The mission of the Church is not to run after the world, but to guide the world and show it the right path

Archbishop Gadecki: Reducing Theology to Sociology Has No Future

by Edward Pentin
Adaptation of the Church to the world often leads to us forgetting the third person in the relationship – God – due to a reduction of theology to sociology. Is this path promising?

The president of the Polish bishops' conference has underlined that marriage is between a man and a woman, that justice and mercy are “inseparably bound”, and that a modern tendency to reduce theology to sociology “has no future.”

In a recent, lengthy and hard-hitting EWTN-Germany interview, Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki also said gender ideology can best be countered by Church doctrine, that the media’s portrayal of marriage and family “is a tragedy”, and that movies and television can often, inadvertently, destroy marriage.

Speaking last week just ahead of the Synod on the Family, he further stated that if one loses any notion of sin, “then practically every attitude is good” and there is “nothing from which one has to convert.” He also advocated “better marriage preparation” and to give more attention to adult catechesis “in various forms, the simplest being sacramental catechesis.”

Here below is the full text of Archbishop Gadecki's interview in English.

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EWTN: Your Excellency, the first question: Today, we live in a world that seems to be dominated by a misunderstanding of terms. Therefore, it is helpful to begin by defining what we, as Catholics, understand by the term, "Sacramental Marriage."

GADECKI: One could look at it from the perspective of canon law, or one could also look at it from the perspective of pastoral teaching. In number 48 of the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes of the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic marriage is described as "intima communio vitae et amoris,” so practically, as an intimate companionship of life and of the love of two people, a man and a woman, who mutually complement each other. This complementarity defines the Catholic marriage. However, that’s not all because - at the same time – overlying the marriage is a communion with Christ, which is why the Catholic marriage is not merely a sociological relationship and social plain on which man and woman stand. It is rather - at the same time - an image of the relationship and communion that exists between Christ and the Church. Hence, we heard before the Synod – the first session of the extraordinary Synod – we heard a Jewish Rabbi, who spoke about marriage: that we all must be aware that there is a difference between an ordinary, natural marriage and a religious marriage. In the natural marriage, there are two people, namely man and woman. In the religious marriage, there are three people, namely, God, man and woman. And this is applicable to Catholic marriage, which is not just a communion between two human persons; rather, it is elevated by grace, by Christ.

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