By Fr. Gerald E. Murray, The Catholic Thing, Aug. 9, 2023
The Rev. Gerald E. Murray, J.C.D. is a canon lawyer and the pastor of Holy Family Church in New York City. His new book (with Diane Montagna), Calming the Storm: Navigating the Crises Facing the Catholic Church and Society, is now available.
The worsening crisis in the Catholic Church is the product of bold, unapologetic doctrinal infidelity spearheaded by influential churchmen and women who calmly operate without the least sign of papal disapproval. In fact, many of them are favored and promoted by Pope Francis. They argue that various Catholic teachings stand in need of improvement, remediation, and refashioning. They call for the use of less “offensive” and more “inclusive” words. They mislabel this attempted destruction of Catholic doctrine as nothing more than classical “doctrinal development,” under the banner of a new, Holy Spirit-inspired synodal style. They are trying to overthrow Church teaching, while assuring us that they have no such intention. They simply want, they say, to remedy “insufficiencies” in that teaching.
It feels as though we have been thrown back into the maelstrom of the late 1960s upheaval in the Church, only this time the pope is not rebuking the men and women promoting error, as did Paul VI, but rather appointing those very people to influential roles where they will single-mindedly pursue their objectives, confident that they will receive papal support. …
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