Francis: Change the Catechism, which Pope Saint John Paul II called "a sure norm," because I prefer my own understanding

Lifesite News is reporting that:

"Pope Francis may have begun a new phase in his pontificate: doctrinal change, a priest and former philosophy professor has written.

Italian Fr. Giovanni Scalese, the local Ordinary for Afghanistan, wrote a post titled 'Fase B' (Phase B) on his blog 'Antiquo robore,' arguing that Pope Francis laid out his new plan for doctrinal evolution in the Church in a recent speech.

The October 11 speech to the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization, in which Pope Francis presented his views on the death penalty, has a 'programmatic' character, Scalese said. It represents a 'turning point.' By concentrating on the details of Francis’s speeches, Scalese argued, some might miss the bigger picture of what the Pope is doing.

In his speech, the Pope challenged previous Catholic teaching by calling the death penalty 'contrary to the Gospel.' He said he would like the Catechism of the Catholic Church to change according to a 'new understanding of Christian truth,' saying that only a 'partial vision can think of ‘the deposit of faith’ as something static.'"

Change the Catechism of the Catholic Church according to a "new understanding of Christian truth"?

The First Vatican Council:

"For the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by his assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles."

In his Apostolic Constitution Fidei Depositum, Pope John Paul II said that, "The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which I approved 25 June last and the publication of which I today order by virtue of my Apostolic Authority, is a statement of the Church's faith and of Catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium. I declare it to be a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion and a sure norm for teaching the faith. May it serve the renewal to which the Holy Spirit ceaselessly calls the Church of God, the Body of Christ, on her pilgrimage to the undiminished light of the kingdom!"

A sure norm for teaching the faith!  But Francis believes himself wiser than all those who worked on this Catechism. And just who was that?

Again, Pope (Saint) John Paul II:

"It can be said that this catechism is the result of the collaboration of the whole Episcopate of the Catholic Church, who generously accepted my invitation to share responsibility for an enterprise which directly concerns the life of the Church. This response elicits in me a deep feeling of joy, because the harmony of so many voices truly expresses what could be called the symphony of the faith. The achievement of this catechism thus reflects the collegial nature of the Episcopate: it testifies to the Church's catholicity."

We are witnessing a pontiff who forgets that we stand on the shoulders of giants.  A man who believes it is the Church which must change and that this is so because he is "wiser" than all previous Popes, Saints, Doctors and Fathers of the Church - as well as the entire Episcopate combined.

A regular font of humility!

Bishop Gerhard Mueller and infallibly proposed teachings

We definitely live in dark times.  Increasingly, Catholic dogma is coming under attack even within the Church.  Just recently, Bill Tammeus, a Presbyterian elder and former columnist for The Kansas City Star, writng for the National Catholic Reporter online, complained that, "Ultimately, truth in Christianity is not a doctrine, not a dogma, not a creed, not a papal bull, not what's said in a sermon, not even the words in the Bible.  Rather, truth in Christianity is a person, Christ Jesus."

Yes, it is true that faith is primarily in God and not in a set of truths.  But because the Lord Jesus reveals truths about Himself and his plan for us, one cannot believe in Him without also accepting with faith every one of the truths which He reveals.  Vatican I definitively teaches that, "By divine and Catholic faith everything must be believed that is contained in the written word of God or in tradition, and that is proposed by the Church as a divinely revealed object of belief either in a solemn decree or in her ordinary, universal teaching" (DS 3011/1792).

To this formulation of Vatican I, Canon Law adds: "It is manifested by the common adherence of the Christian faithful under the leadership of the sacred magisterium; therefore, all are bound to avoid any doctrines whatever which are contrary to these truths." (Canon 750).

In its Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith provides us with a helpful commentary on the nature of the "religious submission of soul" or of "will and mind" which the Fathers of Vatican II said is to be given by the faithful, including theologians, to authoritative but noninfallibly proposed magisterial teachings (see Lumen Gentium, No. 25). 

This Instruction clearly distinguishes between questions that theologiand may raise about such teachings (see Nos. 24-31) and dissent from such teachings (Nos. 32-41).  The Instruction tells us that questioning can be compatible with the "religious submission" required, but the document also firmly repudiates dissent from these teachings as incompatible with this "religious submission" and irreconcilable with the theologian's vocation which is always to be at the Church's service.  Dissent from infallibly proposed teachings is a fortiori excluded.

In my last post, I noted how the new Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has denied the dogma of the Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Real Presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar in his theological writings.  Does Bishop Gerhard Mueller stand by his writings?  If so, he is dissenting from Catholic dogma, from infallibly proposed teachings.

Our strange time.

Vatican II in full continuity with former councils..."Traditionalists" who say otherwise are wrong

The Second Vatican Council solemnly declared in its Constitution on the Church [Lumen Gentium] that all the teachings of the Council are in full continuity with the teachings of former councils:

"Christ is the Light of nations. Because this is so, this Sacred Synod gathered together in the Holy Spirit eagerly desires, by proclaiming the Gospel to every creature, to bring the light of Christ to all men, a light brightly visible on the countenance of the Church. Since the Church is in Christ like a sacrament or as a sign and instrument both of a very closely knit union with God and of the unity of the whole human race, it desires now to unfold more fully to the faithful of the Church and to the whole world its own inner nature and universal mission. This it intends to do following faithfully the teaching of previous councils. The present-day conditions of the world add greater urgency to this work of the Church so that all men, joined more closely today by various social, technical and cultural ties, might also attain fuller unity in Christ." (LG, No. 1).

There are those who attempt to justify their rejection of Vatican II teaching by reminding themselves (and others) that while the canons of the Council of Trent and of Vatican Council I are de fide; none of the decrees of Vatican II are de fide. The Second Vatican Council was pastoral in nature. But once again, as the Fathers of Vatican II stressed, all the teachings of the Council are in full continuity with the teachings of former councils.

This point is not understood by some. Or it is rejected in a vain attempt to rationalize rebellion from the Church's authority. This is why Pope Benedict XVI (then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) said - in The Ratzinger Report, pp. 28, 29 - that, "It is..impossible to decide in favor of Trent and Vatican I, but against Vatican II. Whoever denies Vatican II denies the authority that upholds the other two councils and thereby detaches them from their foundation. And this applies to the so-called 'traditionalism', also in its extreme forms...Every partisan choice destroys the whole (the very history of the Church) which can exist only as an indivisible unity." Cardinal Ratzinger goes on to say that, "There is no 'pre' or 'post' conciliar Church; there is but one, unique Church that walks the path toward the Lord, ever deepening and ever better understanding the treasure of faith that he himself has entrusted to her. There are no leaps in this history, there are no fractures, and there is no break in continuity..."(p. 35).