Rorate Caeli has an interesting story up here about a bizarre group called the Neocatechumenal Way. This group is pretty dissident on a number of fronts and has in the past incurred sharp criticism from orthodox Roman Catholics. In any event the Catholic bishops of Japan apparently have had enough and announced that the group was to have its activities suspended for five years. So far so good.
But... Apparently no one checked with Rome, or maybe the problem is that they did. Now the Holy See has intervened and said "No, you can't do this to them." Rome demands that the bishops of Japan must dialogue with them, with the mediation of someone who "loves" the NCW. What claptrap! The NCW is a wacko group that flaunts RC discipline and by most accounts is filled to the rafters with heretics. Suppressing such groups is (or should be) a part of the job description for any bishop.
Which brings me to my points. The Japanese bishops were acting the way one would expect of true bishops. But Rome is demonstrating two things that should give serious pause to any Orthodox ready to ring the "communion now with Rome" bell.
1. First, Rome tolerates, and apparently has active defenders in high places for, groups like the Neocatechumenal Way. And...
2. When the rubber hits road, there is only one real bishop in the Roman Catholic Church. The rest are glorified auxiliary bishops who serve at the pleasure of, and take their marching orders from Rome.
Kinda reminds me of a scandalous situation a little closer to home here in Orthodox N. America... But that's a subject for another day.
The Wisdom of Man and the Foolishness of God
2 hours ago
5 comments:
I've heard things about this Neocatechumenal Way, but never specifics (the first I learned from them was from Hilary White's blog). So, what is/are their heresies?
Ingemar,
The below link is to an RC priest's review of the NCW. He goes into considerable detail. Obviously he is approaching doctrine from an RC perspective. But setting that aside this is not a group I think we would want anything to do with.
http://eraofpeace.tripod.com/nchintro.html
In ICXC
John
I have some friends in the UK who belonged to NCW years ago. They left when the group they were with, which they loved, was suppressed. The male of this couple, born a Welsh Catholic, never returned to the RCC. The woman of the couple was a liberal Evangelical sort who had been looking for something deeper. As they described it to me, NCW, at least in the UK, was geared toward people who would otherwise never darken the door of a Catholic Church, or any church, and they had a program similar to Alpha, but much more intensive and community oriented. Their descriptions of the liturgical ritual were odd, liberalish, yes, but not "We are Church" or sophia worshipping. From baptism to confirmation to eucharist, it was something like a blend of Catholic, anabaptist, and proto-emergent church ritualization.
The NCW was dear to the heart of JPII and is seen as a major player in the New Evangelization. Rome has its back. It is important to keep in mind that some of the people in Rome (one biggie in particular) who conservative Catholics love to hold as "faithful to the magisterium' were reformers in the Church 50 years ago. Ben XVI is a reformer at heart. Sure, he will let go of dead wood that is utterly and completely dead, but with a group that has energy and vitality to it, he is going to make every effort to reform it and keep it within the modicum of Roman boundaries. Anything with any potential for bringing numbers of people in is going to be kept going. We'll deal with the problems later, etc., etc.
With regard to the Vatican using muscle - if this were the Pope cleaning up some heretical mess I think most Orthodox (ironically perhaps) would applaud it. I myself have asked what the point is in having a Pope with VatI powers if he is rarely going to use them and allow nonsense to continue for generations on end. The response from neo-Caths has been, "well the Pope can do such and such but he may not do such and such for reasons of expediency, and because of a thousand other agreements and precedents and traditional ways of handling things, etc. This situation is curious, because the Pope seems to have stepped in and clearly overruled a local bishop firmly concerning a matter which has been an issue only in the last few years. If the Pope will do it for NCW, why not use that muscle as decisively in other areas? Then again, some Catholic friends tell me that the Vatican assumes that 70s era liberal Catholicism will naturally die out on its own anyway. And as I state above, the NCW is something the Vatican thinks has the potential to continue to bring in numbers.
More reading on the Neocatechumenals:
http://www.internetica.it/neocatecumenali/english/home-en.htm
Of particular interest for the Orthodox is the following link, given the NCW's habit of using pseudo-byzantine iconography:
http://www.internetica.it/neocatecumenali/english/blasphemous-use-HolyTrinity.htm
For those who can read Italian (or you can use Google translate):
http://neocatecumenali.blogspot.com
http://www.internetica.it/neocatecumenali/index.html
You consistently take your "Outrage!" cue from radtrads who really don't know much about what happens behind the scenes here. And it's pretty insolent on your part to draw such serious conclusions about what Rome is doing here or about the nuances of Catholic ecclesiology.
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