In four separate developments beginning January 11 and still ongoing, Catholic orthodoxy and orthopraxy (including both morals and the sacred liturgy) and being assailed by those in authority in the Church.
- On January 11, Bp. David Malloy, of Rockford, Illinois, effectively declared the universal law of the Latin Rite not to apply in his diocese when he suspended the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass and the Novus Ordo Mass celebrated ad orientem in his diocese without his express permission.
- On Friday, January 13, the Bishops of Malta released a document, “Criteria for the Application of Chapter VIII of Amoris Laetitia,” which allows married Catholics who are divorced and civilly “remarried” without the benefit of an annulment, to receive the sacraments while living in the habitual state of adultery. The document claims that it is sometimes “impossible,” for people to avoid the sin of adultery, raising serious doctrinal questions stemming from the Council of Trent’s teachings on grace and sin. The Maltese Bishops denied the charge that they had threatened to suspend priests who did not go along with their directive.
- On January 16, a Columbian priest, Father Luis Carlos Uribe Medina, was suspended a divinis, by the Most Reverend Rigoberto Corredor Bermúdez, Bishop of Pereira, for contradicting the provisions in Amoris Laetitia which allow the Eucharist to be given to impenitent public adulterers. [(UPDATE: Father Uribe Medina has been reinstated. Details here.] We are now told by an informed source [Wednesday, 1-27-2017] that there is more to this story than meets the eye. Readers are encouraged prudently to withhold judgment in the matter, and pray for Bishop Bermúdez and Father Medina.)
- Lastly, in the latest chapter of the ongoing saga of the Knights of Malta, the Grand Master of the Order of Malta — a position conferred for life — has offered his resignation. This is in the wake of his handling of a condom distribution scandal involving one of his subordinates, whom he dismissed from his position as Grand Chancellor.
We have Our Lord’s promise that the gates of hell will not prevail, but He did not promise that it won’t get mighty hot from time to time in the Church Militant.
Darvasa gas crater, a burning natural gas field in Derweze, Turkmenistan, known as the Gate of Hell. Photo by Tormod Sandtorv, (CC BY-SA 2.0) , source.
