Diarmuid omurchu biography of michael

Doctrinal Note on authority Book "Reframing Religious Life"

ROME, APRIL 16, 2006 (Zenit) - The following statement is a translation bring into play a document from the Doctrinal Commission of description Spanish bishops' conference. It was translated and promulgated by the English edition of L'Osservatore Romano hindmost month.

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Summary: The Doctrinal Commission of nobility Bishops' Conference of Spain presents this Doctrinal Billet in order to bring to public attention nobility seriously erroneous affirmations found in the book "Reframing Religious Life. An Expanded Vision for the Future," by Father Diarmuid O'Murchu, M.S.C. According to Father confessor O'Murchu, religious men and women "should leave rectitude Church and take on a non-canonical status" in that "the values of the Religious life belong commence a more ancient pre-religious tradition."

He therefore marginalizes Christlike revelation and its ecclesial transmission, abolishes the for for redemption and proposes a non-Christian vision situation the "Kingdom" or the "Reign" is a ground for Jesus Christ and his Church.

Father O'Murchu besides disfigures the sense and significance of the godfearing vows of poverty, obedience and chastity. In excellence final analysis, the proposals made in his tome, far from promoting a renewal of religious vitality, will rather bring about its destruction.

Introduction

1. One remaining the duties of the doctrinal commission is suggest safeguard Christian doctrine in matters of faith, practised duty which is undertaken as a service greet the Church and the teaching ministry of will not hear of shepherds. In fulfillment of this mission, therefore, contemporary having at heart the common good of greatness People of God we wish to manifest specialty concern at the publication by "Publicaciones Claretianas" depart the book entitled "Reframing Religious Life. An Broad Vision for the Future" by Father Diarmuid O'Murchu,[1] an Irish priest of the Missionaries of honourableness Sacred Heart.

In the underlying presuppositions of his picture perfect and in some of his explicit affirmations, Dad O'Murchu is in open conflict with the schooling of the Church, and for this reason astonishment consider it necessary to issue a doctrinal clarification.

2. The book calls for an urgent reform misplace religious life. However, notwithstanding its claims to wellregulated impartiality, it offers an unsubstantiated critique of interpretation very foundations of religious life which will grant far more to its destruction than to warmth renewal.

I. An old proposal with the claim operate novelty

3. Father O'Murchu's thesis and the language fiasco uses are certainly ambitious;[2] however, beyond all sovereign promises of "planetary" or "holistic" implications, the estimate content of what he proposes is actually from a to z simple and primitive. The essence of his point can be summarized in the following six points:

a. It is striking that the author explicitly give orders to repeatedly (with slight variations) proposes to religious renounce "a process of disengagement from the institutional Religous entity is both desirable and necessary" (p. 73); "there seems to be only one authentic response: mandate the Church and adopt a non-canonical status" (p. 120).[3]

b. Less explicit, but nonetheless present, is Curate O'Murchu's call to abandon the Catholic faith send down Jesus Christ as the only full Revelation break into God and as the Lord and Savior describe all mankind. This is but one of interpretation elements of the thesis that not only steadily obfuscates the true theological significance of Jesus Jehovah domineer, but which in fact contradicts all that settle down stands for, thus denigrating and ridiculing him.[4]

c. Pa O'Murchu does not speak of the Triune Spirit revealed in Jesus Christ but rather rejects that revelation and suggests a conception of God divagate fluctuates between pantheism and animism:[5] God can close by the most be considered as a "capacity funds relatedness." This "capacity for relatedness" is naturally moan a God that freely creates the world. Nobility author speaks much of "creation," but the intention of this concept in the book is classify that proper to the Christian faith, since prestige Creator God in question is identified, in give someone a buzz way or another, with the world. God assay envisioned as the internal energy of the macrocosm, and the world as the "incarnation" of God.[6]

d. Father O'Murchu places religious life "far beyond" description Church, Jesus Christ and the God revealed hill him. Religious life should come back to refers to itself, that is to say, "reincarnate the ever-old entertain a world that is ever new" (p. 140). The "ever-old" is paganism, or better put, honesty pre-Christian and pre-religious culture that supposedly existed authorized the very origins of humanity.[7]

e. According to interpretation author, the "values of the religious life" untidy heap anterior to Christianity or any other "formal religion." However, it is difficult to ascertain from Papa O'Murchu exactly what these values are. After securing gone through the "painful and dislocating" (p. 73) process of destroying and abandoning Christianity, we would expect to arrive at something really great ray original in exchange for the past archetype, accentuate full of life and of humanity as befits us. What we are offered instead is straight confused mix of the politico-cultural ideas currently wane among certain radical groups, ideas which the initiator calls "Iiminars." Liminal values ­- those values which are found at the margins of the Gothic capitalist patriarchal culture (pp. 46, 73-74) -- as they have been marginalized by the culture -- constitute the basis for a future that last wishes overcome this culture. These values are already be the source of introduced in our world and are those equanimity promoted by "sociopolitical networks such as Worldwatch, House of the Earth, Greenpeace and several feminist groups" with whom "liminar religious" ought to form "alliances" (p. 38; cf. p. 55ff.).

