WE ARE WORKING FOR YOU …

AGAINST THE SYNOD OF MEDIA:

REALLY PASTORAL GUIDELINES

ON THE BASIS OF EVALUATION

AUTHENTICALLY Theological

You have to remind everyone of the truth, that is the true theological sense of what is happening in the Church: the Synod of Bishops, This like the others that preceded and will follow, is not a political meeting or a scientific conference; is a tool that serves the Roman Pontiff, Bishop of Rome and Pastor of the whole Church, to regularly consult the bishops from all over the world and process, from time to time, pastoral documents relating to the Universal Church. The two synods that are taking place: an extraordinary, held this year, and other ordinary, to be held in 2015, still have not submitted any draft of the final document to the Pope, which is in any case the decision on how to use the proposals of the bishops. In short, there is still no act of the Magisterium on which to build theories about alleged reforms or revolutions taking place in the Church.

 

The different and not always prudent interventions of the Synod Fathers first, during and after the holding of the Extraordinary Synod on the Family, together with the comments often sensationalized theologians and journalists, had the effect of a dramatic image presented to the public the Catholic Church. The world episcopate would be deeply divided; Fifty years since Vatican II would have exacerbated tensions between the two great ideological parties, progressives and conservatives, who are fighting front, with the prevalence of the party of reform that would be to get, with the consent of the Pope himself, the renunciation of teaching to traditional teaching on sexuality and the sacraments, Marriage and the Eucharist in particular.

This image of the Catholic Church today is unacceptable: not only because it has baffled and bewildered the faithful - and this displeases those who care about the real interests of the pastoral - but also because it is false. In fact, it was built on the basis of sociological surveys (sociology of religion) quite superficial and partial, then expressed in a language that ignores the properly theological categories and uses only the typical categories of political controversy, reducing the normal dialectic of views on pastoral decisions to be made at this historic moment in a scandalous struggle between opposing ideologies that seek hegemony of the temporal power and the understanding of the events relating to the harmonious development of the dogma.

You have to remind everyone of the truth, or the true theological sense of what is happening in the Church: the Synod of Bishops, This like the others that preceded and will follow, is not a political meeting or a scientific conference; is a tool that serves the Roman Pontiff, Bishop of Rome and Pastor of the whole Church, to regularly consult the bishops from all over the world and process, from time to time, pastoral documents relating to the Universal Church. The two synods that are taking place: an extraordinary, held this year, and other ordinary, to be held in 2015, still have not submitted any draft of the final document to the Pope, which is in any case the decision on how to use the proposals of the bishops. In short, there is still no act of the Magisterium on which to build theories about alleged reforms or revolutions taking place in the Church.

Those who come to the public with a sense of authentic Catholic pastoral responsibility, like us the Island of Patmos, always wants to bring the discussion to the meaning and the theological sense of the events that characterize the life of the Church. But true theology has as its sole reference point the dogma: not only to interpret it with assumptions of various kinds - historiographical, logical, metaphysical - but first of all to point out what is rationally and effectively where the dogma - the truth to believe by all regardless of culture and pastoral guidelines - which at any time is stated formally by the ecclesiastical magisterium. Also this detection function of the content and limits of dogma is a job that requires a proper scientific level. When there is placed at this level, statements of theologians and even individual bishops about the alleged changes in the doctrine of the faith are devoid of seriousness and are easily infected by ideologies of various kinds, with serious consequences for the maintenance and the increase of faith in the Christian people.

Just because aware of the seriousness of this problem ecclesial I keen to be part of father Ariel S. Levi Gualdo to give life to the Island of Patmos, bringing "dowry" the ideas and accomplishments of my Union Fides et Ratio for scientific defense of Catholic truth. The Union operates in fact to promote a better understanding of the Catholic faith and a more faithful adherence to the Magisterium of the Church, that faith is infallible interpreter at all times and in every historical juncture pastoral. The adjective "apostolic" intends then qualify the Union as work done by Catholics who feel the responsibility - of all baptized Christians - to participate, each according to his skills and his personal vocation, one mission of the Church, that Christ wanted "a, santa, catholic and apostolic ". By the will of Christ, indeed, it is up to the bishops - awarded the charism of apostolic succession, the unity of the episcopal college chaired by the Pope - the duty of guarding, transmit, interpret and announce infallibly the revelation of Christ, the Son of God the Father has sent into the world because "all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth"; Priests have the task of working in the field of the Lord as "generous coadjutor of the episcopal» (cf Conc. cum. Vatican II, Decree Priesthood, 2, 7; dogmatic constitution The light, 28; decree Christ the Lord, 15; John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Herdsmen, 47); at last, to all the faithful, including the laity, whose specific ecclesial role is to "sanctify temporal structures from within ' (cf. Dogmatic Constitution The light, 31; Pastoral Constitution The joy and hope, 53; decree The Laitym, 31), it is the testimony of the faith of the Church and its propagation in all spheres of human society, using an adequate theological education, coupled with their professional competence.

As for the specific purpose apostolic Union, which works for the defense of scientific truth Catholic, the term "Catholic truth" makes it clear that the faith of the Church: Faith Church, who believed, is for every believer the truth in an absolute sense, as "word of God", supernatural revelation, communication to us men of the mysteries of salvation by Chi "neither deceives nor can deceive others", being the One who created us out of love, then, after the sin of our first parents, in his mercy he redeemed us with life, death and resurrection of the Son. The word "catholic" , in particular, want to emphasize two important aspects: the first is that the Union has the sole purpose of serving the scientific truth revealed by God in Jesus Christ and proposed by the Catholic Church with the charism of infallibility; the second is that the apostolate promoted by the assumption that the mission of the Church is directed to the whole world (katà holon), because the revealed truth is for all men and is recognizable as such by every man that is properly announced, regardless of their personal circumstances of age, culture and experiences: revealed truth transcends fact particularism and does not change with the changing historical contingencies.

