There has been some conversation recently about some foreign prelate called something like Holerich ... I think he is possibly a nether lander ... wasn't there once a cartoon character called Brother Choleric ... I wonder if they are related ... or even, identical ...
He is portrayed as emphasising our duties of unquestioning obedience to whoever, or whatever, is currently Bishop of Rome. He obeys them, he has explained, as long as they live, but is At The Ready ... waiting for the Starting Gun ... the moment they die. For example, S JP2 took a firm line against the Ordination of Women, and PF has confirmed that stand, but as soon the poor fellow is dead, it will be Open Season for Brother to "expand" that teaching.
Obeying the present pope but dumping those in the past is, however, not a new idea. Some prelate called Scicluna had it some years ago.
"Whoever wishes to discover what Jesus wants from him, he must ask the pope, this pope, not the one who came before him, or the one before that. This present pope."
The only new element added by Br H E Choleric is that he looks boldly to the future. A sign, presumably, that he is expecting some imminent change. (In England, we have sort of feeling that it's Bad Form to speculate on "When the Queen is dead", but, as I wrote, Choleric is a Not One Of Us.)
My only contribution to this debate is to point out that, according to the First Vatican Council, such teaching is heretical. As the Council taught:
"The Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter, not so that by his revelation they might publish new teaching, but so that by his assistance they might devoutly guard and faithfully expound the revelation handed down through the Apostles: the Deposit of Faith."
Pretty clear, yeah?
Perhaps our Eminent Brother Cholerich will one day feature in an Auto da Fe in the Piazza in front of S Peter's?
5 comments:
Cardinal Hollerich is the archbishop of Luxemburg, which historically was part of the Netherlands, so you are not quite wrong. His Eminence on the other hand is quite wrong.
One terrible truth is as clear as the daylight on St. John's Day: heresy is now institutionalized in the post-conciliar Church (even worse in the Protestant sects), a matter of the everyday life of the Church. A few, half-scared-to-death priests and prelates who seem to quietly resist the apostasy notwithstanding, the official church now seems to be heretical from the top down. So the painful---and existential question---is: can this new confection be still recognized as the One Church of Christ? Another question is: is there a possibility of return to sanity and orthodoxy from this "aggiornamento"? It is not uncharitable to hope that the ones, high and low, who are responsible for this metaphysical crime against the Body of Christ see divine justice done.
This is the Mormon doctrine concerning their Prophets, that a living Prophet may alter the teacher of an earlier Prophet. It is consistent with their doctrine of progressive revelation.
Their founder, Joseph Smith, and his powerfully impressive successor, Brigham Young, both taught throughout the 19th century that "plural marriage" was an essential element in the Restoration.
When the US government put its foot down about it, their new Prophet got a revelation and changed the rules in 1890 and now plural marriage (on earth) is severely condemned.
"Perhaps our Eminent Brother Cholerich will one day feature in an Auto da Fe in the Piazza in front of S Peter's?"
We can only hope and pray. I shall bring popcorn to the trial and chestnuts to the ...eh...well...
"Brother Cholerich was under the impression that an Auto da Fe was some kind of Italian car rally. It was only when the reached the piazza, and saw the bonfire that he realised he was not going to see Ferrari race against Lamborghini.
"Fortunately for him, Pope Valentine II the Merciful had decreed that only Cholerich's writings would be consigned to the flames. Cholerich himself was made to sit in a comfy chair in the piazza, with a cup of tea at 11, and write out one thousand times: 'The Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter, not so that by his revelation they might publish new teaching, but so that by his assistance they might devoutly guard and faithfully expound the revelation handed down through the Apostles: the Deposit of Faith.' "
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