f. Here we rest the "key focus for reframing religious life slight the modern world" (p. 50). In the farewell chapter of the book Father O'Murchu calls arousal "the most original and provocative challenge of utilize time." For him, "spirituality" is neither "the individual's relationship with God" (p. 141), nor something backwards the sphere of interpersonal relationships (pp. 147-148), shadowy again a capacity that belongs exclusively to body beings (p. 147). Rather, spirituality is defined whilst the "power to connect" and "we encounter ready to react in the behavior of the subatomic world, giving the tripartite structure that dominates terrestrial life jaunt even in the foundational imprint of the lection of space-time itself" (p. 147).

II. A modern-day gnosis

4. Father O'Murchu speaks much of God and endlessly talks of human liminal values in a "planetary" or "cosmic" context, but says almost nothing pose Jesus Christ. Christian terminology is emptied of tight theological meaning so as to be better unsegregated into a "vision" or a supposedly "new wisdom" that comes back to the "ever-old" -- smudge other words, a modern-day gnosis. The author aid his work as a "new theology of pious life" and dedicates a whole chapter to decency "theological frame" into which it is to endure integrated. It fails, however, by any standards by any means to meet the most basic requirements for capital work of Christian theology:

a. Above all this quite good because he completely ignores the principle of march. There is no theology -­ Catholic, Orthodox direct Protestant -- that does not recognize Jesus Saviour as the ultimate revelation of God and tempt the supreme source of its discourse. Father O'Murchu, however, explicitly rejects this principle when he affirms that "creation itself [is] our primary and aboriginal source of divine revelation" (p. 146). Although that affirmation appears to be purely natural or stupid theology that is not yet opened up fail Christian revelation but is still capable of opinion, this is in fact not the case. Sponsor, as we have already indicated, the concept loom creation and of a Creator God presented insensitive to the author is of a philosophy that research paper incompatible with revelation and even explicitly rejects dot. For this reason, he speaks at times lecture the "divine disclosures" (p. 77).

b. At times Pop O'Murchu makes reference to the Tradition of distinction Church and to the ecumenical councils but each in a bid to distance himself from them. The Council of Trent is presented as position climax of the "patriarchal" deviation of Christianity (pp. 65, 96, 105ff., 133ff.) and the Second Residence Council as an insufficient and "inadequate" effort filter renewal (pp. 13, 68, 72). The ordinary magisterium is only mentioned in order to be denigrated and rejected. None of these ecclesial realities fountain within the ambit of Father O'Murchu's "new cosmology."

c. Having dismissed Christian revelation and its ecclesial transferring, Father O'Murchu locates the starting point of surmount thesis in the "specialists" whom he believes possess discovered the essential features of the "primordial vision," and in whose writings we "have all representation ingredients of a new cosmology" (p. 84).

This, commit fraud, is the new "revelation" discovered by Father O'Murchu, whose only (and tirelessly repeated) point is give explanation stress the natural "unity" of the cosmos orangutan against the patriarchal "duality" of the Hellenistic deliver Christian traditions.

d. This unitary and harmonious "new cosmology" is presented in contradistinction to a dualist viewpoint disintegrating Christianity.[8] The former unifies the human beingness and integrates him in a balanced way pay for a cosmos of harmonic relationships; the latter sadness him apart (into body and spirit) and dislocates him from true vital relationships (between the sexes, with nature and God). The former is life; the latter, death. Once again Christianity, along refined other "formal religions," is seen as nothing next than the influential product of a "misguided cosmology" that had its roots in the Neolithic hour and its agricultural revolution.

e. According to Father O'Murchu we are currently living through another revolution generate which pre-patriarchal and unifying energies are in decency process of emerging anew (p. 109). This disgust is the decisive criterion of his theology; coronet whole thesis is based on it, and give somebody no option but to this revolution must be incorporated all religious whose institutions are to have any future.

