ANTONIO SOCCI, THE “MOTU PROPRIO ” AND THE PROBLEM OF FAITH

 

The question of faith is explicitly mentioned in the document of the Supreme Pontiff because in the present situation characterized by secularism and de-Christianization from a galloping more foals Palio di Siena, the religious element of ignorance on the increase is so great and this, together with the surface lightly, that today we are compelled to clarify what for centuries was obvious even among people unlearned. And today more than ever is really quite high the risk of couples who marry in church without true faith in Sacramento, because we do not believe or pretend to believe because, or because they conceive evil or by simulation or inadvertent error.

 

 

 

 

dear Antonio.

Many readers have pointed me your article [see WHO], and in truth I must tell you that if you do not commentassi would risk to appear partial. The human affection and esteem I have unchanged against you together with my sympathy can not in fact take the use of two weights and two measures, because I would be pastorally and intellectually right, if not dishonest worse.

You are a sincere and devoted Catholic, as it is Prof. Roberto de Mattei you mention in your article and of which I have recently written [see WHO]. An undoubted sincerity of purpose - your like that of de Mattei - who does not exempt from error analysis and evaluation, as they are not free from error I, I can commit even more serious and produce as a result of damage to a lot more than I can compierne any secular. Even the saints were not exempt from errors, sometimes even from heresies, from which then you are obviously amended.

About the motu proprio of the Supreme Pontiff Francis [see WHO] you write that: "The dynamite is mainly Article 14 the "rules of procedure" where he evokes the "lack of faith" of those being married as a possible cause of simulation or error in the consensus and then the nullity of marriage '.

I would like to assure you that this is not a "dynamite". Indeed, the point of your article through which it is clear that you can not grasp the scale of the problem in itself and by itself, It is based on the reference you make to the Procedural Rules Motu Proprio [Art. 14 § 1]. My fear is that you have not grasped the complexity of the reasons that are upstream and which led the Pope to indicate how elements for discussion the cause of nullity of marriage, by means of the shorter process, according to the canons 1683-1687, also "the lack of faith that can generate the simulation of consent or the error that determines the will».

Unfortunately mistakes in thinking that in the past the Church "excludes" the lack of faith by invalidity. An idea like this is really your absurd on formal and substantive grounds. And here I would like to point out incidentally that I made use of the term "absurd" in the strict sense according to the correct etymology and not according to the use for which this lemma is used in everyday language. Per absurd It means it, in philosophical language and the philosophy of law, an element or a thought that is contrary to logic or reason.

If the Church did not speak essential element of faith, it was because it was the first condition of the minimum required for the validity of the Sacrament. He did not speak simply because, marriage being a sacrament, It supposed, or it is still assumed that the engaged have the same faith in Sacramento. Or in other words: who never would have crossed my mind, yesterday, of asking a candidate for priestly ordination next if you truly believe in the Eucharistic Sacrifice Mystery? Unfortunately, as a presbyter, I can witnessing to today, before ordering priests certain subjects that should not be made to approach the altar even as altar boys, the bishops should ascertain if they know and especially if you truly believe the fundamental truths contained in the dogmas of the Catholic faith, What this requires that upstream the fact that, to be trained in the correct Catholic doctrine are first of all the bishops [see my article on the Secretary General of the CEI, WHO].

I'll try to clarify everything with another example: in the beautiful Tuscan countryside where last year you you invited me to lunch and my co-worker - and where I hope to come back soon to visit you - today there are old farmhouses that cost much more than a house located in historical city centers. In these houses they lived until less than a century ago the farmers many of whom knew barely read and write. With this example I would like to offer you a concrete idea of ​​radical social transformation and environmental. but yet, those farmers, including especially the illiterate, they knew very well what marriage was. Today, many of those who bought the houses of the old farmers by paying over the nineties up to ten million old lire per square meter, if anything professionals with the parcels to six zeros, or wealthy entrepreneurs, or rich foreigners … What is marriage a high percentage do not know precisely. It would be enough to go that genderista Gianna Nannini, born into a wealthy family of Siena impreditori, popstar famous all over the world, degree in literature and so on, asking her to explain what marriage; if anything, since we, to explain well what the family, or the relationship between parents and children, or whether it is humane and just a creature is deprived of a father and a mother “date” to be raised among circles of homosexuals and lesbians sour.

