CNA Staff, Sep 10, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, OP, archbishop of Vienna, said in a recent interview with a French Catholic magazine that in the face of rising secularization and the growth of Islam in many historically Christian nations, Catholics should “trust in the work of grace” and remember that the Church is “an expert in humanity.”
“The Church is alive and will always be, albeit under different circumstances. We must accept the decline of Europe. We tend to gaze at our ecclesiastical navel, but it is an undeniable continental movement,” Schönborn said, speaking to Famille Chrétienne.
“In 20 years, the European population will not be the same as it is today, and it is already not the same as it was 50 years ago. This is inevitable, above all due to the decline in the birth rate in Europe but also due to immigration and the increasing presence of Islam. This poses new challenges for us Christians. We must also not forget that the Lord is at work in his Church! Just think of the 12,000 baptisms of adults and young people in France this year.”
The Austrian cardinal, who helped to produce the Catechism of the Catholic Church, said that despite the decline of the Church’s influence in Europe, he is convinced that the Church “has not yet breathed its last.”
“Despite secularization, the great questions of men and women remain the same as before: birth, growth, education, illness, economic worries. And then there is the family, marriage, and death,” Schönborn noted. “There is a lot of talk about change, but too little attention is paid to the constants of society. The Church must remember that it is an expert in humanity, as Paul VI said.”
The cardinal called the idea that France and Europe are “no longer Christian” because of Islam’s influence “absurd,” but he firmly stressed that “Catholics should return to the Church.”
“If Catholics have left the Church, we should not be surprised that they are in the minority,” he continued, calling for a “fraternal rapprochement” with Islam, echoing the words of Pope Francis, noting that Christians “do not take up arms but trust in the work of grace.”
“Both our religions have an absolute appeal. For Muslims, God has demanded that the whole world be subjected to him and the Koran. As for Christ, he has entrusted us with a universal mission: ‘Make disciples of all nations.’ Neither of them can therefore renounce their mission. But the Christians’ way of acting is not that of the Koran but the following of Christ in all dimensions of our lives,” he said.
Addressing the ongoing Synod on Synodality — the final session of which will take place in October in Rome and is expected to produce a final report for the pope’s approval — Schönborn said “synodality is central to Francis’ pontificate, but there is continuity with previous synods, which have been about communion, participation, and mission.”
“You may be disappointed that the specific topics are a little up in the air, but this is first and foremost a synod about the ‘modus operandi’ within the Church,” Schönborn said.
“In my diocese, I have experienced this synodality with the priests in small groups and tried to live it through spiritual conversation. Everyone agreed that the exchange had never been so deep.”
Asked about Fiducia Supplicans, a document published by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in December 2023 that authorized nonliturgical blessings for same-sex couples and others in “irregular situations,” Schönborn said he believes the document shows “confusion” on the part of the Church. The cardinal had previously, in 2021, criticized the Vatican’s rejection of blessings for same-sex couples, saying the document was marked by a “clear communication error.”
“I experienced it as I experience things — concretely,” the cardinal said. “If friends say to me: ‘Our son has just announced to us that he is homosexual and that he has found a partner,’ I then ask them: ‘Is he still your son?’ Most often, the answer comes naturally. I believe that with the two successive documents from Rome [the 2021 Responsum ad Dubium and Fiducia Supplicans], the Church has shown its own dismay in the face of this question. These texts, in my eyes, are shaky. We are faced with a question for which there can be no right answer.”
“The path that Pope Francis proposes to us is that of discernment, trying to see what the Lord is showing us,” he continued. “Incidentally, the misfortune of the German [Synodal Way] is that they want sharp, unambiguous answers. And unambiguity does not work in concrete life.”
Asked about Pope Francis’ restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass by way of the 2021 document Traditionis Custodes, Schönborn expressed the hope that the “new generation” might “easily” move from the TLM to modern movements and “prayer groups” such as the Emmanuel Community.
The Austrian prelate added: “Let us accept that Francis has his reasons for closing the doors again, at least partially, just as we have accepted that Benedict XVI had his reasons for opening them. Let us trust that the Lord is leading the Church.”
Schönborn was finally asked what “profile” the next pope after Francis, who turns 88 in December, should have.
“On that day, the Holy Spirit will lead the Church. We should not worry. If it is an African, it will be an African. Maybe it will be an Asian or a man from old Europe. But the most important thing is that he believes that he is a servant of Christ and that he loves the Church. This is how the Church will move forward,” Schönborn said.
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Jesus Christ is Lord. He is Truth. Preach Him.