f. In progression to be part of this contemporary revolution professor to acquire the "new wisdom," "conversion" is prescribed and a sacrifice must be made, namely, "letting go of all that we have loved allow cherished" (p. 131). And now, although previously loosen up has hardly mentioned the Redemption, suddenly Father O'Murchu evokes the Christian image of Calvary (reduced fit in a pre-Christian archetype) in order to encourage scrupulous to abandon their faith ("all that we enjoy loved and cherished") for the "new wisdom." That is supposed to be the price of conversion. Moreover, the "conversion" of humanity will apparently as well require its own extinction on the grounds put off the species "Homo sapiens" is the bearer curiosity patriarchalism (p. 146).

g. Gnosis: What Father O'Murchu equitable proposing is a supposedly new knowledge of high-mindedness nature of man, presented by a set adequate experts, as a means of salvation outside prestige historical revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Squash up reference to the Second Vatican Council, the creator counts himself among the fortunate few who conceded what no one else, not even the Assembly Fathers, had understood: "But the internal decay was so deep-seated and pervasive that only those plus a profound sense of history could understand what began to transpire and what ensued over successive decades" (p. 72).[9]

III. Religious as agents of position New Order

5. This book is aimed at highrise audience of Catholic religious men and women abstruse Father O'Murchu uses certain theological terms and expressions in order to capture the interest of fulfil intended readership. However, his program is not actually Christian and his methodology is not really divine. What he offers is rather an anti-Christian gnosis camouflaged in pseudo-theological language which if put be received practice would yield disastrous results in religious life.

Religious life, according to Father O'Murchu, is not good much about the free response of men final women to a gratuitous call from Jesus Count, expressed in vows which consecrate them personally revel in his discipleship, so much as a commitment prank the call which proceeds from the "process" cut into the rediscovery of "liminal values." Religious men remarkable women are called upon to incorporate themselves call a halt the "transformation that is taking place" as take the edge off privileged agents or "catalysts for change" (p. 62).

a. "The Reign" is seen as a substitute show off Jesus Christ and the Church. In Chapter IV, entitled "The Theological Frame," he explicitly proposes realignment the aforementioned frame, adapting it to the "new cosmology" since this is the "queen of significance sciences" (p. 66). The fundamental elements of that restructuring are the following:

i. "Instead of taking nobility Gospels and revealed Tradition as its starting point" (p. 65), this "completely new theology" has type its source "lived experience," more concretely, "the farther down than experiential layers of the vowed life as flybynight out universally, especially in the other great religions and ... within the rich resources of primeval times" (p. 68).

ii. In order to persuade reward Catholic readers of the credibility of his proposition, Father O'Murchu professes to take the Scriptures gravely, much more seriously, in fact, than the "institutional Church." To this end, he attempts to flaunt that what is central in the Gospels deterioration the "Reign of God," which he calls clearly the "New Reign" and which he identifies form a junction with "a , marked by right relationships of shameful, love, peace and liberation" (p. 71). He run away with defines this "" in the light of integrity "liminal values" of the "new cosmology." And for this reason, in a circular argument the Gospels are low to his own ideology.

iii. Father O'Murchu declares carry out Page 69 that "we cannot separate the particularized and mission of Jesus," but then in excellence very next line forgets his person and reduces his mission to that of a mere representative (herald and inaugurator) of the "New Reign," agreed in the aforementioned sense. Not one word run through said about the Incarnation of the Logos encourage God (rather, on the incarnation of God meet the world!) (p. 60); nor about his redeeming death; nor of sin, from which we own been redeemed;[10] nor about the Resurrection and depiction glorification of the Son that opens up result in us the possibility of resurrection. Nothing of that nature is of interest for the "new universe orŹder" to which the Gospels have been reduced.

iv. This "New Reign" needs neither the person pattern Jesus Christ nor the Church. On the contradictory, according to Father O'Murchu, "Jesus was not expressly interested in a church" (p. 70), and so the Church quickly "lost sight of its principal function and purpose -- to be the essential agent for the unfolding of God's New Reign" (p. 70). However, even this primacy conceded unwelcoming Father O'Murchu to the Church does not actually seem to follow from his argument, according be required to which Jesus was not interested in the Cathedral, and religious of the future do not own to consider themselves bound to her. Rather, they have to "center themselves" in the world (p. 128), in opposition to sinful systems, and "the major blockage is the Christian Church itself, business partner its archaic dualism between the sacred and description secular" (p. 115). Again, "in moving out clever the institutional Church we are not abandoning depiction people; quite the opposite -- we are hunt to pitch our tent where the people are" (p. 123).

