CARDINAL GEORGE PELL REMINDS POPE FRANCIS ABOUT HIS ROLE AS THE VICAR OF CHRIST

George Cardinal Pell’s commentary on Vatican II and the German syndol schism printed in the National Catholic Register:

‘Gaudium et Spes’ and Germany’s Synodal Way: Reflections on the Church in the Modern World

COMMENTARY: The pastoral constitution called for engaging the world in ‘the light of the Gospel,’ but some initiatives in the Church today seek to subvert the faith to the spirit of modernity. 

Money byte:

The synodal process has begun disastrously in Germany, and matters will become worse unless we soon have effective papal corrections on, for instance, Christian sexual morality, women priests, etc. 

We find no precedents in Catholic history for the active participation of ex-Catholics and anti-Catholics in such bodies. Only the Council Fathers, almost entirely bishops, could vote at Vatican II, and the observers were all Christians. Pope St. Paul VI respected the authority and independence of the Council Fathers, intervening rarely as they laboriously produced their documents, established consensus, while remaining fully respectful of the magisterium and Tradition. Despite all this care and scholarship, and largely for reasons outside Church control, the post-conciliar story has not been one of glorious success. 

Every synod has to be a Catholic synod, bound by the apostolic Tradition, just as Councils are so bound. To allow serious heresies to continue undisturbed is undermining and damaging the unity of the One, True Church, and again, is not consistent with Gaudium et Spes’ call for engagement with the modern world in “the light of the Gospel,” but contrary to it. There can be no pluralism of important doctrines of faith or morals. Our unity is not like that of a loose Anglican federation or that of the many national Orthodox Churches.