Head of Polish Bishops slams Synodal Path

From 2022

"In view of the communion of faith and history between Poland and Germany, I would like to express my deep concern about the information that has recently been heard from certain circles of the Catholic Church in Germany," wrote the President of the Polish Episcopal Conference, Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, in a letter to the President of the German Episcopal Conference, Bishop Georg Bätzing, in relation to the German "Synodal Way".

Chairman of the Polish Episcopate acknowledged that the Catholic Church in Germany plays an important role in Europe.  "That is why I view the actions of the German "Synodal Way" so far with concern.  Looking at its fruits, one can get the impression that the basis of reflection is not always the Gospel," Gądecki wrote.

Archbishop Gądecki stressed that, true to the Church's teaching, we must not give in to the pressures of the world or the models of the prevailing culture, as this can lead to moral and spiritual corruption.  "Let us avoid repeating hackneyed slogans and standard demands such as the abolition of celibacy, the priesthood of women, communion for remarried divorcees or the blessing of same-sex partnerships," he appealed.

Despite outrage, ostracism and unpopularity, the Catholic Church, faithful to the truth of the Gospel and at the same time driven by love for every human being, cannot remain silent and agree with this false image of humanity, let alone bless or promote it, said the President of the Polish Episcopate.

The current crisis of the Church in Europe is above all a crisis of faith . The crisis of faith is one of the reasons why the Church has difficulties in proclaiming clear theological and moral teaching, Gadecki wrote.  The authority of the Pope and the Bishops is most needed when the Church is going through a difficult time and when it is under pressure to deviate from the teachings of Jesus.

In his letter, Archbishop Gądecki referred to the documents of the Catholic Church, the teaching of Pope Francis, John Paul II and Paul VI, and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

We publish the full text of the letter:

Dear Bishop George,

The Catholic Church in Germany and the Catholic Church in Poland are bound together by more than a thousand years of common history.  This history grows out of the deposit of the apostolic faith in Jesus Christ, which, placed in the hands of St Peter, was passed on to the successors of the apostles - the Bishops - who lead, teach and sanctify the individual local churches.  "But I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld will not prevail against it.  I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven" (Mt 16:18-19).

This community of faith is expressed, among other things, in the figures of saints venerated by both Polish and German Catholics.  I am thinking of Saint Brun von Querfurt, Saint Hedwig of Silesia, Saint Teresia Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) or Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe.  Of particular importance in our relations is also the exchange of letters on forgiveness, which marked the beginning of an important and urgently needed process of reconciliation after the difficult experiences of the Second World War.  This process was supported by both Karol Wojtyła and Blessed Stefan Cardinal Wyszyński.  In later years, it found concrete expression in the spiritual and material support we received from German Catholics during the period of communism in our homeland.

For all these reasons, the Catholic Church in Germany is very close to me and very important.  In view of this communion of faith and history between Poland and Germany, I would like to express my deep concern about the information that has recently been heard from certain circles of the Catholic Church in Germany.  Therefore, in the spirit of Christian charity, allow me to address this letter to you - as the President of the German Bishops' Conference - full of brotherly concern, in the spirit of common responsibility for the good of the Holy Apostolic faith entrusted to us by Christ.

As shepherds of the Church, we are aware that a spiritual battle is being waged in the world.  "For we have to fight not against men of flesh and blood, but against powers and authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the evil spirits in the heavenly realms" (Eph 6:12).  Christ has won the victory over Satan, and it is the task of the Church to make this victory a reality in the world.  Allow me, dear brother in the episcopate, to share my concern about the validity of the theses put forward by some circles of the Catholic Church in Germany, especially in connection with the so-called "Synodal Path".

The temptation to seek the fullness of truth outside the Gospel.

The Catholic Church in Germany is important on the map of Europe, and I am aware that it will radiate either its faith or its unbelief throughout the continent.  That is why I view with concern the approach of the German "Synodal Path" so far.  Looking at its fruits, one can get the impression that the basis of reflection is not always the Gospel.  This has happened again and again throughout history.  Consider the so-called Jefferson Bible (T. Jefferson, The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, Rough Draft Printing 2015).  The American president claimed that the Gospels contained sentences that were very wise and lofty, certainly coming directly from Jesus, but also sentences that were foolish and trivial, so that they must have come from uneducated apostles.  Convinced that he had the criteria to distinguish one sentence from another, he decided to do so with scissors.  In this way, a modern apocryphal text was created which, according to its author, was better than the original.  It cannot be ruled out that it was precisely in these challenging fragments of the Bible that fell under the "Jefferson scissors" that the proprium christianum - that which is unique to Christianity alone - was expressed.

