Cordileone on letter to German bishops
Reforms were “actually challenges to long-established and settled doctrine"

2022-04-16T14:05:49-07:00April 17th, 2022|Bishops and church leaders|

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, one of the bishops who have signed a letter of warning to German bishops for their proposed reforms, emphasized on Tuesday that the Catholic Church is permanent and enduring.

“The teaching of Christ is not bound by any one generation, any one time or culture,” Archbishop Cordileone  told EWTN News Nightly on April 12.

Cordileone spoke after more than 70 bishops, including himself, signed an open letter to Germany’s bishops warning that sweeping changes to Church teaching advocated by the ongoing process known as the “Synodal Path” may lead to schism. More signatories have added their names to the letter since its release Tuesday morning.

While Cordileone agreed this is not the first time that German bishops’ actions have been questioned, he said that this “is certainly the most egregious, I would say, example of that.”

“I signed it because the German Synodal Path is sowing a lot of seeds of confusion about what the Church really teaches and … what its long-established discipline is,” he said. “It’s certainly causing a lot of confusion within Germany and it stands to risk spreading throughout the rest of the Church.” Watch the full interview here.

The letter comes after the German Synodal Path assembly voted in favor of draft texts calling for same-sex blessings and changes to the Catechism of the Catholic Church as a part of a “re-evaluation of homosexuality” in February. More recently, in an interview published on March 31, German Cardinal Reinhard Marx asserted that the Catechism’s teaching here is “not set in stone” and “one is also allowed to doubt what it says.”

Cordileone identified the German Synodal Path as a multi-year process of talks and proposals with bishops, clergy, and other laity about “what they call ‘reforms of the Church.’” He said that these reforms were “actually challenges to long-established and settled doctrine and also disciplinary matters….”

The above comes from an April 13 story on Catholic News Agency.

 

12 Comments

  1. Silent Observer April 17, 2022 at 12:13 pm - Reply

    Bravo, Archbishop Cordileone. It is a sad day when some of our bishops are not in solidarity with the revered magisterium of our Church. I’m sure our good bishops are reeling from the betrayal within their own brotherhood. It is a lonely place to be.

  2. anonymous clergyman April 18, 2022 at 7:43 am - Reply

    The Archbishop is right. There is a difference between reformation and deformation.
    Prime example: the reforms of the Council of Trent. The Faith Christ delivered to the Apostles does not, cannot, change.

    • don't forget April 18, 2022 at 9:24 pm - Reply

      Don’t forget the reforms of Vatican II and the mandated reform of the liturgy.

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      • anonymous clergyman April 19, 2022 at 6:19 am - Reply

        Those too are not forgotten. I used Trent as the example because the Protestant break from the Church, shortly before Trent, is often called the Reformation. There is genuine, authentic Catholic reformation. As St. Augustine reportedly said, “Ecclesia semper reformanda est.” That said, if you read the documents of the Second Vatican Council, specifically Sacrosanctum concilium, you’ll find that it did not mandate much of what subsequently happened. (It opened the door to changes implemented by bishops’ conferences and some in the Vatican, but did not mandate them.)

      • Reformed April 19, 2022 at 7:35 am - Reply

        And Pope Francis just reformed the curia. The church is always reforming.

        • bohemond April 20, 2022 at 8:36 am - Reply

          Truth is never reformed…

        • keith May 30, 2022 at 9:55 am - Reply

          Not reform, Gerri-rigged for Liberal non-Catholic causes!

  3. bohemond April 18, 2022 at 9:52 am - Reply

    ” German Synodal Path is sowing a lot of seeds of confusion about what the Church really teaches and … what its long-established discipline is.”

  4. Jas Lane April 18, 2022 at 10:56 am - Reply

    Pray for our faithful Bishops. Thank you Abp. Cordileone

  5. nothing to worry about April 18, 2022 at 6:30 pm - Reply

    The head of the German bishop conference responded to this attack on his country’s bishops, and he stated there’s nothing to worry about.

    • Marty Luther April 19, 2022 at 6:29 am - Reply

      nothing to worry about, Hitler responded to the attack on Germany’s leaders. In the Munich Document, he assured Chamberlain there was nothing to worry about.
      Let’s just all chill.

  6. A Fine Archbishop! April 19, 2022 at 2:19 am - Reply

    May God bless the excellent work of our Abp. Cordileone!

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