McElroy’s Grand Scheme for a Modernised Church

15.06.2023

McElroy’s Grand Scheme for a Modernised Church The bishop of San Diego, a diocese in the south of California, is Robert McElroy, made a cardinal in August 2022. He has a long history of “broad-minded” Catholicism, advocating the “big tent Church” which welcomes everyone, and dismisses “structures of exclusion”, by which he means the traditional teaching and canon law on morality. He expressed his views clearly in a long essay published in the Jesuit review, America, in January this year. Needless to say, it ignited a tsunami of critical comment, and it is not difficult to see why. 

(https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2023/01/24/mcelro y-synodality-inclusion-244587) 

Judging by his now uninhibited utterances, inclusivity is the key feature of a modernised church, a priority for the Church’s leaders, and, it seems, the purpose of the synodality process, now underway across the world. Cardinal McElroy is calling for the “radical inclusion” of Catholics who find their journey of faith burdensome because the Catholic community has “structures of exclusion”. 

The “marginalised” are LGBT people, those civilly divorced and remarried, and women who want to be ordained. Women, he advocates, should be ordained to the permanent diaconate. As for ordination to the priesthood, that is “one of the most difficult questions confronting the international synods in 2023 and 2024”. No prize for guessing where he stands on the question. 

The Cardinal laments the existence of what he calls “polarisation” and “tribalism”

McElroy reserves his indignation for “the moral tradition in the Church that all sexual sins are grave matter”, claiming that this was a theological innovation of the 17th century, and has been the foundation for “categorically barring LGBT and divorced/remarried Catholics from the Eucharist.” He makes no secret that he regards sexual sins as merely venial, if sinful at all.

Wilful Ignorance and a Woeful Scandal

To put it mildly, it is astonishing to read these opinions of a cardinal of the Catholic Church. He contradicts the clear teaching of Christ (Matt 5: 28-30) and St Paul (I Cor 6: 9-11). He ignores the witness of the Fathers of the Church, like Basil, Jerome, Augustine and many others, as well as the continuous tradition of centuries. Maybe he should read St Peter Damian’s The Book of Gomorrah.

It is important to be clear about how the Gospel of Christ is inclusive. God loved, not just a few, but the world, and Christ died for all on Calvary. He commanded his Church “to make disciples of all nations”. The Apostle Paul would emphasise that within the Body of Christ, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Christians are called to come to the aid of the poor, sick and the marginalised, regardless of their beliefs or even hostility.

Christ’s preaching came with love and healing but also with a call to repentance and conversion, yet the Cardinal seems to regard this as “burdensome”. Membership of the Church always required an acceptance of Christ’s teaching, however hard. Admission to the Church and access to the Eucharist were always dependent on a convert’s willingness to strive to avoid sin. The Church cannot accept someone who demands that the Church turns a blind eye to evil or changes her teaching to suit his lifestyle, which is what the LGBT and others demand. 

The ‘Big Tent Church’ 

What does the Cardinal mean by “radically inclusive”? That the Church ordains women, makes the Eucharist open to all, and abolishes barriers and discipline, and eliminates for all intents and purposes all non-criminal sexual sins from the books, and “openly embraces and celebrates those who have previously run afoul of Church teaching on these matters.” 

McElroy’s language about inclusion, dialogue, welcoming, diversity, and radical openness is a huge deception. Should his views prevail, then dialogue and welcoming would cease, and a new “rigidity” would rule the Church, or what’s left of it. Oh, yes! There would be one barrier, and the one group barred would be faithful Christian believers. 

The Cardinal’s theology of the Church, if it can be so defined, is based on acceptance of the political and social movements of secular America rather than the Church’s Scripture and Tradition.