Massimo Faggioli on Shifting Tectonic Plates of Global Catholicism...

By William D. Lindsey
Bilgrimage
October 21, 2014

http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2014/10/massimo-faggioli-on-shifting-tectonic.html

Massimo Faggioli on Shifting Tectonic Plates of Global Catholicism: Europe and Latin America at Forefront of New Openness, North America, Africa, and English-Speaking Catholics Determined to Resist

Massimo Faggioli in Conversation US on how the synod on the family reveals a tectonic shift in global Catholicism, in which old alliances and loyalties are breaking down and new ones forming:

In this new map [of the Catholic world] Europe and Latin America are at the forefront of the new openness. On the other hand, North America, Africa, and in general English-speaking Catholics are more inclined to hone to a firm countercultural line, refusing to evolve the doctrine and pastoral practice of the church with regard to marriage and family. Asia presents a more complex picture, although the Cardinal from Manila, Luis Antonio Tagle, for example, was one of the leaders of Francis’s majority.

And:

This October the strongest objections to the German bishops' proposed welcome to gay and divorced Catholics came from the representatives of English-speaking Catholics from the United States, Africa, and Australia. Their opposition was carefully planned even before the Synod as one can see from the long paper trail of interviews, op-eds and books laid down by Cardinal Raymond Burke (USA) and Cardinal George Pell (Australia). Once in Rome they argued with the Europeans in a way that has created a new sense of self-awareness in their churches back home.

I might add to Faggioli's statement that the opposition of Burke, Pell, and other right-wing prelates to the proposed welcome to gay and divorced Catholics was not merely carefully planned in advance of the synod: it was also heavily financed in advance of the synod. The fear that the Catholic church may simultaneously loosen its hard line about issues of sexual morality (which have been instrumentally useful to the 1% and the political right in the U.S. for a long time now as they play their divide-and-conquer political games) while stepping up its teachings about socioeconomic justice galvanizes economic elites who want to assure that the leaders of the Catholic church continue to dance to their self-interested tune about these issues.

One of the interesting aspects of most U.S. media discusssions of what's taking place in the Catholic church right now is how heavily invested these discussions are in a false, simplistic meme that emanates from the religious and political right. This meme maintains that Catholic teaching about homosexuality and contraception is carved in doctrinal stone and can't be changed. The media have bought into a mindless dualism which keeps parroting what is essentially a line prepared for them by the hard right within the church: that doctrine cannot and will not change, and that what is under discussion right now at the top levels of the church is a pastoral shift rather than a doctrinal shift.