Pope Francis claims it’s ‘heresy’ not to ‘translate’ Gospel into modern ‘ways of thinking’

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Pope Francis claims it’s ‘heresy’ not to ‘translate’ Gospel into modern ‘ways of thinking’
The Pontiff echoed some of his regular talking points during his Christmas address, including his praise for Vatican II and the process of synodality.



Pope Francis delivers his 2022 Christmas address to the Roman Curia
Screenshot/YouTube

Dec 22, 2022
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — In his annual Christmas address to the Roman Curia, Pope Francis claimed that “true heresy” involved not only “preaching another Gospel” but in neglecting to “translate it into today’s languages and ways of thinking.”

The 86-year-old Pontiff made his comments to the assembled members of the Roman Curia – both clerical and lay – on Thursday morning in the Vatican. Some of his regular themes were referenced in the speech, including Synodality and praise for Vatican II, along with veiled comments appearing to criticize devotees of the traditional liturgy of the Church.

READ: Rigid Catholics who won’t change are imbalanced, says Pope Francis in Christmas address

Linked to this, Francis warned the Curia against “immobility,” which he said was the “secret belief that we have nothing else to learn from the Gospel.”

Such “immobility,” stated Francis, equated to the “error of trying to crystallize the message of Jesus in a single, perennially valid form.”

Rather than having the teachings of Christ as a “perennially valid form,” Francis argued that they should adopt a form that is “constantly changing” rather than remaining constant for all ages.

“Instead, its form must be capable of constantly changing, so that its substance can remain constantly the same,” he stated.

Reiterating his argument for some kind of development of doctrine in “form,” Francis employed the words of Scripture and placed his own interpretation on them, stating:

True heresy consists not only in preaching another gospel (cf. Gal 1:9), as Saint Paul told us, but also in ceasing to translate its message into today’s languages and ways of thinking, which is precisely what the Apostle of the Gentiles did. To preserve means to keep alive and not to imprison the message of Christ.

The Pontiff did not expand on what imprisoning the message of Christ might look like, or how the Roman Curia was to change the “form” of the Gospel while somehow keeping the “substance” the same.

However, he did use the address as a means to promote both the Second Vatican Council and his current Synod on Synodality, both of which marked a key moment of change for the Church, according to Francis.

“What was the Council if not a great moment of conversion for the entire Church?” he asked. “As Saint John XXIII observed, ‘The Gospel does not change; it is we who begin to understand it more fully.’ The conversion that the Council sparked was an effort to understand the Gospel more fully and to make it relevant, living and effective in our time.”

This process is evidenced through “synodality,” the Pope continued, saying that “our current reflection on the Church’s synodality is the fruit of our conviction that the process of understanding Christ’s message never ends, but constantly challenges us.”

Pope Francis has used such language – describing the Church as needing to accompany changing times in its approach to doctrinal issues – with increasing regularity over the past years.

READ: Pope tells theologians to consult ‘non-Catholics,’ avoid ‘going backward’ in Tradition

In his recent address to the International Theological Commission, Francis urged them to avoid “going backward” in “Tradition” instead asking them to promote the Gospel by consulting non-Catholic “experts.”

Such a call he has issued on many occasions, along with his now regular attacks on “indietrists” or “rigid” Catholics who attachment to the traditional liturgy seems to anger Francis.

READ: Pope calls for an end to ‘intransigent defense of tradition’

The Pope has often relied on a regularly misrepresented quotation of St. John Henry Cardinal Newman, canonized by Francis himself, in order to substantiate his argument that the Church must reform in accordance with “epochal changes.” In his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, Newman wrote, “Here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.”

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, editor of “Newman on Worship, Reverence, and Ritual: A Selection of Texts,” told LifeSiteNews in 2019 that, while a “favorite line with modern Jesuits because for them it means progressivism: continual change, evolution, doctrinal creativity,” Newman himself meant something altogether different.

