chris@mcdonnell83.freeserve.co.uk           Previous articles by Chris

  July 11, 2012                     Chris McDonnell, UK          

Seek healing, not division
 

Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna is concerned that the priest’s initiative Call to Disobedience might lead to schism. So should we all be, for the last thing the Church needs in our present difficulties is yet further fragmentation.  

Yet somehow within our present community of faith we must find a way to talk, to examine the issues that face us with charity and compassion.  

Recent years have shown us that a centralised authority structure is returning and the openness envisaged by the Council diminishing.  

There are serious questions that we must address and allow each other the opportunity of a voice. The emergence of groups of priests in different countries raising concerns is, in many ways, only a response to the hierarchies not having taken up those matters on behalf of their Church in Rome .   

The collegiality of Bishops has been (and is being) slowly eroded.  The courage to speak out on behalf of the people, having listened to their concerns, is the duty of their pastors, both priests and bishops. Let’s do this together and not seek division but healing.  

W H Auden, in his poem “If I could tell you” written in October 1940, begins with these three lines. 

“Time will say nothing but I told you so,

  time only knows the price we have to pay;

  if I could tell you I would let you know” 

That, I am afraid is a neat and poignant summary of our present position.