“So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth.” Rev. 3:16
Cardinal Schönborn is correct if we accept the reality that spiritual decline, which is immense in Europe ushers in secularization and with it disordered concepts of justice. A primary example is the false idea of repudiating the rights of nations to maintain national borders and historical integrity, and the vision that charity is equal to passivity inviting invasion.
As the many of us realize we have a pontificate which openly espouses the latter while duplicitously permitting the former. While the Cardinal is correct in recognizing the trend, should we accept it as final? Is it foolhardy to even hope for a revival of the faith, or is denial a sin against the theological virtue of hope? The balance weighs toward fault, or sin if we take our faith seriously. It’s not grandiose to take the famous words of Churchill, We will never surrender if we resign ourselves to the reality that Christianity as a way of life has always been and will likely always be in this life a struggle against the tide of its adversaries.
I find Cdl. Schonborn confusing.
Maybe it’s me.
Of Islam, we read: “Both our religions have an absolute appeal. For Muslims, God has demanded that the whole world be subjected to him and the Koran. As for Christ, he has entrusted us with a universal mission: ‘Make disciples of all nations.’ Neither of them can therefore renounce their mission.”
Four points:
FIRST, the two religions are not symmetrical or comparable in this confused way. A more accurate and “fraternal raprochement with [the ideas of] Islam” would notice that natural “religion” (although with imports from the Pentateuch and with some twenty-two direct references to the Christ of the Gospel) is not equivalent with Christianity as our “faith” in the very person of Jesus Christ (more than an idea).
Despite chronology, 7th-century Islam is pre-Christian.
SECOND, the accurate comparison is NOT between the two scriptures, but between “the word made book” (expression for the followers of Islam) and “the Word made flesh” (as witnessed [!] in John 1:14). A rapprochement rooted more in the distinction/coherence between faith and reason (Fides et Ratio!), would notice the partial overlap between the core of Islam and what is articulated in the West as distinct natural law—not at the level of either a religion or the faith. This level of dialogue (if there still are levels, despite synodality?) might offer some promise for coherence.
What if it’s not really about parallel missions as Cardinal Schonborn assumes?
THIRD, that is, Islam, a religion with whom a common vocabulary might NOT be in scriptures or even “interreligious” dialogue, but more cultural—in the overlap with parts of the West’s more distinct natural law—under the Islamic concept of “fitrah”. Fitrah: “There is not a child that he or she is born upon this fitrah, this original state of the knowledge of God. And his parents make him a Jew, a Christian, or a Zoroastrian . . . and if they are Muslims, Muslim” (from the Hadith as reported by Bukhari, and cited in Farooq Hassan, “The Concept of the State and Law in Islam,” 1981).
FOURTH, the self-understanding of Islam is NOT that of preaching a new religion, but rather that of reinstating the simple and original orientation toward God, as from before time. (What the West knows as the natural law, not as any religion?) And, before the historical apostasy into paganism under the Golden Calf, or polytheism under the Christian Triune One—which is misunderstood to be just another pagan triad—of Father, Son, and Mary (Mary rather than the denied Holy Spirit, therefore elimination of the Incarnation, the sacramental Church as the Mystical Body of Christ, and Redemption).
As an opening for “fraternal rapprochement,” a carve-out for education about the inborn, fraternal (!), and universal (!) natural law—which is not limited to members of the Muslim ummah—need not cross the line into religious proselytizing. A long shot at best. But, then the remaining task, no less difficult, is how to both re-educate and evangelize a post-Christian West intent on fully replacing the universal natural law with choice, technocracy and identity politics.
Better than I expected, but where is the thirst for souls? Just accepting defeat for Europe is not enough. As to the current pontiff “having his reasons” to suppress the old form of Mass, well so did Benedict have his very good ones for liberating it.
Prayer, penance, mortification, periodical fasting, almsgiving, bread labor, and social engagements are methods and techniques of rejuvenation. Buddhists, Jains, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and several other communities indulge in those time-tested practices that support on-going-ness and togetherness.
Cardinal Schonborn is another example of the perversion of modernism on the sacrosanct Catholic faith. Utter obliteration of the faith tradition. Reasoning that leads to confusion and eventually lost souls. Why do these men find the action to continually rationalize any subject with worldly ideas as acceptable? We all know it viscerally. It does not need explaining. The majority of such men are sellouts who likely don’t believe Catholic Dogma and want to redefine both liturgy and belief to fit whatever they “feel” is right. My pleas is this…believe whatever you want but don’t try to call it Catholic. Please leave and go elsewhere where this has already been done ~500 years ago. I pray the Glory Be, and believe every word with my whole self.