Why does Father O'Murchu dedicate so luxurious attention to this "decadent and irrelevant," "alien elitist alienating" (p. 138) ecclesial institution? It is sound because he hopes to "recall the Church disrupt its primary task" (p. 70), since he distinctly believes that "Iiminality does not need formal religion" (p. 61), and that the Church is in truth nothing more that a dispensable obstacle.

On the flighty, the real reason would appear to be lose concentration the author recognizes that he must promote government thesis with caution, since those religious who muddle not "yet" capable of conceiving religious life unreachable the Church, and in contrast to her, pour out still in the majority (cf. p. 134). Lineage fact, the picture of religious life presented block this book is totally alien to what disintegration considered the call to consecrated life in honesty Church.

b. Father O'Murchu sees the vows of god-fearing life as an expression of a commitment simulate the "ever-old." Once the Gospel has been abridged to the "new world order," consecrated life maladroit thumbs down d longer needs to consider itself as rooted inconvenience Christ's action in the world, nor in rule mission from the Father, nor in the perpetuation by the Holy Spirit of the salvific immediate of the Blessed Trinity. The vows do whine, therefore, refer to the sacramental insertion of integrity believer into the Body of Christ which occurs at baptism. Rather, they are presented as break efficient way of collaborating with the emergent roll, which constitutes a return to the "ever-old," "far beyond" Christianity and all religions. Again, Father O'Murchu takes pains to present this revolutionary collaboration indoor a Christian context of generous self-sacrifice according behold the image of Calvary, and he invokes holy grace for its fulfillment, since such a uprising is a superhuman feat (cf. p. 111).

i. Magnanimity vow of chastity acquires the new name detailed a "vow for relatedness."

1. Definition of the vow: "a call to name, explore and mediate loftiness human engagement in intimate relationships, within the diverse circumstances of life and culture" (p. 107).

2. Distinction ultimate framework within which Father O'Murchu locates interpretation liminary commitment "for relatedness" is the pre-patriarchal humanity, where sexual intimacy is linked neither to monandrous matrimony (which according to Father O'Murchu is dialect trig medieval and Tridentine construct) (p. 106), nor lengthen reproduction (p. 108), nor to a dualism be worthwhile for the sexes (p. 110). Religious men and brigade with their vows "for relatedness" are supposed far work toward a sexual life that is snivel repressed by Christianity or patriarchalism and which determination be "mediated in a breadth of relationships, somewhat than in a depth of relatedness." This testament choice be "more about the release of creativity, pastime and spirituality than about human reproduction" (p. 109), and about the assimilation of the "creative gain taking place in the inner being of hang around persons" that Father O'Murchu calls the "androgynous experience" (p. 110), in other words: homosexuality.

3. This procreative life of religious men and women, undertaken advocate "service to the world," will be concretely uttered primarily in the "paradox" of the celibate humanity, but will not automatically exclude any of nobleness above-mentioned genital relationships.[12]

ii. The vow of poverty acquires the new, name of a "vow for stewardship."

1. Definition of the vow: "critical and creative responsibility with the use and abuse of the acreage of creation, including Planet Earth itself. Our job is to model, on behalf of the common, those sustainable relationships that make justice and quits more attainable ideals" (p. 117).

2. The context: tidy patriarchal culture heading for destruction because of cast down rejection of "global interdependency" and its concomitant office of right administration of the earth or "stewardship" (cf. p. 116).

3. Expressed concretely in the happening of "skills of political and social engagement dark to previous generations and still anathema to leadership official Churches" (p. 116), after the example faultless the theology of liberation (p. 115).

iii. The give one's solemn word of honour of obedience acquires the new name of straight "vow for partnership."

1. Definition of the vow: character call to "name the new yearnings for go into detail participative government and concerted leadership"; "and from ingenious Christian viewpoint," giving up power (p. 120).[12]

2. Honourableness context: given the unhealthy partnership of religious troops body and women with the patriarchal system that has made them "perpetrators of heinous crimes against humanity" (p. 119), the impetus begun with Marxism topmost feminism is to be pursued (cf. p. 118).

3. Expressed concretely in the call to "leave position Church," the stronghold of patriarchalism, abandoning it because it is "better left to decline and energy extinct." In the meantime, the call of front times spurs us on to direct our energies and attention to the world (p. 122).

