BATTLE LINES IN NEW ZEALAND'S CATHOLIC CHURCH

'Cathnews.co.nz' is a website, a creature of the Marist Order, which is often quoted in our small country parish newsletter. It invites comments but there’s a limit of 10 days from initial publication.


I wasn't aware of that until my comments on Joy Cowley’s 'The Flat Earth Society', which said hell exists only on earth and so contradicted the Gospel, were declined.



Then last Sunday in our newsletter we read in 'Cardinal Dew appointed to the Congregation for Divine Worship' something rather more than “news about and of interest to the Catholic Church” as the website editor, John Murphy S M, describes the website’s content. The article appeared on Cathnews on November 1 so I'm too late to post my remarks there. Never mind, there’s always Carmelite Canto Fermo, and here they are:

I was surprised to see the divisive and adversarial tone taken by Cathnews.co.nz in regard to new appointments to the Congregation for Divine Worship.

I knew the NZ clergy generally, who often give the impression of operating independently of the Vatican, would be very hostile to Cardinal Sarah’s suggestion that the Mass be celebrated ad orientem, and the item in our parish newsletter this week seems to show that even the Marists, whose tradition is surely to imitate Mary in humility and obedience, were among the disaffected.

As Prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, Cardinal Sarah did not “call for priests to turn their backs on the congregation”; he was encouraging priests and people, wherever possible, to turn together towards God. His very legitimate concern is that man, not Almighty God, is now often the focus of our liturgy.

How can Cathnews construe the Cardinal’s position as striking “a very different tone to the Pope’s merciful approach to families in difficult circumstances”? If they’re saying Pope Francis’ moves toward the deconstruction of three Sacraments – matrimony, confession and communion – in order to accommodate the divorced and ‘remarried’ are “merciful”, they would seem to be drawing up battle lines in the New Zealand Church.

Last week, in Joy Cowley’s piece, I thought Cathnews was not serving truth. This week I believe they are not serving unity.