Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich, president of the German bishops’ conference and chair of the international group of 8 cardinals appointed by Pope Francis to help him reform the church, spoke about the church’s moral teachings at a speech last Friday evening in Freising near Munich.
“A Church that knows everything, that has an answer to everything, is not credible,” Cardinal Marx said.
The cardinal addressed the current discussion about the way the Church might in the future handle access to the sacraments by those divorced and remarried. “I am greatly concerned that it will turn into a big ideological battle,” he said. He called upon Catholics in the lay apostolate to strive to discuss the topic in a spirit of unity.
The truth of the faith is “not simply a system that we defend, but rather, the person of Jesus Christ whom we encounter,” the cardinal said. One cannot proclaim the Gospel simply “by taking the catechism in hand, but rather by putting the entirety of life in the balance and proclaiming salvation to the person.”
Cardinal Marx warned of clinging rigidly to tradition: “If we are perceived to be an institution that defends the truth, that is distorted.” He said that we must courageously enter into the reality of life – “but not without any claims to make.”
Source: Katholische Presseagentur Österreich.
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