New Dubia Against Synod - Burke, Sarah, 3 More Cardinals

Five Cardinals have written five new Dubia to Francis about his Synod on Synodality. The first Dubia from 2016 against Amoris Laetitia did not receive a response from Francis.

The five new signatories are: German Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, 94, American Cardinal Raymond Burke, 75, Mexican Cardinal Sandoval Íñiguez, 90, Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah, 78, and Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen, 91.

They want to assist Francis as “various declarations of highly-placed prelates [by Francis] […] are openly contrary to the constant doctrine and discipline of the church.”

Initial Dubia were already sent on July 10. This time, Francis responded, already on July 11. The Cardinals don’t publish Francis' answer as it was not meant for public release. Francis “did not follow the practice” of a response to Dubia so the cardinals re-worded their questions in a yes-or-no format and submitted it again August 21. This time, no answer followed.

The questions are:

• “Is it possible for the church today to teach doctrines contrary to those she has previously taught in matters of faith and morals, whether by the Pope ex cathedra, or in the definitions of an Ecumenical Council, or in the ordinary universal magisterium of the bishops dispersed throughout the world?”

• Is it possible that in some circumstances a pastor could bless unions between homosexual persons, thus suggesting that homosexual behavior as such would not be contrary to God’s law and the person’s journey toward God? Linked to this dubium is the need to raise another: Does the teaching upheld by the universal ordinary magisterium, that every sexual act outside of marriage, and in particular homosexual acts, constitutes an objectively grave sin against God’s law, regardless of the circumstances in which it takes place and the intention with which it is carried out, continue to be valid?”

• Will the Synod of Bishops to be held in Rome, and which includes only a chosen representation of pastors and faithful, exercise, in the doctrinal or pastoral matters on which it will be called to express itself, the supreme authority of the church, which belongs exclusively to the Roman Pontiff and, una cum capite suo, to the College of Bishops?”

• Could the church in the future have the faculty to confer priestly ordination on women, thus contradicting that the exclusive reservation of this sacrament to baptized males belongs to the very substance of the Sacrament of Orders, which the church cannot change?

• Can a penitent who, while admitting a sin, refuses to make, in any way, the intention not to commit it again, validly receive sacramental absolution?

Picture: Brandmüller, Burke, Sarah, Zen © wikicommons, CC BY-SA, #newsDptmpwtqrt