JOHN SMEATON, DIRECTOR OF SPUC: Cardinal Baldisseri is undermining Catholic teaching

Monday, 26 January 2015

Cardinal Baldisseri is undermining Catholic teaching

Patrick Buckley, SPUC's international
envoy, speaks out at Vatican conference

Voice of the Family*, a coalition of leaders of 23 pro-family and pro-life groups worldwide, has issued a statement criticising Cardinal Baldisseri, the organizer of the forthcoming Synod on the Family, saying that his comments last week have further undermined Catholic teaching on the indissolubility of marriage. SPUC is co-founder of Voice of the Family.

The cardinal was speaking at an international conference in Rome organized by the Pontifical Council for the Family.

Voice of the Family reports:

[Cardinal] Baldisseri defended the right of Walter Cardinal Kasper to assert that divorced persons living in unions not recognised by the Church should be permitted to receive Holy Communion. Baldisseri, in response to a concerned pro-family advocate, told delegates that we should not be 'shocked' by theologians contradicting Church teaching.

The Cardinal said that dogmas can evolve and that there would be no point holding a Synod if we were simply to repeat what had always been said. He also suggested that just because a particular understanding was held 2,000 years ago does not mean that it cannot be challenged.

Patrick Buckley (pictured), international envoy for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, commented: “The Church teaching on the indissolubility of marriage is founded on the words of Jesus Christ. These words may have been spoken 2,000 years ago but for Catholics they remain nothing other than the unchanging commands of God.”

Patrick Buckley and Philomena, his wife, are the parents of seven children and they have twenty grandchildren.

*Voice of the Family is an initiative of Catholic laity formed in support of the Synod on the Family 2014 - 2015.

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About Me

I became involved in SPUC after graduating, when I established a branch in south London in 1974. I have worked full-time for SPUC for 42 years. I became chief executive of SPUC in the UK in 1996, having been general secretary since 1978. I was elected vice-president of International Right to Life Federation in 2005. At UN conferences in Cairo, Copenhagen, Beijing, Istanbul and Rome, I helped coordinate more than 150 pro-life/pro-family groups resulting in pro-life victories in Cairo, Istanbul and Rome. I was educated at Salesian College, London, before going to Oxford where I graduated in English Language and Literature. I qualified as a teacher, becoming head of English at a secondary school. I am married to Josephine. We have a grown-up family and we live in north London.