Moving the goalposts - Diane Montagna on the dangers of redefining orthodoxy

“Pass not beyond the ancient bounds which thy fathers have set,” (Proverbs 22:28), the Good Book warns us. But liberals in the Curia are afraid their favourite ideas and most cherished ambitions may not be able to win the day if they are not allowed to move the goalposts just a little bit.

There used to be a test in English Law for reasonable action called the “reasonable man test”. What would a “reasonable man” do in the circumstances in question? The problem for contemporary liberals is that there is so much case law in which the hypothetical reasonable man acted in a way liberals now wish to proscribe by law.

A recent distressing case occurred when the children of Slovak Catholic parents were placed with a homosexual couple because of alleged neglect on the part of the birth parents. The Slovak parents challenged the placement on the grounds that it was unreasonable to place their children with a couple whose lifestyle was so offensive to the birth parents. In his judgement, Sir James Munby said that while any judge should, “respect the opinions of those who come here from a foreign land”, he had to follow English law and, “the standards of reasonable men and women in contemporary English society”.

Now many in the Curia are following suit. The test of orthodoxy used to be the irreformable definitions of the Magisterium. Now irreformable is out, and it’s not the magisterium in general but the “recent Magisterium” that’s the litmus test.

The incoming Prefect of the restyled Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernández, said: “I must ensure that both the documents of the dicastery and those of others accept the recent Magisterium. This is essential for the internal coherence of thought in the Roman Curia. Because it can happen that answers are given to certain theological issues without accepting what Francis has said that is new on those issues. And it’s not only inserting a phrase from Pope Francis but allowing thought to be transfigured with his criteria. This is particularly true for moral and pastoral theology.”

St Pius X would be surprised by this as he probably thought he had nipped this sort of thinking in the bud with his 1910 Oath Against Modernism, where one swears: “Finally, I declare that I am completely opposed to the error of the modernists who hold that there is nothing divine in sacred tradition; or what is far worse, say that there is, but in a pantheistic sense, with the result that there would remain nothing but this plain simple fact - one to be put on a par with the ordinary facts of history - the fact, namely, that a group of men by their own labour, skill, and talent have continued through subsequent ages a school begun by Christ and his apostles.”

As every single ordained person in the Church was bound by law to swear this Oath for half a century, it is undoubtedly an irreformable definition. But on the other hand, 1910 was a long time ago. As a wit once said: “God used to be immutable but all that changed with Vatican II.”

Fernández has admitted that he is the sort of person the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) would previously have been inclined to investigate (having advocated gay blessings, the liceity – ie, the legitimacy - of contraception in certain cases, and the redefinition of orthodoxy in terms of the “recent” Magisterium). And in fact, former CDF prefect Cardinal Gerhard Müller confirmed not so long ago that the Vatican’s doctrinal office had a file on him.

As Fernández himself said in 2015: “One needs to realize that [Pope Francis] aims at irreversible reforms. If one day he senses that he has little time left, and that he does not have enough to do what the Spirit asks of him, one can be sure that he will accelerate.” And Fernández will have an extremely powerful position from which to implement this. Formerly he was Pope Francis’ ghost-writer. Now, as DDF Prefect, Cardinal, and member of the upcoming Synod, he will likely be both censor and ghost-writer of Pope Francis’s postsynodal Apostolic Exhortation at the conclusion of the 2023-2024 synodal process.

With Fernandez strategically in place, “Team Francis” can begin its final push headlong down the synodal path. This handpicked group includes Cardinals Jean-Claude Hollerich, Mario Grech, Blase Cupich, Wilton Gregory, Robert McElroy, and Fr James Martin. All men who, as New York priest and canon lawyer, Fr Gerald Murray, has observed, are of one school of thought in wanting the Church, “to soften up on her approach to homosexuality,” which, “in the end means changing the doctrine”.

“It’s very sad to say that the Synod on Synodality is turning into the Synod on homosexuality,” Fr Murray, a reasonable man if ever there was one, said: “It’s hard to believe that here we are talking about the most vital issue in the life of the Church [being] to declare that we’ve been mistaken for 2000 years about a teaching that is Biblical and clear: that sodomy is a sin and should not ever be approved by the Church, but that’s what’s going on now.”