I hope I've made clear why the question of faith is explicitly mentioned in the document of the Supreme Pontiff: because in the present situation characterized by secularism and de-Christianization from a galloping more of the foals of the Siena Palio, the religious element of ignorance on the increase is so great and this, together with the surface lightly, that today we are compelled to clarify what for centuries was obvious even among people unlearned. And today more than ever is really quite high the risk of couples who marry in church without true faith in Sacramento, because we do not believe or pretend to believe because, or because they conceive evil or by simulation or inadvertent error.

This is the reason why in my homilies often I insist on some fundamental elements of the faith, speaking of the mystery of God's Word made flesh, clarifying the nature hypostatic Christ true God and true man. Speaking of the Eucharist and clarifying that it is the mystery of the real presence of Christ under the appearances of bread and wine; then explain that the Eucharist is not an allegory, a metaphor, a symbol of the spiritual presence of Christ. Similarly I explain that the Holy Mass is the living and holy sacrifice of the cross that is renewed in a bloodless way, and invite you to pay first of all listen to the words of the celebrant when the ruling canon the word "sacrifice", or when the faithful themselves respond to the priest also making reference: "May the Lord accept this sacrifice from your hands, to the praise and glory of His name and of all His Holy Church ". I explain that the Holy Mass, namely the Eucharistic Sacrifice, is not a dance or drumming, It is not a canteen where joyful friends make dinner together; that the altar is the table of the deejay around which anyone who knows three chords can torture the whole assembly with inappropriate and annoying schitarrate. I recently used the pastoral life experience during a sermon telling of when replacing a pastor in a parish church, just arrived, I was approached by two catechists in the mood to give me directions on how to celebrate, unaware that tells me how to celebrate the Church through the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, not those pie gives I renamed inappropriate pretesse born of the worst confusion of roles produced by the worst of the post-conciliar, which has nothing to do with the Second Vatican Council. The two tell me: "You do not know our parish, so we wanted to inform you that we at the center of the liturgy we put young people '. The fulmino with a fiery look and answer: "I'm sorry for you, and above all I regret your young, because I put Christ at the center of the liturgy, and young people need to be adoring and kneeling before Him, because the center is His, and it is a total and totalizing center, because Christ is the beginning, the center and the ultimate goal of our entire humanism " [CF. Declaration Lord Jesus, see WHO, Instruction Sacramentum, WHO].

Between you and me, there are only a few years apart: you were born in 1959 and I in 1963. So I ask you: when between 1967 and the 1968 you made the catechism to prepare for First Communion, at the end of the receipt preparation, you had the conscious awareness of what you were going to receive? Of course you had, I'd like that in May 1972 I received my First Communion kneeling at the railing on the surface covered with white linen and with the altar boy who was holding me the plate under the chin.

I mentioned three accidental elements or so-called “damn external” - The genuflessione, the balustrade covered with linen, the plate - that in their accidental contingent recall elements of sacredness and reverence for the sacred mystery today unfortunately lost with all that is sad and painful it follows, starting from the way in which many faithful receive no sacred respect and deep reverence the Body of Christ; from sloppy way in which many priests distribute the Eucharist, often demandandone distribution - without any objective necessity - to lay more sloppy even some priests.

You and I, how we received the first confession? Kneeling before the confessional grille, inside which there was the priest wearing a cassock, the white surplice and purple stole,. Or maybe it would have been unthinkable that one of the many priests today ye ye, with trousers jeans and scollacciata shirt with short sleeves administer confessions to young women sitting in a chair inside the parish office with the door closed, if anything, even answering the phone during the sacramental action? And with that I hardly explain that I am not a misogynist, but a priest of Christ which never enter our minds of sitting on an office chair to face a penitent intention to confess their sins to have the grace, the mercy and forgiveness of God; I would never do with anyone, especially with a woman, which it is due by the priest a delicacy and respect very special.

Now you understand why for which we must unfortunately also explain the obvious, Once discharged, and took tragic act that what for centuries has been obvious, Today, unfortunately, no longer is? And you not only have to explain the obvious to the lay, but also to many priests malformed placed by wickedness of our bishops in places often more delicate. You understand, Dear friend, that today, under the indifferent eyes of our bishops, to priests placed in the larger parishes or to strut in the offices of the curia, we see doing things that until a few decades ago would have never crossed your mind to even more ignorant of the country cared, of those who, more than theology, They had studied the need catechism with a stick, and to whom we owe eternal gratitude today if we still have a Faithful People, from John Vianney patron saint of us priests, that with many difficulties read well or not the Latin of the Missal of St. Pius V?

I entrust your daughter Catherine again the Blessed Virgin Mary at the end of the day when the universal Church celebrated the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, honored more than ever for your friendship.