Monday, April 18, 2022

I wrote about the scandal of The Catholic Catechism decades ago

I even sent hard copies and email copies of my complaints to the CDC two different times - once when Ratzinger was Prefect and once when Mueller was Perfect - and I never even received a response indicating that they had even received them, and now this from Rorate:


However, we still heard of some oddities. For example, we learned that the somewhat aggressive Jewish organization B’nai B’rith submitted its own commentary on the proposed Catholic Catechism—and they were, sub secreto, apparently invited to do so. Another aspect of Ecumenism?

“In his autobiography Clerical Error, Kaiser explains that he left the order before ordination because he felt that he could better implement the Jesuits’ goals by working directly for the CIA as Time magazine’s Rome correspondent during the Second Vatican Council. During the soirees he hosted at his posh Rome apartment on Time’s lavish expense account, Kaiser met Malachi Martin, another Jesuit who had also become a double agent. Martin was being paid by both B’nai B’rith and the American Jewish Committee to subvert the Catholic claim that the Jews had killed Christ.” 
― E. Michael Jones, Pope Francis in Context: Have the End Times Arrived in Buenos Aires?

Former Father Walter Kasper might have encouraged this submission by B’nai B’rith, given his special interests in non-Christian religions, especially his mercy for the Jews. In any case, we were told that the long-awaited “Modi” from Walter Kasper had finally arrived, one of the last sets to arrive, and all the persons seated with and near Cardinal Ratzinger were “as excited as school girls,” as we were told by phone from Rome. (Father Kasper had become a new Bishop—with the approval of John Paul II—only a year before, on 17 June 1989.) When Father Hardon heard of this welcoming expectancy and of the nature of Kasper’s own Commentary (“Modi”), he had some very strong words about Kasper himself and about Kasper’s own personal doctrine “as to the Incarnation.” (However, Kasper was later made a Cardinal by Pope John Paul II, on 21 February 2001.) How are we to understand such things? To include Kasper’s further influential promotions and prestigious positions held under Pope Benedict XVI, as well as his more understandable support and endorsement by the current Pontiff, Francis.



Hmmmm maybe it was B'nai B'rith that helped compile these scandalous entires about Jesus but it is The Pope and Bishops (JP II and his allies) who are responsible for their "Teaching." 

Here is one copy of my now long dated complaint about the Catechism which, when I read these sections, I slammed the catechism to the floor in anger and swore...

The Catholic Catechism Gives Scandal


The Catechism requires a rewrite. Read what it teaches about Scandal:


2284 Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil. The person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor's tempter. He damages virtue and integrity; he may even draw his brother into spiritual death. Scandal is a grave offense if by deed or omission another is deliberately led into a grave offense. 


2285 Scandal takes on a particular gravity by reason of the authority of those who cause it or the weakness of those who are scandalized. It prompted our Lord to utter this curse: "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea."[85] Scandal is grave when given by those who by nature or office are obliged to teach and educate others. Jesus reproaches thescribes and Pharisees on this account: he likens them to wolves in sheep's clothing.[86] 


2286 Scandal can be provoked by laws or institutions, by fashion or opinion. Therefore, they are guilty of scandal who establish laws or social structures leading to the decline of morals and the corruption of religious practice, or to "social conditions that, intentionally or not, make Christian conduct and obedience to the Commandments difficult and practically impossible."[87] This is also true of business leaders who make rules encouraging fraud, teachers who provoke their children to anger,[88] or manipulators of public opinion who turn it away frommoral values. 


2287 Anyone who uses the power at his disposal in such a way that it leads others to do wrong becomes guilty of scandal and responsible for the evil that he has directly or indirectly encouraged. "Temptations to sin are sure to come; but woe to him by whom they come!"[89] 


And then read what it teaches about Jesus and Scandal:


587 If the Law and the Jerusalem Temple could be occasions of opposition to Jesus by Israel's religious authorities, his role in the redemption of sins, the divine work par excellence, was the true stumbling-block for them.363 


588 Jesus scandalized the Pharisees by eating with tax collectors and sinners as familiarly as with themselves.364 Against those among them "who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others", Jesus affirmed: "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."365 He went further by proclaiming before the Pharisees that, since sin is universal, those who pretend not to need salvation are blind to themselves.366 


589 Jesus gave scandal above all when he identified his merciful conduct toward sinners with God's own attitude toward them.367 He went so far as to hint that by sharing the table of sinners he was admitting them to the messianic banquet.368 But it was most especially by forgiving sins that Jesus placed the religious authorities ofIsrael on the horns of a dilemma. Were they not entitled to demand in consternation, "Who can forgive sins but God alone?"369 By forgiving sins Jesus either is blaspheming as a man who made himself God's equal, or is speaking the truth and his person really does make present and reveal God's name.370 


The Catechism is teaching that it is always wrong/sinful to give scandal while at the same time teaching that Jesus gave scandal. 


Of course the Catholic Church does not believe that Jesus sinned but, at least to me anyways, it has erred by emphasizing that Jesus GAVE scandal (twice) rather than that it was the case that Jews took scandal. A claim could be made that, objectively, the CCC teaches that Jesus sinned.


How was it possible that this escaped the notice of the editors?  It hit me like a punch in the stomach when I read it and I threw the catechism to the floor in anger.


Either the entries on scandal must be expanded to include an explication of the specific types of scandal – direct and indirect…


Or – far better


Rewrite the entries about Jesus “giving scandal”: to make it crystal clear it was the Jews who took scandal.


Jesus was not about giving scandal. Mat 17:26 But that we may not scandalize them…


Matt 15:12 Then came his disciples, and said to him: Dost thou know that the Pharisees, when they heard this word, were scandalized?


My Rheims Testament notes: It must be observed here, that Christ was not the direct cause of scandal to the Jews, for such scandal would not be allowable; he only caused it indirectly, because it was his doctrine, at which, through their own perversity, they took scandal.



But the catechism has changed this traditional understanding of indirect scandal and now teaches that even indirect scandal is a sin.


2287 Anyone who uses the power at his disposal in such a way that it leads others to do wrong becomes guilty of scandal and responsible for the evil that he has directly or indirectly encouraged. "Temptations to sin are sure to come; but woe to him by whom they come!


The Catechism entries on this subject must be rewritten. I have thought this way since 1993 when I first read these entries.


When it comes to Jesus and Scandal, The Catholic Catechism scandalises me.



P.S. The ONLY PERSON the CCC teaches who gave scandal is the Divine Person; Jesus, Our Lord and Saviour. It is the only Catechism in history that identifies one person- The DIVINE PERSON - as one who gave scandal.


I wrote this when my S/N was I am not Spartacus


http://www.unamsanctamcatholicam.com/component/content/article/81-theology/320-need-for-theological-precision.html



Catechism of Saint Pius X


Q. Does God also forbid us in the Fifth Commandment to do harm to the spiritual life of another?


A. Yes, in the Fifth Commandment God also forbids us to do harm to another's spiritual life by scandal.


Q. What is scandal?


A. Scandal is any word, act, or omission which is the occasion of another's committing sin.


Q. Is scandal a grave sin?


A. Scandal is a grave sin because, by causing the loss of souls, it tends to destroy the greatest work of God, namely, the redemption; it effects the death of another's soul by depriving it of the life of grace, which is more precious than the life of the body; and is the source of a multitude of sins. Hence God threatens the severest chastisement to those who give scandal.





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