Kwasniewski explained that Newman was not advocating for justifying actions contrary to traditional morality or any other such reversal of ancient teachings. Instead, “[h]e is talking about how the ‘idea’ (as he calls it) of Christianity expands, develops, diversifies, and enriches itself as it engages and is engaged with the world around it. It becomes more perfect in its self-understanding and self-expression through this interchange.”

“One need only think about how the challenge of heresies brought forth the great Church Fathers to defend the deposit of faith,” Kwasniewski added.

READ: Pope Francis is encouraging dissident bishops to spread error and sinful teaching

Meanwhile, Pope Francis’ promotion of such themes is being evidenced through the agenda of his Synod on Synodality – which is pushing for female deacons and wider “inclusion” – along with his firm support for dissident bishops’ conferences across Europe.

[Stone]

In his annual Christmas address to the Roman Curia, Pope Francis claimed that “true heresy” involved not only “preaching another Gospel” but in neglecting to “translate it into today’s languages and ways of thinking.” [...]

Reiterating his argument for some kind of development of doctrine in “form,” Francis employed the words of Scripture and placed his own interpretation on them, stating:

True heresy consists not only in preaching another gospel (cf. Gal 1:9), as Saint Paul told us, but also in ceasing to translate its message into today’s languages and ways of thinking, which is precisely what the Apostle of the Gentiles did. To preserve means to keep alive and not to imprison the message of Christ.

The Pontiff did not expand on what imprisoning the message of Christ might look like, or how the Roman Curia was to change the “form” of the Gospel while somehow keeping the “substance” the same.

However, he did use the address as a means to promote both the Second Vatican Council and his current Synod on Synodality, both of which marked a key moment of change for the Church, according to Francis.

“What was the Council if not a great moment of conversion for the entire Church?” he asked. “As Saint John XXIII observed, ‘The Gospel does not change; it is we who begin to understand it more fully.’ The conversion that the Council sparked was an effort to understand the Gospel more fully and to make it relevant, living and effective in our time.” [...]

Again, at the root of nearly everything Pope Francis advocates for comes right from the Vatican II playbook, as he himself frequently references. A few pertinent examples, taken from here:

- Vatican II's pastoral teaching always articulates its two basic policy lines and how they are connected, that is:
1) the clerical aggiornamento (or updating) in all of its components to be in line with modern, contemporary culture in all of its forms-humanistic, scientific, technical, artistic, etc.-,
2) the "ecumenical" collaboration of priests and faithful with the so-called "separated brethren," with other religions, with all men, not in order to convert them to the one true faith, but to ally with them on behalf of mankind's progress and unity.


- Vatican II sports an erroneous concept of Sacred Tradition as a complex of teaching, thanks to which as the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her (Dei Verbum§8).


- Bishops rather than the Holy See are granted control over the translations of the Holy Bible into the vernacular (SC §36:4; Dei Verbum §25).


-It is ordered that the reading of the Bible during the liturgy be "more abundant, more various, more adaptable," and that all the faithful have a broad direct contact ("broad access") with the Holy text (SC§§35, 51; D7§§22, 25). This order is contrary to all preceding teaching which, as against Protestants and Jansenists, always surrounded this reading of the Bible with prudence because of the notorious difficulty of many of the passages of the Old and New Testaments, in all cases entrusting them to the mediation of the liturgy, catechesis and preaching (Dz 1429, Clement XI in the condemnation of Quesnel, 1507, and Pius VI, Auctorem Fidei).


- The directive to translate the Holy Scriptures in collaboration with "the separated brethren" (DF§22): "And if, given the opportunity and the approval of Church authority, these translations are produced in cooperation with the separated brethren as well, all Christians will be able to use them."


- In Dei Verbum §25,the order to "compose editions of the sacred Scriptures, provided with suitable footnotes, [which] should be prepared also for the use of non-Christians and adapted to their situation."