 |
| Rev. John Wijngaards |
Proposed Constitution for the Catholic Church January 29, 2025 In memory of John Wijngaards passing and on behalf of the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research, Dr. Luca Badini Confalonieri will present their proposed Constitution for the Catholic Church. Click here to read about the Constitution. Aspects of this proposals address some of the challenges facing the Church today.This will ultimately be carried to Rome during the 2025 Jubilee Year and sent through Cardinal Grech to committee #9 established by Pope Francis to study some of the complex dogmas of the Church. Sign on is https://zoom.us/j/2429500175: Password is spirit. To find the times for you in your locale, click on Our Universal Calendar. This will be offered live in the first presentation and repeated later this day using the recording. Last words with John Wijngaards with thanks to the Synodal Times Experience is our best teacher. That is what the Roman general Julius Caesar stated more than two thousand years ago. I agree with him. As an 87 years old Catholic priest and theologian, I have worked for the Church for most of my life. Experience has taught me that old Mother Church needs to adopt at least ten urgent changes.... The Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research decided to make use of my ten recommendations in the context of the Synodal Path. A special document was drawn up. It calls for ten urgent pastoral reforms. The document received worldwide endorsements by Catholic individuals and movements.... Reforms affecting church personnel When I started studying theology in London, I came across the wonderful books by Teilhard de Chardin. I loved the way he interwove evolution with our belief in Jesus as the incarnate Son of God. I was aghast at the way the Church forbade him to teach and tried to suppress his books. He combined his archeological expertise of evolution with a profound mystical theology. Remember his statement: “Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, humankind will have discovered fire!” Later, as a student at the Biblical Institute in Rome, I experienced how two of our top professors, Max Zerwick and Stanislaus Lyonnet, were dismissed from their jobs. This was done a few days before the Second Vatican Council opened. Its purpose was obviously to discredit the findings of modern bible studies in the eyes of the thousands of bishops who were converging on Rome. Pope John Paul II and Benedict XIV continued the reign of terror by trying to silence hundreds of prominent scholars around the world. Think of Leonardo Boff (Brazil), Uta Ranke-Heinemann (Germany), Tissa Balasuriya (Sri Lanka) and Charles Curran and Margaret Farley (USA), to mention only a few. This is absolutely stupid. The Bible itself teaches: “If you listen to constructive criticism, you will take your place among the wise. If you ignore criticism, you will hurt yourself” (Prov 15,31). So a first reform that is needed: Allow theologians and other scholars unrestricted freedom of research without fear of the consequences. Another serious defect in church administration I found concerns the appointment of church leaders. Our previous traditionalist Popes placed arch-conservatives in top Vatican positions. The Second Vatican Council prescribed Iiturgical adaptation in each country.... I saw how in one country after the other old-school clerics were appointed bishops to block the local implementation of reforms decreed by the Second Vatican Council. A leaked document, the Secret Examination of Episcopal Candidates, revealed that ‘orthodoxy’, that is: the uncritical acceptance of all recent papal statements, was a key requirement. The candidate should be scrutinised on: “Sincere communion with the teaching authority of the Church (the Magisterium). What does he think about women’s ordination? Sexual ethics? and in particular the teachings of Humanae Vitae? To what extent is he loyal to the traditions of the Church?” This gave rise to me demanding three urgent reforms: Recognise that a pastoral leader’s first priority is caring for people, not upholding ecclesiastical institutions; Select perceptive administrators in the Roman Curia, not narrow-minded bureaucrats and Appoint open-minded pastoral bishops, not hard-line traditionalists. Reforms in the approach to sexuality In 1968, while I was teaching in St John’s Major Seminary for Andhra Pradesh in India, a colleague of mine, Fr Eddie Bennett, was away on a lecture tour. He taught morality and church law. He asked me to look after his correspondence during his absence. One day a heavy envelope came in for him. It had been sent by the papal nunciature in New Delhi. Intrigued I opened the packet and found a copy of a new encyclical: Humanae Vitae. Moral theologians all over India received it to give them advance information before the media would get hold of it. A covering document gave strict instructions to defend the Pope’s teaching against any possible opposition. When I read the document I understood the Vatican’s concern. Against the advice of the majority of the Vatican’s own pontifical commission and international scholarship, Humanae Vitae forbade the use of any artificial family planning. It spelled disaster for many families in India, especially the poor who in their ramshackle huts dotted around India’s 600,000 villages would struggle to feed their six to eight children.... I formulated three urgent reforms on these findings: Abandon the misguided repression of sex, based on the assumption that any act not geared to procreation is sinful; Grant parents freedom to plan their families responsibly and Allow priests to benefit from the support of