Finally I clarify what I mean by "scientific defense". No one can ignore that the Catholic faith is under attack today: not only by the traditional ideological forces that external dispute his claim to be the complete and final revelation of the truth that saves - I allude to Judaism, paganism as the state religion in the Roman Empire, Hellenistic-Christian philosophy of Celsus, all’Islam, the illuministico deism, to Freemasonry, atheistic communism, scientism neopositivistic, to vitalistic irrationalism, the critical rationalism -, but also by the new ideological forces that act inside, interpreting the Christian faith with incorrect or inadequate conceptual schemes which eventually cancel it just like truth; and here I am referring to theological modernism and the various forms of dogmatic relativism.

Discuss the false reasons of one or the other ― a discussion that needs to be calm and serene, devoid of ideological passion but not without sincere and ardent love for the revealed truth - is a right and even more a duty for the Christian who has philosophical competence, as I feel I have. The defense (apology) the Christian faith is also a practice born with Christianity itself; and the early apologists that the history of Christianity has among the "fathers of the Church", both East to West, were philosophers (think of Justin Martyr), who felt obliged, by virtue of their firm belief rational that Christianity was the "ultimate truth", to refute the false reasons given by those who then pretended to deny that Christian doctrine was the divine revelation of the mysteries of our salvation. Today, as perhaps never in the past, is indispensable task of Christian philosophers deny - with rational arguments, which ultimately must be brought back to the logic aletica - false reasons always obsessively re-proposed by those who deny the divine origin of the Christian doctrine or even claims to show that "doctrine" is not properly (even if they know the Scripture, which states that Christ said: "My teaching is not mine, but his that sent me " [cf. Jn 7, 16]).

Also speak of a "scientific defense" in the sense of a defense based on rational arguments rigorous, arguments that ultimately - as I said before - are brought back to the logic aletica (which is the philosophical logic as able to ascertain the conditions of possibility of truth in every situation cognitive), that, being the field of philosophy of my specific expertise, gives me reason to hope to be able to contribute to the apostolic goals I mentioned. And you do not think it is arbitrary to refer to philosophy when it comes to the "science"; indeed, in the language of classical epistemological, and also in the modern one I had adopted, the noun "science" is not to be understood in a reductive way, as referring only to the physical-mathematical theories or biological (this is the epistemological error of scientism), but as a synonym of knowledge by inference in general, including (and at the top) metaphysics and logic. In fact, my fundamental text on these topics (Philosophy of common sense) subtitled logic of science and faith. We work for then then promotes study and research historical-critical and philosophical-theological useful to the pursuit of some concrete goals:

disclosure in all areas of society with the proper interpretation of revealed truth, which is located in the documents of Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, in the light of the ecclesiastical magisterium, necessarily considered in its logical continuity (from the doctrine of the Apostles to the teachings of the Council and papal latest, including possible post-synodal apostolic exhortation of Pope Francis in 2015).

The promotion of a greater unity of the Catholic faith in common, providing all the right criteria for distinguishing, in any historical context, doctrine authoritatively proposed by the Church as a divine revelation - the doctrine to which every Catholic must always pay a consent sincere and convinced - by the different hypotheses of interpretation of the dogma that may be proposed by the theological schools or by individual theologians, assumption that nothing can be added and nothing should take away the only truth that saves;

The creation of a new cultural climate, in the Church, that can ensure - once ensured that solid foundation of unity in faith above - the effective exercise of freedom of opinion doctrinal and pastoral choices, in the awareness that pluralism, both the theological and pastoral, is not only legitimate but also necessary for the purposes of 'understanding faith, ie as a requirement of the faith itself, which never ceases to seek new and more effective ways to penetrate deeply into the truth revealed («faith seeking understanding»), also in view of an ever more fruitful application of it to the different circumstances of personal and social structures (inculturation of the faith).

As a result, a sort of "demystification" of theology professional in order to play down the differences in doctrinal guidance between different schools and different players in the public debate, making aware the faithful who have no sense mutual accusations of infidelity to the Spirit and the mutual suspicion of heterodoxy, undoubtedly because God wants all of us, in the Church, only fight in the name of truth, the only truth of the Catholic faith, which comes before any choice of field in the cultural and theological. Indeed, only what is dogmatically defined by the Church can be identified with what "always, everywhere and by everyone»Was believed (Tradition) and especially with what today and in the future can be believed "always, everywhere and by everyone"Precisely because it is the truth revealed by God in Christ: truth at its core notional is and must remain accessible to all (understandable solely on the basis of "common sense") and for this transcends the endless variety of legitimate interpretations, much of the traditionalists as progressives.

I am aware that the pursuit of these objectives requires a very difficult balance: between the duty of obedience to the pastoral guidelines that the legitimate Pastors provide to the whole body of the Church and correspondence to the vocation of each person in the Church; between loyalty to the only revealed truth and the need to seek new ways for evangelization; between the respectful acceptance of the different charisms and different pastoral options of the other faithful and passion for their own choices, accrued on the basis of his reading of the "signs of the times" and on the basis of their life experience. But I am convinced that this balance is assured precisely by the rules suggested by the logic of rationality integral aletica and who for years have committed to illustrate the plan, precisely, scientific rigor in data collection and argumentation. Together with his father John and Arie S Cavalcoli. Levi Gualdo are sure to be able to effectively continue on this road, at the service of the ecclesial community.

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