Key questions

Back in 1989, the then future Pope Benedict spoke of Faith as the alternative which the world awaits after the failure of the liberalistic and Marxist experiments, as Diane Montagne explains

So much of the controversy that has been generated by the “Synod on Synodality” could have been negated had those involved in the assembly heeded the prophetic words of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger spoken nearly thirty-five years ago.

In an address to the Doctrinal Commissions of Europe in Laxenburg, Austria, in 1989, the future pontiff foresaw many of the challenges afflicting the Church today, and proposed how to understand and effectively deal with them.

The then-prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith pinpointed a, “litany of objections to the practice and teaching of the Church” regularly recited by “progressive-thinking Catholics”. According to Ratzinger, its “principal elements” are: “the rejection of the Church’s teaching about contraception, the rejection of every form of ‘discrimination’ as to homosexuality and the consequent assertion of a moral equivalence for all forms of sexual activity as long as they are motivated by ‘love’ or at least do not hurt anyone; the admission of the divorced who remarry to the Church’s sacraments; and the ordination of women to the priesthood.”

While the first two claims in this litany pertain to sexual morality, and the second two concern the sacramental order, Cardinal Ratzinger said that, considered more deeply, they are all linked and “spring from one and the same vision of humanity within which there operates a particular notion of human freedom”.

Cardinal Ratzinger said these demands arise from a worldview comprised of four key elements: the claim that traditional Catholic doctrine is simply alien and has nothing to say to modern man; the very idea of an authoritative teaching office as unacceptably offensive; the denouncing of the fundamental distinction between men and women as simply a form of oppression with which the Church in opposing women’s ordination among other things, remains complicit; and that the Church must choose between conservatism and freedom.

He told bishops: “The fact that the Church, as the particularly conservative institution that she is, might not go along with this line of thinking would certainly not be surprising. If the Church, however, would wish to promote human freedom, then, ultimately, she will be obliged to set aside the theological justification of old social taboos, and the most timely and vital sign of such a desire at the present moment would be her consent to the ordination of women to the priesthood.”

“the individual decides for himself what is moral in a given situation”. Such a change in thinking, he explained, is described as “liberation,” and the body viewed as a “possession” which a person can “make use of in whatever way seems to him most helpful in attaining ‘quality of life’.” This, Ratzinger said, would eventually lead to considering no difference between the sexes and the difference between heterosexuality and homosexuality as unimportant — views, he said, that ultimately derive from artificial contraception that separates sexuality and procreation. “Likewise divested of every metaphysical symbolism is the distinction between man and woman,” he added, which would come to be regarded “as the product of reinforced role expectations”.

For the past 60 years these four key questions have been raised again and again in opposition to the Church’s teaching on morality and the sacraments and led to bitter opposition to the pontificates of both Pope St John Paul II and Benedict XVI. With the Synod on Synodality, these issues are now taking centre stage within the Church.

In his 1989 address, Cardinal Ratzinger turned to the “roots” of this “progressive thinking,” and noted that its “key concepts” are the words “conscience” and “freedom” which, although supposed to “confer the aura of morality,” actually are a “surrender of moral integrity” and the “simplifications of a lax conscience”.

The future pontiff said this new worldview, or “revolutionary vision about man,” involves a change in the understanding of conscience whereby

“Who would not be for conscience and freedom and against legalism and constraint?” Cardinal Ratzinger asked rhetorically. “Who wishes to be put into the position of defending taboos? If the questions are framed in this way, the Faith proclaimed by the Magisterium is already manoeuvred into a hopeless position. It collapses all by itself because it loses its plausibility according to the thought patterns of the modern world and is looked upon by progressive contemporaries as something that has been long superseded.”

But the future pope also offered a way out of this mindset predominating at the synod: “Only by learning to understand that fundamental trait of modern existence which refuses to accept the Faith before discussing all its contents, will we be able to regain the initiative instead of simply responding to the questions raised,” he said.

He added: “Only then can we reveal the Faith as the alternative which the world awaits after the failure of the liberalistic and Marxist experiments.” For Cardinal Ratzinger, this was the challenge facing Christianity today and, “our great responsibility as Christians at the present time”.