Archbishop Gadecki has written an extensive and heartfelt letter to his German counterpart.
Gaudium Press English Edition (25/02/2022 14:39, Gaudium Press) In a very personal and close, yet frank and clear letter, the President of the Polish Episcopate, Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki, addressed his counterpart in Germany, Archbishop Georg Batzing, to express his “deep concern and apprehension about the information recently received from some spheres of the Catholic Church in Germany.”
The Polish archbishop thus wants to show Archbishop Batzing “my concern about the validity of statements made by some circles of the Catholic Church in Germany, especially in the context of the ‘synodal path’.”
“I view with apprehension the actions of the German ‘synodal path’ so far. Observing its fruits, one gets the impression that the Gospel is not always the basis for reflection,” he says.
“One of the temptations of the Church today is to constantly compare the teachings of Jesus with current developments in psychology and the social sciences. If something in the Gospel does not match the current state of knowledge of these sciences, the disciples, wanting to save the Master from being compromised in the eyes of his contemporaries, seek to ‘update’ the Gospel. The temptation to “modernize” particularly concerns the area of sexual identity. It is forgotten, however, that the state of scientific knowledge changes frequently and sometimes dramatically, for example due to paradigm shifts. Mutability is inherent in the very nature of science, which has only a fragment of all possible knowledge,” warns Archbishop Gadecki.
“Some historical errors in science, such as racist or eugenic doctrines, have dramatic consequences,” he emphasizes.
Worn-out slogans and standard claims
“Faithful to the teaching of the Church,” continues the prelate, “we must not yield to the pressures of the world or the standards of the dominant culture, for this can lead us to moral and spiritual corruption. Let us avoid repeating worn-out slogans and standard demands such as the abolition of celibacy, the priesthood of women, communion for the divorced, and the blessing of same-sex unions.”
After claiming to be aware that the Church in Germany “is steadily losing its faithful” and that “the number of priests decreases year after year,” Archbisop Gadecki warns against a “corporate thinking” that would be expressed in the aphorism “there are not enough employees, so let’s lower the hiring criteria.” The cause of the vocation crisis is not related to issues such as the celibacy requirement. “Clergy have often become little more than experts on social, migration and environmental policies,” he pointed out. “What attracts people to the Church and the priesthood is not an offer of an easy life, but the example of a life totally consecrated to God.”
Issues already solved
The Archbishop of Poznan recalls that the issue of the ordination of women has already been resolved by St. John Paul II, a magisterial teaching repeated by the current Pontiff, which does not prevent women from exercising spiritual functions in the Church.
Archbishop Gadecki strongly criticizes the “erroneous and scandalous practice,” favoured by the so-called German synodal path, of “blessing same-sex relations” and its attempt to “change the Church’s teaching on the sin of homosexual acts,” explained in the Catechism of the Church and in a document of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Finally, the Archbishop invites his brother in the episcopate not to succumb to the pressure of the world.
Compiled by Roberta MacEwan