The temptation to believe in the infallibility of the social sciences.

One of the temptations in the Church today is to constantly confront the teachings of Jesus with current developments in psychology and the social sciences.  When something in the Gospel does not agree with the current state of knowledge in these sciences, disciples try to "update" the Gospel to protect the Master from being compromised in the eyes of his contemporaries.  The temptation to "modernise" particularly concerns the area of sexual identity.  However, it is forgotten that the state of scientific knowledge often changes, sometimes dramatically, e.g. due to paradigm shifts.  Changeability is in the nature of science, which has only a fraction of the total possible knowledge at its disposal.  The discovery of errors and their analysis is the engine of scientific progress.

However, some scientific mistakes had dramatic consequences.  One need only mention scientific theories such as racism or eugenics.  Based on the latest scientific findings, the US Congress passed the National Origin Act in 1924, which imposed restrictive immigration quotas on southern and central Europeans and almost completely banned immigration from Asia.  The main reason was the belief that peoples like Italians and Poles were racially inferior.  On the other hand, an estimated 70,000 women belonging to ethnic minorities were forcibly sterilised in the 20th century in the United States on the basis of the findings of eugenics (cf. G. Consolmagno, Covid, fede e fallibilità della scienza, La Civiltà Cattolica 4118, pp. 105-119).  In this and other cases, one speaks of so-called "scientific errors".  In addition, however, there are also "ideological fallacies".  These underlie, for example, the change in attitudes to sexuality that can currently be observed (J. A. Reisman, E. W. Eichel, Kinsey, Sex and Fraud: The Indoctrination of a People, Huntington House Publication, Lafayette 1990; J. Colapinto, As Nature Made Him.  The Boy Who Was Raised As a Girl, Harper Perennial, New York-London-Toronto-Sydney 2006).

The process of knowledge development does not stop with our generation.  The generations that come after us will have to put aside some of the books, such as those on psychology or social sciences, which are now considered almost infallible.  So how should the Church respond to the current state of scientific knowledge so as not to repeat the mistake it made with regard to Galileo Galilei?  This is a serious intellectual challenge that we must face by drawing on revelation and the solid achievements of science.

The temptation to live with an inferiority complex.

I am aware that today's Catholics - not only in Germany but also in Poland - live under the pressure of public opinion, which creates a kind of inferiority complex in many of them.  The disciples of Christ in general, Pope Francis wrote, are today threatened by a kind of inferiority complex "which leads them to relativise or hide their Christian identity and convictions.  (...) Finally, they stifle the joy of mission in a kind of obsession to be like everyone else and to have what everyone else has" (Evangelii gaudium, 79).

Pope Francis, in an address to the staff of the Roman Curia, stressed that we no longer live in a "Christian system" in Europe today (Francis, Address to the Roman Curia on the Occasion of the Christmas Wish, 21 December 2019).  The world has become more pluralistic in many ways.  An important cause of this change in the Old Continent is "a profound crisis of faith which has afflicted many people".  Faith "no longer constitutes a self-evident condition of common life, but is often even denied, ridiculed, marginalised and ridiculed".  Unfortunately, "the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers" (2 Cor 4:4).  They do not endure sound doctrine but seek teachers according to their own lusts (cf. 2 Tim 4:3).  Therefore the warning addressed to the Romans is justified: "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove and discern what is the will of God: that which is good, and acceptable, and perfect!" (Rom 12:2).

True to the teaching of the Church, we must not give in to the pressures of the world or the models of the prevailing culture, as this can lead to moral and spiritual corruption.  Let us avoid repeating hackneyed slogans and standard demands such as the abolition of celibacy, the priesthood of women, communion for remarried divorcees or the blessing of same-sex partnerships.  "Updating" the definition of marriage in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights is no reason to tamper with the gospel.

The temptation of corporate thinking

I know that the Church in Germany is losing more and more believers and that the number of priests is decreasing year by year.  It is therefore looking for ways to keep the faithful in line and to encourage young people to choose the priesthood.  In doing so, however, it seems to be exposing itself to the danger of corporate thinking: "There is a shortage of personnel, we should lower the recruitment criteria".  Therefore, the postulate of lifting the obligation of priestly celibacy was included in the text "Promise of celibacy in the service of the priest", which had its first reading on 4 February this year at the meeting of the "Synodal Path" in Frankfurt am Main.

