The Catholic Weekly 17 May 2020

14 17, May, 2020 W orld catholicweekly.com.au Seminarian urged kidnappers to repent A MURDERED Nigerian sem- inarian had the courage of a martyr, his bishop said after three men were arrested for murder and kidnapping. One of the suspects said Michael Nnadi was killed be- cause he kept asking his kid- nappers “to repent and turn their lives around from their evil ways,” said Bishop Mat- thewHassan Kukah of Sokoto. “What most annoyed them was that, although Michael knew that they were Mus- lims, he continued to insist that they repent and abandon their way of life,” the bishop said. Nnadi, 18, was killed in January after armed men kid- napped him and three other students from Good Shep- herd Seminary in Kakau, in Nigeria’s Kaduna state. One of the seminarians was freed with serious injuries 10 days after the 8 January attack, and the others were released on 1 February. Bolanle Ataga, the wife of a prominent doctor, also was killed after she was kidnapped with two of her children from the family’s home in Kaduna in late January. Mustapha Mohammed, 30, and two other men, all from Kaduna state, were arrested for the crimes in late April. Police said they were part of a 19-man gang, according to the Nigerian newspaper Van- guard . Mohammed said Ataga was killed by the “leader of the gang because she refused to be raped by him,” Bishop Kukah said. The gang “has recklessly robbed, kidnapped, tortured and killed many people along the [180 kilometre[ stretch of road between Kaduna and Abuja,” Nigeria’s capital, over the past few years, he said. “The story of Michael and Bolanle is a metaphor for un- derstanding the deep scars that have been left behind by British colonialism,” he said. - CNS Bishop Kukah speaks to ACN about Michael Nnadi. Gay marriage call Germany’s bishops go for a radical overhaul of Catholic faith in Synoddocuments THE GERMAN Catholic bish- ops have drafted documents that call for ordination of women, acceptance of homo- sexual unions, and encour- agement of contraception as part of their “synodal path”. The documents, recently released by German and Ital- ian web sites, will be under discussion when the German bishops continue their synod deliberations in September. Not allowing women to serve as priests and bishops is a scandal, the preparatory documents state, a report by the Italian magazine L’Espres- so said last week. Pope John Paul II’s teach- ing that women cannot be ordained to the priesthood in his 1994 Apostolic Letter Ordi- natio Sacerdotalis , is rejected, they state. Positions of authority in the Church must be elected, they say. Catholic morality on sex- ual relationships contradicts current scientific research on the meaning of sexuality and should be dispensed with or changed to be in accord with it, the documents say. Meanwhile, the Church’s refusal to bless or marry ho- mosexual couples is discrimi- nation, they assert. Contraception is not hostile to life, they state. The synod will meet again in September, when the four 35-member forums entrust- ed with the four topics on the agenda will submit their guidelines to the assembly, L’Espresso reported. The full texts - totalling 90 pages - are available in Ger- man on the official website synodalerweg.de and in Ital- ian in the 1 March edition of the magazine Il Regno . The documents constitute a near-total rejection of Church faith, teaching and practice in issues to do with masculinity and femininity, ecclesiology – how the Church is constituted – and morality, especially in sexual issues. They were quoted exten- sively by the Italian maga- zines. “Gender equality must be achieved at all levels. For ac- cess to pastoral services, even to the diaconal, presbyteral, and episcopal ministry, it can- not be excluded,” L’Espresso quoted the documents as say- ing. “The institutional order linked to a hierarchy as ‘sacred power’ is due not so much to a Catholic necessity as to an an- ti-modern mental prejudice.” “In this context, access to the ordained ministry must also be clarified. On the syn- odal journey we must openly discuss married priests and the access of women to these ministries, including the or- dained ministry.” “Representatives, men and women, of the Church’s peo- ple chosen through consulta- tions and elections must par- ticipate in the occupation of positions of governance in the Church.” “For the designation of the bishop, the fundamental prin- ciple of the ancient Church applies: ‘What concerns all must also be decided by all.’ For consultations and elec- tions, mandatory qualified participation is needed, not only of clerics, but of all the people of God belonging to a local Church.” “For all positions of gov- ernance, selection processes should be introduced in the form of elections and deliber- ations with the participation of all the people of God, ad- equately represented by the elect.” “All those who exercise leadership roles must be su- pervised and held to account, both by democratically cho- sen bodies and by an inde- pendent jurisdiction.” On the ordination of wom- en to all ministries in the Church, the documents assert that “the evident discrepancy between the position of the magisterial documents and the unanimous argument of theological scholarship on the question of the female call to the ministerial apostolate is a ‘ skandalon ’ that must be over- come for the sake of the cred- ibility of the proclamation of the Paschal Gospel.” “A discrepancy is perceived between the equal dignity of man and woman, continually underlined in the declarations of the Church, and the de facto unequal participationof wom- en in the life of the Church in ministerial co-responsibility.” “In public perception and also in that within the Church there is a considerable differ- ence between the statements of theologians on the possi- bility of the call of women as well to the services and min- istries of the Church and the reception of these realisations by the Magisterium of the Church,” the documents state. Protests against the Church’s refusal to ordain women “must be taken very seriously as expressions of the ‘ sensus fidelium .’ If this does not happen, matters could proceed to a division from the outside of the Catholic Church, which can already be glimpsed on the inside.” “In theological research we do not agree on how binding is the affirmation in the apos- tolic letter ‘Ordinatio sacerdo- talis’ of Pope John Paul II, ac- cording towhich the exclusion of women from the sacramen- tal ministry must be ‘ definitive tenendam ,’ or a decision ‘to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful’.” On matters to do with mo- rality in sexual relationships, the documents assert that “... current Catholic sexual mo- rality contradict[s] the knowl- edge of the human sciences on the multiple dimensions of meaning of human sexuality.” The documents criticised traditional Catholic and Chris- tian sexual morality. “The pessimistic Augustini- an view of sexuality continues to influence the declarations of the magisterium (‘Hu- manae vitae,’ Catechism of the Catholic Church). [...] Even the ‘theology of the body’ of John Paul II, which was intended to be a personalistic explora- tion of sexual doctrine, does not give answers to these ar- eas of human sexuality. […] In the individual declarations of the magisterium regarding pre-marital and extra-marital sexuality, as well as autoerot- icism, the negative evaluation of sexual pleasure continues to dominate. […] The first helpful guidelines are found in ‘ Amoris laetitia ’ [by Pope Francis].” “Familyplanning, evenwith the help of artificial means of regulating conception, does not represent an act hostile to life, but supports the right of a couple to decide responsibly on the number of children, on the spacing of births, and on the concrete means of family planning.” “Homosexual acts also re- alise positive values ​of mean- ing if they are an expression of friendship, reliability, loyalty, and life support.” “It is necessary to recognise homosexual life unions with- out reservation and to give up morally discrediting their sex- ual practice.” “People should not only have the right to say no to sex- ual acts they don’t want, but also the right to say yes to sex- ual acts they do want and to choose whom they love.” “In this context, there is a clear tendency among Ger- man Catholics to see the legal recognition of homosexual unions and their equal treat- ment with respect to marriage as a mandate of justice. [...] If relationships in which values​ such as love, friendship, re- liability, fidelity, and mutual dedication are lived deserve recognition from the moral point of view, then one must also reflect on a liturgical recognition of the same. […] Many think that it is right and positive to offer a ceremony of blessing to homosexual cou- ples as well.” - CNS ¾ ¾ Catholic News Service In theological research we do not agree on how binding is the affirmation in the apostolic letter ‘Ordinatio sacerdotalis’ of Pope John Paul II, acccording to which the exclusion of women from the sac- ramental ministry must be ‘definitive tenendam,’ or a decision ‘to be defini- tively held by all the Church’s faithful.’” Bishop Karlheinz Diez of Fulda speaks on 31 January with synodal assembly participants in Frankfurt. PHOTO: CNS, HARALD OPPITZ, KNA Preparatory Documents