11 Renaming the Trinity 33 Homilies on the Liturgy of the Sundays and Feasts 80 a New Spring for Catholic Apologetics?

Editor Kenneth Baker, S.J. Publisher Catholic Polls, Inc. Contributing editor Msgr. Wm. B. Smith Assistant editor Mary M. Bolan JUNE 1995 General manager Bernard Belson Circulation manager 2 Worth noting Phara Vincent 3 Letters from our readers Advertising manager Elizabeth Schmitz 7 The three German bishops Homiletic & Pastoral Review is By Germain Grisez owned and published by Catholic Polls, Inc., 86 Riverside This pastoral decision has caused much consternation. Dr., New York, N.Y. 10024. 11 Renaming the Trinity Editor, Kenneth Baker. Telephone: (212) 799-2600. HPR By Bevil Bramwell appears monthly, except bi God is not one of the beings man is allowed to name. monthly for August-September, 17 Catholicism: What else is there? and is available on Microfilm through Xerox University By James V. Schall Microfilms, Inc., 300 North Catholicism's truth is almost a forbidden topic. Zeeb Rd., Ann Arbor, Mich. 48106. Second class postage paid 24 Father Mulroy for at New York, N.Y. and at By George A. Kelly additional offices. © Catholic Departingpriests leave behind a hard-to-match legacy. Polls, Inc. 1995. Address all correspondence to 31 The New Testament: Witness to the Catholic Faith Kenneth Baker, S.J., By Thomas Storck 86 Riverside Drive, New York, N.Y. 10024. The NT was not intended to be the standard or rule of Rates: U.S. and Possessions— faith and morals. $24.00 per year; $44 for two years. 33 Homilies on the liturgy of the Sundays and feasts Foreign-$25.00 per year; $45 for two years. Payable in U.S. funds. By David Q. Liptak Single copies available at $4.00 59 American seminarians in the nineties per copy postpaid. Foreign currency accepted. By Leonard Kennedy Postmaster: Send address changes to Nonchalance greets recent statistics on seminaries. Homiletic & Pastoral Review, 62 Why a priest should wear his Roman collar 86 Riverside Drive, New York, N.Y. 10024. By Charles M. Mangan and Gerald E. Murray The collar offers laity spiritual support and strength. 70 Questions answered by Wm. B. Smith Publication No. USPS 889-740 ISSN No. 0018-4268 73 Book reviews Volume XCV, No. 9 80 A new spring for Catholic apologetics?—Editorial JUNE 1995 1 The three bishops* pastoral initiative strongly suggests that the Church's teaching on indissolubility is false. The three German bishops By Germain Grisez • By the summer of 1963, some theolo bled in conscience. They know that the gians were claiming that Catholic teach Church is an infallible guide in matters ing on contraception did not preclude use of faith and morals. But doubts are sown ofthe birth control pill to regulate births. in their minds by imprudent statements." In response, on 10 August 1963, the Bish Thus, Catholic bishops seemed to be ops ofthe Netherlands stated that the pill contradicting one another. Pope Paul VI was no more acceptable than other meth announced on 24 June 1964 that moral ods ofcontraception, but added a crucial questions about birth regulation were be sentence: "In the last resort the personal ing investigated, and he expanded an ex conscience has to give the decisive ver isting group to conduct the study. At the dict, but in each individual situation this same time, he said that "the norms given personal conscience has to listen to the by Pius XII in this regard ... must be divine law and take notice ofthe interpre considered valid, at least until we feel tation ofthe divine law which the Church obliged in conscience to change them." gives to her faithful." Seeming to admit that received Catholic Though that sentence could be read teaching on contraception could change, as reaffirming received Catholic teaching Pope Paul's statement was taken by some on contraception, the whole world read bishops and many priests to justify ap it as approvingits use andimplicitlydeny proving its use, and as time passed they ing the teaching. Controversy followed. did so more and more openly. At the same Attempting to draw a line, the Bishops time, bishops and priests who regarded the of England and Wales, on 7 May 1964, received teaching as unchangeable, not stated that the Second Vatican Council wishing to anticipate the promised papal then in progress might need to give guid decision, made no public statements. ance on the use of the pill, but added: When Paul VI finally issued Humanae "Contraception itself, however, is not an Vitae, many theologians responded by open question for it is against the law of dissenting categorically. Many confer God. Many husbands and wives are trou ences of bishops issued statements which JUNE 1995 affirmed the encyclical's teaching but, likethe Dutchbishops' statement of 1963, stressed the ultimacy ofconscience; some of those statements also explicitly al lowed for theological dissent, and few of them stated clearlythat it is unacceptable. To these bishops' conferences' state ments, Paul VI never responded. Cardinal Patrick O'Boyle, Archbishop of Washington, rejected the theological dissent