a loving spouse. Reform concerning women During my ministry in India I was asked to become moderator to/of the Conference of Religious in Andhra Pradesh. This brought together 14 religious congregations with 1800 members.... I managed to get noviciates staffed with theologically trained sisters, many of these were sent to Rome to obtain full academic qualifications. I also founded Jeevan Jyothi institute in which sisters could follow a year’s theological formation as part of their juniorate training programme. And while this was going on, a thought kept haunting me: if sisters could be scholars in literature or economics, principals of huge colleges, surgeons in hospitals, why couldn’t they play more significant roles in church ministry? The question came to a head when, in 1975, I was asked to prepare a talk on women’s ministries in an all-India seminar on the ministries. I asked myself: why can women not be priests? Theological research on this filled me with horror. I found that women were excluded by theologians like Thomas Aquinas because “they are born as misfits by an accident of nature”, “they are inferior by nature”, “they are not created in God’s image as men are”, “they are subject to men”, “they were not at the Last Supper when Christ said Do this in memory of me” and “they are not perfect human beings and so cannot represent Christ”. I presented my findings at the seminar and recommended that the Indian Bishops Conference request the Pope to thoroughly re-investigate the matter. This urgent reform ranks high on the list: Give women full access to holy orders. My public dissent with Rome grew in the decades that followed. I wrote "Did Christ Rule Out Women Priests?" (1977) to counter Pope Paul VI’s ‘Inter Insigniores’. "The Ordination of Women in the Catholic Church" (2001) exposes the errors in Pope John-Paul II’s ‘Ordinatio Sacerdotalis’ and other decrees. "Women Deacons in the Early Church" (2006) proves that women were sacramentally ordained as deacons during the first millennium. What they don’t teach you in Catholic College. "Women in the priesthood and the mind of Christ" (2020) summarises the abundant evidence supporting women’s ordination. When Rome declared that the exclusion of women was ‘definitive’ and that those who hold women can be ordained priests, are ‘ no longer in full communion with the Catholic Church’, I publicly resigned from my active priestly ministry – but not from my being a priest. Reforms regarding the way the Church is run Working on a video series for faith formation took me all over the world. In 1995 I was on my way to Bogotá in Colombia. To my dismay I had to change planes in Quito, Ecuador, which meant I had to spend a whole night in the somewhat barren lounge of Quito airport. As luck would have it, I met an interesting person. He was a German businessman. I will call him Hermann. When Hermann found out I was a priest, he told me his story. He too was a Catholic, but had left the Church he said. When I asked him “Why?”, he responded. “I am gay. I live with a good partner. We love each other. Until recently we were members of a Catholic homosexual community that used to meet regularly. On Saturday evenings our moderator, a wonderful Catholic priest, used to celebrate the eucharist for us. Then a new bishop was appointed. He disbanded our community, forbade Mass, told us that living together in our condition was a sin.” I tried to reassure him – with little effect.... Reforming the way the Church is governed can only be achieved by a thorough overhaul. That is why the Wijngaards Institute has also submitted to the Synodal discussions a complete proposed new Constitution for the Church. This should underlie Church law. It incorporates authority and responsibility as to how the Church is run for every member of the People of God. Some research areas in which the Wijngaards Institute has delved include several controversial topics in the Church Research reports issued by the Wijngaards Institute With the final document of the 2024 Synod encouraging the People of God having a say in choosing their bishop, the Int'l church reform networks joined together with the Wijngaards Institute and other specialists to host a three-part series on the selection of bishops involving the people. John Wijngaards and his Institute along with the int'l reform networks encourage dioceses around the world when an opening for a new bishop is about to occur, to seriously explore setting up a process for the selection of a new bishop that would involve the clergy and laity of the diocese to become involved. |
Your donations are most appreciated YOUR GIFT – IN ANY AMOUNT – IS PRICELESS When you make a donation to support our cause, you join with others who are investing in restoring our Church to what Jesus intended. The dollars we receive are used to run our programs and to reach a broad spectrum of the People of God. We are focused on reaching out to the Faithful, reform activists, young adults as well as those who feel abandoned by the Church, to mention just a few. Your personal contributions in offering your suggestions and your donations are most appreciated. We have begun to genuinely join our voices together behaving as a synodal Church. Let us now be willing to assume co-responsibility for our role in our parishes or Small Christian Communities. Becoming a synodal church will not happen unless we the laity together with our clergy initiate the process. We will keep you informed of more to come as we move forward to become a more synodal Church. We will continue to offer more online gatherings as a community. On behalf of the CCRI steering committee, Rene Reid, CCRI director |
No comments:
Post a Comment