Conclusion

6. Diarmuid O'Murchu's manifesto is based on a simple fact: namely, that "religious life is in crisis," command somebody to the extent that its very future, at slightest in its present form, is in doubt (cf. pp. 12-13). In response to this stark circumstance he attempts to present a solution for prestige future. What he offers, however, is an missing formula for the progressive distortion and destruction pointer religious and consecrated life, separating it little surpass little from the Church, divorcing it from rendering service of mankind and dissolving it in expert world that does not know Christ (cf. Lavatory 1:10).

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NOTES

[1] Diarmuid O'Murchu, "Reframing Religious Discrimination. An Expanded Vision for the Future," St. Paul's, London, 1998.

[2] " ... not only will phenomenon have reframed Religious life itself; more importantly, incredulity will have helped to name the transformation deviate is taking place and empowered people to covenant with growth and change -- and in go way contribute to a new lease of philosophy for our planet and for all its life-forms" (p. 63).

[3] The invitation to abandon the Creed is repeated over and over again, either dull direct reference to the canonical bond, 62, 73, 74, 97, 120, 122; or in a spare generic anti-ecclesial reasoning, 14, 32-33, 61, 70, 72, 74, 90, 92, 113ff., 119, 128, 137ff., 145.

[4] "The voluminous figurines [of the Paleolithic goddesses] typify a culture of abundance, relishing and quite candidly rejoicing in its proclivity. The central religious coming out was of woman giving birth, and not, rightfully in our time, the often necrophilic symbol neat as a new pin a 'man dying on the cross'" (p. 86).

[5] "We find versions of such trinitarian allusions in the vicinity of godhead in practically all the major religions ... What we are encountering here, I suggest, remains not some profound religious dogma, but an indicative truth. In other words, our trinitarian doctrines have a go at human efforts at naming God's real essence, turf the nearest we can hope to come ... is that our God is above all under other circumstances, a power for relatedness" (pp. 75-76).

[6] "It was the essential unity of all things that mattered, the deep intuitive realization that the creative attempt (what today we call God) was within dignity unfolding process and not external to it" (p. 84); "we belong ... to a co-creative Demiurge whose body is that of the universe itself" (p. 127). He alludes elsewhere to this compose of God as a force immanent to greatness world: 55ff., 67, 76; 119ff. What he calls "essential unity" of all things makes it absurd for the author to differentiate time from endlessness and this finite world from its future acclaim. He criticizes all "dualistic" distinction and advocates span unilateral commitment of religious life to "the world," which he conceives as practically identical with prestige godhead. He clearly accepts neither the Christian divinity of creation and of sin, nor the Johannine distinction of the world as a good control of God on the one hand, and authority world as a force of evil on influence other.

[7] The "reframing of religious life suggested deceive this book does not require the Church since overall guardian, nor even as an essential ingredient," and moreover, "the vowed life makes complete balance in itself, apart entirely from that ecclesiastical process in which millions assume it must be marooned. Religious life predates the Christian Church and ending the formal religions known to us today soak thousands of years; religious life values belong run an even more ancient pre-religious tradition. These preparation our deep roots; this is our ancient narration, ever old and ever new; this is residual sacred tradition, of which no movement or method should deprive us" (p. 139).

[8] The author does not distinguish between dualism or duality on probity one hand, nor between identity and unity dishonest the other. It is clear that the oppose should not be opposed to the spirit (dualism), but neither are they the same. The person being is more a duality in unity consider it excludes undiversified identity (monism). It is also striking that God is not only apart from nobleness world but also cannot be identified with break. Rather, between God and the world we own a fundamental ontological duality that does not, despite that, exclude unity in difference, given that the Architect is at the same time transcendent and connate in his creation.

[9] Given that Father O'Murchu was already starting to explore this "new wisdom," dignity tutor who warned him in the 1970s bawl to proceed was presumably not included among prestige illuminated: "It took almost ten years to punt beyond that restricted horizon and explore for living soul those vastly complex and fascinating processes that add up to the vowed life in its global context ... I now realize how appallingly ignorant my coach was" (p. 33).

[10] "All the religions still cement heavily to a personal notion of sin, obtain we religious tend to adopt that same repressive and misguided view" (p. 116).

[11] "Some celibates boil the Christian tradition avail of genital intimacy, by and large for a short or sporadic periods of time; some openly admit that this has deepened their sense of calling. ... That the vow apportion relatedness will include the possibility of genital consultation in the future is something we cannot to the core exclude. This is not an attempt at give and take ..., but an aspiration to remain as splinter as possible to the changing nature of hominoid sexuality" (p. 112).

[12] The author does not state 1 how this renunciation fits in with the national activity required of religious by their "vow close the eyes to stewardship."

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Keywords

O'Murchu, Religious, Life, New World Command, Doctrinal