The answer to the question of the relationship between the requirement of priestly celibacy and the number of vocations has already been given by Pope Paul VI: "We are not inclined to believe that the abolition of ecclesiastical celibacy would immediately cause a significant increase in the number of vocations to the priesthood.  The current practice of the Churches and other religious communities which allow their clergy to marry seems to prove the opposite" (Sacerdotalis celibatus, 49).

The causes of the crisis lie elsewhere.  We clergy have often become mere experts on social, migration and environmental policies, which certainly does not require a celibate life.  But Christ, as Pope Francis points out, does not need clergy who are obsessively preoccupied with their free time and "feel an urgent need to preserve their freedoms, as if an evangelising mission were a dangerous poison rather than a joyful response to the love of God who calls us to mission" (Evangelii gaudium, 81).  The faithful deserve priests who place themselves entirely at the service of Christ.  Christ calls his disciples to "be with him" (Mk 3:14).  What draws people to the Church and to the priesthood is not another offer of an easy life, but the example of a life totally consecrated to God.

In this context, the German "Synodal journey" also took up the question of women's ordination and voted on the text "Women in Ministries and Offices in the Church" on 4 February in Frankfurt am Main.  John Paul II finally settled this question.  "In order, therefore, that any doubt may be removed concerning the important matter which concerns the divine constitution of the Church itself, I declare, by virtue of my office of strengthening the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32), that the Church has no authority whatsoever to ordain women to the priesthood, and that all the faithful of the Church must definitively abide by this decision" (John Paul II, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, 4).

Pope Francis has already reminded us of this on several occasions: "And as far as the ordination of women is concerned, the Church has spoken out and said: 'No'.  John Paul II said it definitively.  This gate is closed, but on this matter I want to tell you something.  I have already said it, but I repeat it.  Our Lady, Mary, was more important than the apostles, bishops, deacons and priests.  A woman in the Church is more important than bishops and priests" (Francis, press conference on flight from Rio de Janeiro to Rome, 28.07.2013).

In the modern world, equality is often misunderstood and equated with uniformity.  Any difference is treated as a sign of discrimination.  Moreover, the priesthood is sometimes misunderstood as a source of domination and ecclesiastical career rather than humble service.  John Paul II, in his teaching on the Sacrament of Holy Orders reserved for men, invoked the will of Christ and Tradition, referring to what he called the "complementarity of the sexes".  Women played a very important role in the life of Jesus, besides James and John there are also Mary and Martha.  They were the first witnesses of the resurrection.  Finally, we have the Blessed Virgin Mary, without whose consent the mystery of the Incarnation would not have taken place and from whom Jesus learned to be human.  Although Christ violated the rules accepted in Jewish society for the relationship between man and woman, as in his conversation with the Samaritan woman, he did not leave the slightest doubt that the priesthood was a vocation exclusively for men (cf. Mulieris dignitatem, 26; Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, 2).  However, this did not prevent women from playing an equally important, sometimes perhaps even more important role in the Church than men.  The list of female saints who have significantly influenced the destiny of the Church is long.  They include Saint Hildegard of Bingen, Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Hedwig, Queen of Poland, Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint Faustina.

In addition, in one of the four forums of the "Synodal journey", a working document "Living in Successful Relationships" was voted on, which promotes the erroneous and scandalous practice of blessing same-sex partnerships and attempts to change the Church's teaching on the sin of homosexual acts.

The Catechism clearly distinguishes between homosexual inclinations and homosexual acts.  It teaches respect for every person regardless of inclination, but clearly condemns homosexual acts as contrary to nature (cf. Rom 1:24-27; 1 Cor 6:9-10).

Despite outrage, ostracism and unpopularity, the Catholic Church, faithful to the truth of the Gospel and at the same time driven by love for every human being, cannot remain silent and agree with this false image of humanity, let alone bless or promote it.

The inadmissibility of blessing same-sex couples was recalled by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in its letter of 22 February 2021: "To be consistent with the nature of the sacramentals, it is therefore necessary that, when a blessing is invoked upon some human relationships, apart from the right intention of those who participate in it, the reality to be blessed is objectively and positively ordered to receive and express grace, in the service of God's plans inscribed in creation and fully revealed by Christ the Lord. Therefore, only that which is in itself ordered to serve these plans is compatible with the nature of the blessing given by the Church.  For this reason, it is not permissible to confer a blessing on relationships or even stable partnerships that involve sexual practice outside of marriage (that is, outside of an indissoluble union of a man and a woman that is in itself open to the transmission of life), as is the case with unions of persons of the same sex" (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Responsum ad dubium of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the Blessing of Unions of Persons of the Same Sex).