and its implementation in pas toral practice as inconsistent with the Church's teaching and as an abuse of pas toral authority, and demanded that cer tain priests with faculties in his diocese withdraw from their collective public statement putting the dissenting opinion into practice. Some refused, and the Archbishop withdrew faculties. Some of the priests eventually ap pealedtothe Holy See. The Congregation for the Clergy resolved the case adminis tratively by issuing, on 26 April 1971, an that bishops should not withdraw facul official communication which, while ties from priests publicly committed to omitting to condemn the dissent or ex implementing dissenting opinions in pas plicitly reject its implementation, affirm toral practice. atively stated as "findings" relevant theo That implication, Paul VI's silence logical truths and pastoral norms, and about the statements of bishops' confer "urgently recommend[ed]" that the priests ences, and the subsequent actions of who accepted the findings, without with many bishops tended greatly to under drawing from their collective public state mine the teaching ofHumanae Vitae. Of ment, should receive back their faculties. course, the teaching, reaffirmed repeat Though the Congregation's findings edly, remains the Church's teaching. could be read as affirming all the received With self-defeating inconsistency, how Catholic teachings which had been chal ever, the Church's pastoral practice often lenged, they were worded ambiguously. includes approving the use of contracep The priests had maintained that an indi tion by couples who decide, following vidual's conscience need not conform to their own "consciences," to do so. More Church teaching provided he or she was over, since the relationship between the guided by the teaching, among other moral norm taught, pastoral practice, things. The key sentence in the findings and conscience is the same regardless of affirmed that "in forming one's con the matter concerned, this self-defeating science one must be guided by objective inconsistency quickly pervaded Catholic moral norms, including authentic Church moral teaching and pastoral practice as teaching." Thus, the Holy See implied a whole. Thus, all the Catholic faithful 8 HOMILETIC & PASTORAL REVIEW continue to be taught moral truth, but President; Bishops Lehmann and Kasper some bishops more or less explicitly au also have been leading German theolo thorize their priests to guide the faithful gians. Probably anticipating action on to act contrary to it on a few or many the matter by the Holy See, bishops who matters, and many priests do so without consider the procedure established by any authorization. their three German colleagues to be in In September 1993, Archbishop Saier consistent with Catholic teaching onmar and Bishops Lehmann and Kasper, the riage have remained silent, much as did bishops of the ecclesiastical province of bishops, after Paul VI's June 1964 state the Upper Rhine, issued a document, ment, who held received teaching on con dated 10 July 1993, establishing a way in traception. But thus far, the Holy See has which "remarried" individuals can obtain allowed the three bishops' pastoral initia an admission to the sacraments which tive to stand. they and others will be able to regard as Press reports, however, quote Cardin legitimate (see Documentation Cathol- al Ratzinger as recognizing that the three ique, 2082 [21 November 1993], 986-94). bishops' "text as it stands presents some The three bishops authorize "remar problems"; yet theyalso quotehim as say ried" individuals to decide for themselves ing: "Together with the three bishops we whether or not they may receive Commu will find a way to clarify the reception of nion provided they first consider, in dia the document" (Origins: CNS Documen logue with a priest, eight criteria specified tary Service, 10 March 1994, 670). This by the bishops; the three bishops alsopro statement, if accurately reported, sug vide that priests will respect and defend gests that Cardinal Ratzinger anticipates, such individuals' decisions. This proce not the withdrawal of the three bishops' dure is offered to all divorced and "re pastoral initiative, but some sort of sup married" persons, including those who plementary statement. Plainly, however, live in a sexuallyintimate second relation such a supplementary statement would ship despite having contracted and con not be acceptable to both sides unless it summated a sacramental marriage of not only affirmed, to the Holy See's satis unquestioned validity with a still-living faction, all relevant Catholic teachings spouse. The three bishops also indicate but also allowed the three bishops' pasto that the same procedure is applicable for ral initiative to stand. This could be ac couples living together before marriage complished only if the statement were or in long-standing nonmarital relation worded ambiguously. ships as well as for those who contract If the Holy See were to cooperate in merely civil marriages.

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