Melbourne Assessment Prison
1/8/19
Dear Kathy and brothers and sisters in Christ
of the Support Cardinal Pell group,
First of all let me thank you for your prayers
And messages, of support. These bring immense consolation,
Humanly and spiritually.
A word of explanation. I have received between 1500-2000 letters and all will be answered. So far, I have only responded to letters from fellow prisoners (to nearly all of those who write) and a few other special cases. Your kindness is not forgotten and will always be fondly remembered.
My faith in Our Lord, like yours, is a source of strength. The knowledge that my small suffering can be used for good purposes through being joined to Jesus’ suffering gives me purpose and direction. Challenges and problems in Church life should be confronted in a similar spirit of faith.
We must always remember that the Catholic Church is one, not just in the sense that good families stick together whatever their differences, but because the Church of Christ is based in the Catholic Church, which constitutes the Body of Christ. One ancient saying teaches that there must be unity in essentials (Jesus’ essentials), while there can be diversity in|non essentials. But everywhere and in everything we must have charity.
I agree that we have reasons to be disturbed by the Instrumentum Laboris of the
(page 2)
Amazon Synod. This is not the first low quality document of the Synod secretariat has produced. Gerhard Cardinal Müller, formerly of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has written an excellent critique. I am no expert in the region but I have been to Ecuador and Amazonian Peru, where a Sydney priest Fr John Anderson runs a parish of exemplary piety, pastoral activity and orthodoxy. As in the Amazon a lot of water has yet to run before the end of the Synod.
One point is fundamental. The apostles’ tradition, the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles, taken from the New Testament and taught by Popes and councils, by the magisterium, is the only criterion doctrinally for all teaching on doctrine and practice. Amazon or no Amazon, in every land, the Church cannot allow any confusion, much less any contrary teaching, to damage the Apostolic Tradition.
The Spirit continues to be with the Church. You have every right to make your voices heard, reasonably and in charity. We need not expect the worst.
Yours in the Lord,
Your grateful brother
+George Card Pell