Daily Inspiration Quote by Godfried Danneels

A bureaucratic rebuke dressed up as pastoral common sense, Danneels is pushing back against a particular modern Catholic reflex: bypass the messy local church and appeal straight to Rome as if orthodoxy were a customer-service ticket. The sentence structure does the work of a homily and an internal memo at once. “Accusations” appears twice, hammering home that what’s being sent upward isn’t careful theology but suspicion. Then comes the quiet delegitimization: they’re made “from persons who are not theologians,” and sometimes “anonymous.” He’s not merely complaining about gossip; he’s diagnosing an epistemic problem. If the people lodging complaints can’t even be named, much less demonstrate competence, the process becomes a weapon.

The subtext is ecclesial politics. Danneels is defending subsidiarity inside a system often tempted by centralization: doctrine enforced from the top, through paperwork, rather than cultivated locally through discernment. “Directly to Rome” is a charged phrase for anyone who remembers the late-20th-century climate of doctrinal policing, when theologians could find themselves investigated because a pressure group, a rival cleric, or a motivated lay network filed a dossier.

His proposed remedy - the local bishop “should be the one” to relate to theologians - isn’t naïve trust in bishops so much as a procedural demand: put faces, expertise, and accountability back into the chain. Orthodoxy here isn’t framed as a purity test but as a judgment requiring proximity, conversation, and competence. It’s also a warning: a church that encourages anonymous denunciation trains its people to practice fear, not faith.