Spiritual emotions result in Christian practice because their object is the loveliness of spiritual things, not our self-interest. People have a defective Christianity because they are seeking their own interests in it, not God’s. So they accept Christianity only to the extent that they think it serves their interests. By contrast, a person who accepts it for its own excellent and lovely nature, accepts everything which has that nature.
Jonathan Edwards

Collegiality Of Bishops

Collegiality Of Bishops

COLLEGIALITY OF BISHOPS

POST VATICAN II While supposedly always a Roman Catholic doctrine, this was defined in Vatican II where it was maintained that the bishops of the world formed a “College of Bishops” and had real rights of expression and authority, although always subserviebnt to the Pope.

A number of more progressive bishops tried to flex their muscles at a bishops/’ synod in Rome in 1980. The results are in the following news stories, both from the San Jose, CA MERCURY.

10/1/80. “An Italian cardinal Tuesday criticized a proposal by an American archbishop to review and possibly update the church’s ban on artificial birth control. `I listened to a discourse asking for a new study on Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI’s encyclical banning artificial contraceptives. I consider the document closed,’ said Cardinal Pericle Felici, 69, a member of the Roman Curia.

“Archbishop John Quinn of San Francisco had called for a new study on the church’s doctrine of birth control and sexuality. Quinn had said the `crisis of faith’ of birth control was immmense. `Approaches found in the manuals and in pre-Vatican II authors are not adequate for the present situation. New approcaches must be found which are compatible with fidelity to truth and with the changed situation in the modern world,’ Quinn said.

” The most forceful criticism came from Cardinal George Basil Hume (England), who said that many `good, conscientious and faithful’ Catholics could nnot accept the church’s total ban on artificial birth control. `It cannot be just said that these persons have failed to overcome their huyman frailty and weakness; the problem is more complex than that,’ Hume said.

`Archbishop Joeseph Bernardin of Cincinnati (now Cardinal in Chicago) told the synod, `A new, more positive theology of sexuality is necessary.'”

10/2/80. “`Neither In now the American Bishops’ Conference reject or challenge the doctrine of the Catholic Church on contraception,’ said Quinn. `The intent of my speech was to suggest possible ways of making the church’s teaching on contraception better understood and more widely acceptable,’ said Quinn.”

CHRISTIAN COMMENT It is clear that the Bishops thought the “collegiality of bishops” gave them permission to contribute actively to the Roman Catholic moral teachings such as Birth Control. Very quickly, however, a member of the Curia set them straight and the following day Archbishop Quinn reversed his statment to fit in to the wishes of the Curia.

The Bishops found out that they could say whatever they wanted to say, as long as they said what ther pope wants them to say.