http://www.ncregister.com/blog/edward-pentin/cardinal-caffarra-among-signatories-of-declaration-upholding-churchs-teachi
Cardinal Caffarra Among Signatories of Declaration Upholding Church's Teaching on Marriage Declaration drawn up in response to what signatories see as continued confusion over the Church's moral teaching following the Synods on the Family and Amoris Laetitia.
by Edward Pentin 09/28/2016
An increasing number of laity, clergy and prelates, including such prominent Church leaders as Cardinal Carlo Caffarra and the respected Austrian theologian Wolfgang Waldstein, have signed a declaration of faith to counter what they see as continued ambiguities over key moral Church teachings on marriage and the family.
As of Sept. 28, over 1,800 Church figures, including many priests, pro-life leaders, and eminent scholars, had added their name to a “Declaration of Fidelity to the Church’s Unchangeable Teaching on Marriage and to Her Uninterrupted Discipline”.[My bold]
The declaration, made public on Sept. 27 with an initial 80 signatories, was drawn up in response to “the confusion” over the Church's moral teachings and practice that the organizers say has “only grown after the two Synods on the family” in 2014 and 2015, and the subsequent publication the Pope’s controversial summary document on the synods, Amoris Laetitia.
Behind the document are members of the Supplica Filiale (Filial Appeal) association who collected nearly a million signatures between the two synods, asking Pope Francis to clarify the Church’s teaching on “key issues of natural and Christian morality.”
In a Sept. 27 statement, the organizers of the declaration said there is an “urgent moral duty to reaffirm the immemorial teaching of the Catholic magisterium on marriage and family and the pastoral discipline practiced for centuries with regard to these basic institutions of a Christian civilization.”
“This grave duty,” they added, “becomes even more urgent in view of the growing attack that secularist forces are unleashing against marriage and the family.” Catholic doctrine and practice, they continued, no longer appear to be “the accustomed barrier” against such an attack, at least in terms of how they are now being presented.
The appeal document, backed up by the Church’s “crystalline and indisputable teaching”, centers around 27 statements “upholding those truths explicitly or implicitly denied or rendered ambiguous in the present ecclesial language.”
According to the signatories, what is at stake are “unchangeable doctrines and practices” concerning such crucial areas as “faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the respect due to this Sacrament”; the impossibility of receiving Jesus in the Eucharist “in a state of mortal sin”; the conditions of “true repentance that enable to receive sacramental absolution”; and the “observance of the Sixth Commandment” not to commit adultery.
Also at stake, the signatories continue, is the “most serious obligation not to give public scandal and not lead the people of God to sin or to relativize good and evil”; and the “objective limits of consciousness when taking personal decisions.”
The declaration comes after 45 Catholic scholars appealed to Pope Francis in July to “repudiate” what they see as errors in Amoris Laetitia. Other prominent scholars, such as philosophy Professor Josef Seifert, have also criticized parts of the apostolic exhortation which they argue could not only "easily lead to misunderstandings and consequently to abuses" but also are "opposed to God’s Word" and the Church’s moral teaching.
Here below is a summary of the declaration. The full text can be found here and a list of initial signatories here.{See website}
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