Collins told to revise his views
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
NCR Staff
Australian Sacred Heart Fr. Paul Collins faces new Vatican demands
that he revise his views on papal primacy, the unique saving role of
Christianity and the ordination of women.
The No. 2 official at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith, the churchs doctrinal watchdog agency, has instructed
Collins religious superior to invite him to write an article
that would constitute a positive statement of his complete adherence to
the authentic magisterium of the church on these points.
The April 10 letter from Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of
the congregation, also asks that the article be sent here for review
prior to publication.
The congregation launched an investigation in 1998 of
Collins book Papal Power, published in 1997. At the time the
congregation outlined seven problems with the book, which argued that a synodal
model of church governance is actually more traditional within Catholicism than
a papal monarchy.
Because the new Bertone letter mentions only three of the seven
contested points, Collins is claiming vindication on the other four -- which
concerned church tradition, the ordinary magisterium, the relationship of a
council to the pope and the reception of church teaching by the people.
Obviously they were satisfied with my explanations, Collins said.
Collins said in a statement to the press that he will not respond
further to the congregation until they take a more open and transparent
approach. ... The secretive processes of the congregation are alien to those of
us who come from a democratic culture, he said.
In his April 10 letter, Bertone attacked Collins argument in
Papal Power that the doctrine of infallibility lacked moral
unanimity at the First Vatican Council in 1870. Above all, the
Second Vatican Council confirmed the validity of the First Vatican Council in
general, and the doctrine on the primacy of the pope in particular,
Bertone wrote.
Apropos Collins view on intercommunion with other Christian
churches, Bertone wrote, It must be acknowledged that the Catholic church
alone offers the fullness of the means of salvation.
On the ordination of women, Bertone wrote, the Roman pontiff
has confirmed that this teaching belongs to the deposit of faith, since, being
founded on the written word of God and constantly preserved and applied in the
tradition of the church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and
universal magisterium.
Collins said he does not deny the doctrine of papal primacy,
claiming he has an almost sacramental view of the papacy.
With respect to Bertones comments on salvation outside the
church, Collins said, It is as though contemporary ecumenism had never
existed. The congregations view takes us back to the old fortress
mentality when Catholics thought that the other churches, including the
Orthodox, were quite inadequate for full Christian living. ... [But] Christians
discover God in the fullest sense in their own churches. Any other view flies
in the face of fact and is essentially insulting.
Collins argued that it is far too early for any
definitive decision on the ordination of women.
National Catholic Reporter, July 16,
1999
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