Tag Archive for German Church

The Son Who Stayed, Redux

October 9, 2015 Obedience 3 comments

This morning, in a motel room outside of Kansas City, I re-read Meddlesome’s post, “What Happened to the Son Who Stayed?” In many ways, that post and the discussion and posts that followed seem to have set the tone for the Junto’s approach to discussing Pope Francis—a tone that, I continue to worry, is at times not spiritually healthy for us. It’s not that I don’t share the Junto’s concerns about the confusion that has been caused around the Church’s teachings on marriage or find the Pope’s treatment of various cardinals baffling. (And I’ve ceased to try to make sense

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The Case of the Missing “Sacred Givens”

August 22, 2015 Intellectual Formation No comments

A couple months back I waded through a theology professor’s detailed analysis of Cardinal Kasper’s intellectual foundations, upon which his troubling views on church doctine are founded. This week, George Weigel posted a much clearer and briefer summary of his understanding of Prof. Stark and Cardinal Kasper on First Things. Weigel says that by absolutizing history, Cardinal Kasper minimizes or does away with the “sacred givens” of God’s revelation. It’s a short read, and much clearer and easier to track than my earlier post — and as always, the First Things comments are interesting, as well — although many focus on Humana Vitae

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Quid Est Veritas? Cardinal Kasper’s
Troubling Foundations

June 13, 2015 Intellectual Formation, Obedience 2 comments

On Tuesday, the Catholic World Report posted a paper by Prof. Thomas Heinrich Stark of the Benedict XVI Institute of Philosophy and Theology in Austria, entitled “German Idealism and Cardinal Kasper’s Theological Project.” It is a lengthy read, and reminded me of everything I disliked about the philosophy classes I took in college and my brief forays into academic writing. But I understood enough to be alarmed. Using one of Kasper’s early theological works, Prof. Stark shows the philosophical foundations that appear to have brought the cardinal to the point positions he currently holds on questions of morality, marriage, sexuality, and the sacraments. I

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‘We Need a New Boniface’

June 6, 2015 Moral Action, Obedience No comments

Yesterday was the Feast of St. Boniface, patron of the German people. The St. Paul Street Evangelization Facebook page published this photo of the great bishop and missionary whose statue graces our Sanctuary, as well as the excerpt below, taken from his writings: Let us stand fast in what is right, and prepare our souls for trial. Let us wait upon God’s strengthening aid and say to him: “O Lord, you have been our refuge in all generations.” Let us trust in him who has placed this burden upon us. What we ourselves cannot bear let us bear with the

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Great German Bishops (No, Really!)

March 30, 2015 Moral Action, Obedience No comments

It is ironic that the German bishops have such a loud voice in trying to dictate policy for the universal Church.  While raking in billions of dollars every year from government taxes, they have presided over the spiritual death of a once great Catholic nation.  Weekly Mass attendance among Catholics has fallen from 22% to less than 10% in the past 25 years.  Their solution, in the name of “mercy,” is to  seek every accommodation with the culture instead of convicting it.  Continuing to go their own way on communion for divorced and ‘remarried’ people, Cardinal Marx, the current president

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