Cardinal George Pell has called on the doctrinal watchdog to reprimand two European bishops for what he said was their “wholesale and explicit rejection” of the Church’s teaching on sexual ethics. Source: National Catholic Register.
In a statement released on Tuesday, Cardinal Pell asked the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to “intervene and pronounce judgment” on comments made by Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, the relator general of the Vatican Synod on Synodality, and Bishop Georg Bätzing, president of the German Bishops’ Conference.
Cardinal Pell had made the appeal a few days earlier, in an interview given to the German Catholic television agency K-TV.
Jesuit Cardinal Hollerich of Luxembourg and Bishop Bätzing of Limburg have both called for changes to the Church’s teaching on homosexuality in recent interviews.
Cardinal Pell said such teaching was “erroneous,” as it “not only rejects the ancient Judeo-Christian doctrines against homosexual activity, but undermines and rejects the teaching on monogamous marriage, the exclusive union of a man and a woman.”
He said he recognised the challenges faced by declining numbers of faithful in German-speaking countries and elsewhere, but added that the only possible response should be to “rediscover the promises of Jesus” and embrace more closely the “undiminished deposit of faith.”
He stressed that the solution was “not to follow the changing dictates of contemporary secular culture,” adding that, “as Pope Paul VI pointed out many years ago, this is a path to self-destruction for the Church.”
FULL STORY
Cardinal Pell Calls on Vatican to Correct 2 Senior European Bishops for Rejecting Church’s Sexual Ethics (By Edward Pentin, National Catholic Register)
