A former head of the US bishops’ committee on doctrine was forced to resign as an adviser to the US bishops’ conference last week after publishing a letter criticising Pope Francis.
Fr Thomas Weinandy, a member of the Vatican’s International Theological Commission, accused the Pope of causing confusion. He was asked to resign from his bishops’ conference role on the day the letter was made public.
“A chronic confusion seems to mark your pontificate. The light of faith, hope, and love is not absent, but too often it is obscured by the ambiguity of your words and actions.
“Too often your manner seems to demean the importance of Church doctrine,” he said. “Again and again you portray doctrine as dead and bookish, and far from the pastoral concerns of everyday life.”
Of Amoris Laetitia, Fr Weinandy wrote: “Your guidance at times seems intentionally ambiguous, thus inviting both a traditional interpretation of Catholic teaching on marriage and divorce as well as one that might imply a change in that teaching. To teach with such a seemingly intentional lack of clarity inevitably risks sinning against the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth.”
He accused Pope Francis of seemingly trying to “censor and even mock” people with traditional views on divorce and remarriage by suggesting they were “Pharisaic stone-throwers who embody a merciless rigorism”.
“This kind of calumny is alien to the nature of the Petrine ministry,” he added. Faithful Catholics were also demoralised by the “teaching and practice” of bishops who “seem not merely open to those who hold views counter to Christian belief, but who support and even defend them,” Fr Weinandy said.
Francis’s pontificate, he wrote, had “given those who hold harmful theological and pastoral views the licence and confidence to come into the light and expose their previously hidden darkness”.
Fr Weinandy said people were nervous about speaking out. “Bishops are quick learners, and what many have learned from your pontificate is not that you are open to criticism, but that you resent it,” he wrote.
He said he had not received a reply to the letter and felt compelled to publish it.
Francis: I backed Benedict for pope
Pope Francis has said he urged his fellow cardinals to vote for Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in the 2005 conclave.
He told Argentinian journalist Hernán Reyes Alcaide, who has published a book-length interview: “At that moment in history the only man with the stature, the wisdom and the necessary experience to be elected was Ratzinger. Otherwise there existed the danger of electing a ‘compromise pope’.”
Areas of Catholic Herald business are still recovering post-pandemic.
However, we are reaching out to the Catholic community and readership, that has been so loyal to the Catholic Herald. Please join us on our 135 year mission by supporting us.
We are raising £250,000 to safeguard the Herald as a world-leading voice in Catholic journalism and teaching.
We have been a bold and influential voice in the church since 1888, standing up for traditional Catholic culture and values. Please consider donating.