Head of Polish bishops holds the line against heterodox German bishops
19 October 2015
Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki has again spoken out strongly against the attempt at the Synod on the Family to subvert doctrine. Below is a statement on the website of the Polish Episcopal Conference (translation courtesy of Toronto Catholic Witness ):
Archbishop Gądecki: they are trying to push through changes in doctrine
Changes proposed in discipline, by some Synodal fathers regarding communion for the divorced represent in these assumptions the attempt to smuggle changes into the very doctrine of the Church. This is addressed by Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki who is participating in the Synod of the Family.
“Practically all are repeating that there will be no doctrinal change, but this is understood in different ways. For if you add to this first group that disciplinary changes are possible, this means, in practice, that doctrinal stability is being nullified. In my opinion one cannot speak of the separation of the practice of the Church from her doctrine, from her teachings. The two are inseparable. I have the impression that many supporters of this modernity, are in fact thinking about changing doctrine, yet calling it a change in Church discipline. It is a disturbing point in these discussions, for it is strongly emphasized: “we accept the entire doctrine”, but there immediately follows a suggestion that doctrine has nothing to do with it. This is greatly worrying me, for one and the other are saying that they want no change in doctrine. From where then, are arising these practices opposed to doctrine?
Archbishop Gądecki has described well the two-faced nature of the Modernist, which Pope St Pius X also warned about in 1907:
“[T]hey play the double part of rationalist and Catholic, and this so craftily that they easily lead the unwary into error … Thus in their books one finds some things which might well be approved by a Catholic, but on turning over the page one is confronted by other things which might well have been dictated by a rationalist.”
And as long ago as 1794, Pope Pius VI also warned that the radical religious ideas of his day:
“cannot be excused in the way that one sees it being done, under the erroneous pretext that the seemingly shocking affirmations in one place are further developed along orthodox lines in other places, and even in yet other places corrected; as if allowing for the possibility of either affirming or denying the statement, or of leaving it up to the personal inclinations of the individual – such has always been the fraudulent and daring method used by innovators to establish error. It allows for both the possibility of promoting error and of excusing it.”
The German bishops, lead by Cardinal Marx, are attempting to rationalise away Catholic doctrine by corrupting Church discipline so that unrepentant adulterers may take Holy Communion. Voice of the Family commends Archbishop Gądecki for standing up to the German bishops. We are nonetheless sad that, 70 years after the end of the Second World War, the Oder-Neisse line between Germany and Poland now seems to be dividing the Church along the lines of heterodoxy and Catholicism. Please pray with us for the Church at this critical hour.