus.

      Besides, John XXIII changed the Roman Canon, by introducing the name of St. Joseph.

      The Roman Canon is not untouchable. Not unless John XXIII was doing wrong - in which case, he should have been resisted.

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  9. Correction:

    "for the many" is better than "for many" which implies, in English, exclusion. It is also truer to the rest of the Gospel.

    p2p

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  10. Aramaic is behind the Greek of the NT text of the Words of Institution, & the Latin is a translation of the Greek words, the English being a translation of the Latin. To be translated are the Hebrew ideas of the OT, & the vocabulary & grammar of Aramaic, Greek, & Latin, & the idioms propeer to each language. And all for a text that is to be used continually for public worship in English.

    This means there is ample room for confusion as to what counts as "the original text". "Original" from what POV ? Several answers are possible.

    In Aramaic, "many" does not imply "not all", as it does in English. "the many" is verbally faithful to the Greek, & is good English, but evades the problem rather than solving it.

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    1. Rat-biter,
      Thanks for the clarification. What's your suggestion regarding the "best" translation of the phrase?

      p2p

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    2. I don't what's best, for the reasons mentioned. There are further complications :) - as a phrase that appears in the NT, it should in IMO be looked in the context of the passages, and the books, and the theology of them, in which it occcurs. It's as much a matter for NT scholars as for scholars of the NT Eucharist.

      I would ask whether, in the Pauline use of the phrase, we are to see some of St. Paul's universalism. This is another problem - the relation of two ideas within Judaism, within young Christianity: the ideas being, separation by God of God's People to God, & the universal call to all mankind to become part of God's People.

      That is just St. Paul in 1 Corinthians, of course. Each gospel has its theology. And there is the question of what Jesus meant by the saying, & of what the first-century churches did. Because the Gospel begin as a Good News preached by Jesus - & becomes a Good News in which He is that Good News. What moment is to be "privileged" as the "original" one, that is standard for what counts as genuine Christian understanding of the Eucharist ? Lots of fun here for the dogmatic theologians.

      The two themes are already present in the Person of Jesus: the Church has to live them in the world. The Eucharist is a sign & means of the present fulfilment of this universal call, & of its accomplishment.

      So... I would be inclined to go for a translation as "for all", while keeping the Latin as "pro multis".

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