Mario Cuomo infallibly declares "Infallibility has its limits"
Mario Cuomo has apparently been saddened by the election of Pope Benedict XVI (as are many Democrat politicians who have lost Catholic voters as a result of then Cardinal Ratzinger's rebuke of pro-choice politicians who claim to be Catholic). Cuomo was so hurt, that he has chose to become an airmchair theologian in this article in the opinion section of the 28 April 2005 New York Daily News.
Cuomo starts out by saying he "prayed that a new Pope would help heal the church's serious wounds and reconnect it more surely to modern realities. Instead, the cardinals have chosen a good and holy man who, we are told, rather than reform the status quo will reaffirm it more insistently than before." In other words, he thinks Pope John Paul II (i.e. "John Paul the Great") inflicted serious wounds to the church and disconnected it from reality, and that Pope Benedict will continue to do the same. Feel the love?
Then he goes on to discuss (or redefine) what is infallible and what isn't to justify his next point, which is that one of the current "challenges" of the church is "to reassess the alterable rules made for us by the male descendants of Peter who were and are humanly frail, as he was, and to readjust those rules to better serve the purpose of helping modern Catholics to live fuller and holier lives in this ever-changing world. This would include, among other things, reconsidering celibacy, women's role in the church and other contentious man-made church policies." This is the usual mantra of those who move tabernacles out of churches, remove kneelers, and then search for other reasons to explain the resultant decline in church attendence and lack of vocations.
Cuomo then provides this hodgepodge of distortions to try to validate his assertion: "The church can do this without abandoning its fundamental commitment to the Gospel of Jesus, and has in fact done it in the past in changing its position on slavery, usury, salvation outside the church and divorce. The church is extremely hesitant about using or even defining the idea that it is 'infallible' in its teaching. None of the currently contentious issues has been so designated. In fact, the church asserts its infallibility only under strictly defined limits, and it has happened very few times in church history. The only formal exercise of papal infallibility in modern times was by Pope Pius XII and dealt with Mary, the mother of Christ." IF this was true (and it certainly isn't), you could change almost anything - we could all become relativists, and dispense with the Catechism altogether. Cuomo seems to disregard this assertation of infallibility: "Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful." -- Pope John Paul II, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, May 22, 1994.
Cuomo then whines "Despite this history, our new Pope's record and the opinion among Vatican watchers offer little hope for meaningful changes or even for a clear admission that its man-made rules are indeed alterable by the church that made and enforces them." All the Church's "rules" are man-made. The rules Mario wants changed, though, were made by a man named Jesus Christ - and those are not alterable by the Church.
But wait...the punch line is at the end of Cuomo's article "But then, ours is a church that continues to entertain the possibility of miracles, big and small and is capable of startling and invigorating changes of course like the ascendance of John XXIII, who gave us the Second Vatican Council that brought Catholicism a bright new enlightenment in the 1960s. Hope springs eternal." First off, clearly, Cuomo never read the Vatican II documents. But his big "hope" is that Pope Benedict will do an about face and revolutionize (destroy) what is essential to Catholicism.
Don't hold your breath, Mario.
Cuomo starts out by saying he "prayed that a new Pope would help heal the church's serious wounds and reconnect it more surely to modern realities. Instead, the cardinals have chosen a good and holy man who, we are told, rather than reform the status quo will reaffirm it more insistently than before." In other words, he thinks Pope John Paul II (i.e. "John Paul the Great") inflicted serious wounds to the church and disconnected it from reality, and that Pope Benedict will continue to do the same. Feel the love?
Then he goes on to discuss (or redefine) what is infallible and what isn't to justify his next point, which is that one of the current "challenges" of the church is "to reassess the alterable rules made for us by the male descendants of Peter who were and are humanly frail, as he was, and to readjust those rules to better serve the purpose of helping modern Catholics to live fuller and holier lives in this ever-changing world. This would include, among other things, reconsidering celibacy, women's role in the church and other contentious man-made church policies." This is the usual mantra of those who move tabernacles out of churches, remove kneelers, and then search for other reasons to explain the resultant decline in church attendence and lack of vocations.
Cuomo then provides this hodgepodge of distortions to try to validate his assertion: "The church can do this without abandoning its fundamental commitment to the Gospel of Jesus, and has in fact done it in the past in changing its position on slavery, usury, salvation outside the church and divorce. The church is extremely hesitant about using or even defining the idea that it is 'infallible' in its teaching. None of the currently contentious issues has been so designated. In fact, the church asserts its infallibility only under strictly defined limits, and it has happened very few times in church history. The only formal exercise of papal infallibility in modern times was by Pope Pius XII and dealt with Mary, the mother of Christ." IF this was true (and it certainly isn't), you could change almost anything - we could all become relativists, and dispense with the Catechism altogether. Cuomo seems to disregard this assertation of infallibility: "Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful." -- Pope John Paul II, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, May 22, 1994.
Cuomo then whines "Despite this history, our new Pope's record and the opinion among Vatican watchers offer little hope for meaningful changes or even for a clear admission that its man-made rules are indeed alterable by the church that made and enforces them." All the Church's "rules" are man-made. The rules Mario wants changed, though, were made by a man named Jesus Christ - and those are not alterable by the Church.
But wait...the punch line is at the end of Cuomo's article "But then, ours is a church that continues to entertain the possibility of miracles, big and small and is capable of startling and invigorating changes of course like the ascendance of John XXIII, who gave us the Second Vatican Council that brought Catholicism a bright new enlightenment in the 1960s. Hope springs eternal." First off, clearly, Cuomo never read the Vatican II documents. But his big "hope" is that Pope Benedict will do an about face and revolutionize (destroy) what is essential to Catholicism.
Don't hold your breath, Mario.
posted at 4/29/2005
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