The temptation to bow to pressure.

The present crisis of the Church in Europe is above all a crisis of faith.  In order to speak about God, we must first speak to God who lives in the depths of our hearts where we taste the truth (R. Sarah, Serving the Truth, Wydawnictwo Sióstr Loretanek, Warszawa 2021, p. 148).  The crisis of faith is one of the reasons why the Church has difficulties in proclaiming clear theological and moral teaching.

The authority of the Pope and the Bishops is most needed when the Church is going through a difficult time and when it is under pressure to deviate from the teachings of Jesus.  When it experiences similar dramas as the Christians in Galatia.  She needs to say this emphatically: "There is no other gospel, there are only some people who confuse you and who want to distort the gospel of Christ" (Gal 1:7).

Pope Paul VI, under pressure for his position on contraception expressed in the encyclical Humanae vitae, wrote: "Should the moral law be lowered to the level of what people habitually do, thus reducing morality to the level of custom (which, by the way, may be even worse tomorrow than it is today, and where will we end up then)?  Or, on the contrary, is it necessary to maintain a high level of the ideal, even if it is difficult to achieve, even if the ordinary person feels unable or guilty to achieve it?  I think that along with all sages, heroes and saints, I would say: All true friends of human nature and true human happiness (believers and unbelievers), even if they protest and resist, will give thanks in their hearts to the authority that has enough light, strength and confidence not to lower the ideal.  Neither the prophets of Israel nor the apostles of the Church ever set out to lower the ideal, nor did they soften the concept of perfection, nor did they try to narrow the gap between the ideal and nature.  They never restricted the concept of sin - quite the contrary" (Paul VI, in: J. Guitton, Dialogues with Paul VI, Poznań 1969, p. 296).

Similarly, Pope Francis wrote: "Since the faith is one, it must be confessed in all its purity and integrity.  Precisely because all the articles of faith are bound together in unity, to deny any one of them, even those that seem less important, is to harm the whole, as it were.  Every epoch experiences that individual aspects of the faith can be accepted more easily or with greater difficulty: Therefore it is important to be vigilant so that the whole deposit of faith is passed on (cf. 1 Tim 6:20), so that all aspects of the confession of faith are insisted upon in an appropriate manner.  Inasmuch as the unity of the faith is the unity of the Church, to take something away from the faith is in fact to take something away from the truth of communion" (Lumen fidei, 48).

Dear Brother in the episcopate, our attitude towards the world cannot be fundamentally negative, for Christ did not come into the world to judge the world, but to save the world (cf. Jn 12:47).  God does not want the sinner to die, but to repent and live (cf. Ez 33:11).  Our task is to find effective ways to make people repent.  Therein also lies the mercy of God.  When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, "for they were like sheep without a shepherd.  And he taught them for a long time" (Mk 6:34).  This sentence does not mean that there were no shepherds in Israel at that time who were entrusted with the care of God's sheepfold.  However, there was a serious danger that if the shepherds failed, God's people, i.e. those who belong to God, would be scattered and many sheep would be lost or fall prey to predators.

I know - we have spoken about this in our meetings, also recently in Poznan - that you care about the fate of the sheepfold entrusted to you and that you desire that none of the sheep go astray, that each of the believers entrusted to you attain eternal life with Christ.  So let me conclude with the words that are found at the beginning of Paul's letter to the Ephesians: "Finally, become strong through the power and might of the Lord.  Put on the armour of God to resist the wiles of the devil.  For we have to fight not against men of flesh and blood, but against powers and authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the evil spirits in the heavenly realms.  Therefore, put on the armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the day of calamity, to accomplish all things and to stand firm!  Stand therefore, your hips girded with truth, clothed in the breastplate of righteousness, your feet shod with readiness for the gospel of peace.  Above all, take up the shield of faith!  With it you can extinguish all the fiery projectiles of evil.  And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God!  Do not cease from prayer and supplication!  Pray at all times in the Spirit; be watchful, persevere, and pray for all the saints, even for me, that the right word may be given me, as often as I open my mouth to proclaim with boldness the mystery of the gospel; as its messenger I am in chains, that in it I may speak freely, as is my duty" (Eph 6:10-20).

With distinguished esteem and fraternal greetings in Christ,

+ Stanisław Gądecki

Archbishop Metropolitan of Poznan

President of the Polish Bishops' Conference

Warsaw, 22 February 2022

On the Feast of Saint Peter’s Chair

Source

Polish Catholic Action have made their views firmly felt more recently.   

This upset the Germans

See also original report.