CARDINAL George Pell is well served by the bishops here in Queensland as far as ‘clear teaching’ is concerned (CL 2/11/03).
Is it possible that the root of Cardinal Pell’s ‘neo-pagan mix’ may be a basic lack of clarity in the universal Church’s teaching? After all Church teaching was quite clear in the 1950s and early 1960s in the pre-Vatican II era.
I can remember being aware of disenchantment, albeit the silent majority. The silence is now the silence of an absent congregation.
Contraception and abortion are treated as two sides of the same coin without any differentiation as between their respective moral qualities. Annulments of marriages contrasted with divorce is another prickly comparison. Celibacy and marriage remain undifferentiated as to their relative gift and charism, as does the role of men and women.
The Church rails against premarital sex but still lacks a cogent theoretical syllabus on sex. Human sexual experience does not simply turn on and off like a tap, is unhealthy and beyond the capacity of many of us anyway. Yet the Church requires abstinence with a one size fits all policy.
No one seeks divorce as an end in itself. Adultery and family featured in the Ten Commandments and remained a bone of contention even in Jesus’ time.
We lack clear teaching in conscience and authority, unity and diversity, vernacular versus Latin liturgies, ecumenism versus syncretism, exclusion versus inclusion, social justice and private property, cultural loyalty and migration. Scripture versus tradition is basic.
As was said in a recent Uniting Church assembly that considered its approach to homosexuality, the authority of Scripture is not in question, what is in question is its ‘meaning’.
We are ‘thrown into existence’ as an act of love. Given the randomness of death and tragedy plus scientific progress belief in a divine lover challenges us to be faithful as never before.
Truth does not come in a straightjacket but it is experienced best with discipline. We need a Church to form and guide us.
Gethsemane showed us that even Jesus had to journey in an agonising search for clarity. No less in our time.
If I am to champion the new cardinal let it be in his capacity to address these challenges collegially.
VINCENT HODGE
Paddington, Qld
