From Casuistry To Mercy . . . Toward A New Art Of Pleasing?

By MSGR. MICHEL SCHOOYANS

Part 1

(Editor’s Note: Msgr. Michel Schooyans wrote the following essay for LifeSiteNews, which graciously granted reprint permission to The Wanderer. The essay will appear in two parts because of its length; part two will appear in this space in next week’s issue.
(John-Henry Westen, editor-in-chief of LifeSiteNews, provided this background information about the essay:
(“Msgr. Michel Schooyans, a top adviser to Pope St. John Paul II who was also close to Pope Benedict XVI, has issued a dire warning about the current trajectory in the Catholic Church. [In this essay] Professor Schooyans, a member of several Pontifical Academies and Councils, writes that ‘the Synod on the Family has revealed a profound malaise in the Church.’
(“The retired professor from Belgium, now 86, speaks of the ‘crisis’ in the Church, saying, ‘it is futile to close our eyes: The Church is challenged in its very foundations.’
(“Credited with inspiring Pope John Paul’s encyclical Evangelium Vitae with his own book on abortion, Msgr. Schooyans is warning of what he says is an organized group in the Church that operates with ‘backing from some of the highest authorities in the Church’.”

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LOUVAIN-LA-NEUVE — One might think that casuistry is dead and buried. The controversies of the 17th century should be over once and for all. Rarely do any of our contemporaries still read the Lettres Provinciales [Provincial Letters] and the authors whom Pascal (1623-1662) attacks therein. These authors are casuists, that is to say, moralists who seek to resolve matters of conscience without succumbing to rigorism.
On rereading the famous Lettres, we were struck by the similarity emerging between a controversial document written in the 17th century and the positions today defended by pastors and theologians aspiring to effect radical changes in the Catholic Church’s pastoral teaching and doctrine. The recent Synod on the Family (October 2014-October 2015) has revealed a reforming pugnacity of which the Lettres Provinciales give us a better understanding today. Hence, Pascal comes to be known in an unexpected light! The intention here is simply to whet the appetite of the reader and help him/her to discover a new art of pleasing.

The Treasure Of The Church

The Synod on the Family has revealed — even assuming this was necessary — a profound malaise in the Church. A crisis of growth without doubt, but also recurrent debates on the question of remarried, divorced persons, models for the family, the role of women, birth control, surrogate motherhood, homosexuality, euthanasia. It is futile to close our eyes: The Church is challenged in its very foundations. These are to be found in the entirety of the Holy Scriptures, in the teaching of Jesus, in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, in the announcement of the Gospel by the Apostles, in an ever finer understanding of the Revelation, in the assent of faith by the community of believers.
The Church has been entrusted by Jesus with the mission of receiving these truths, casting light on their coherence, commemorating them. The Church has not been given by the Lord either a mission to modify these truths or a mission to rewrite the Credo. The Church is the guardian of this treasure. The Church should study these truths, clarify them, deepen man’s understanding of them, and invite all men to adhere to them through faith. There are even discussions — on marriage for example — which were brought to a close by the Lord himself. It was specifically to conceal these historical truths that descendants of the Pharisees have denied the historicity of the Gospels (Mark 10:11).
Since the Acts of the Apostles, the Church has recognized and proclaimed itself to be one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. These are distinctive characteristics. The Church is one because it has only one heart, that of Jesus. The Church is holy in the sense that it invites conversion to the Lord, to prayer, to contemplation of the Lord. Man does not have the power to sanctify himself, but all are called to respond to the universal call to sanctity. The Church is catholic in the sense that it has received the gift of languages from the Holy Spirit: it is universal. The understanding of languages signifies unity in diversity, a fruit of the Holy Spirit. The Church is also apostolic in the sense that it is founded on the apostles and prophets. The apostolic succession signifies that an uninterrupted link binds us to the very source of the doctrine of the Apostles.
To offer the world the Good News he came to bring, the Lord wanted to recruit for his work the men he chose to remain with him and go forth and teach all nations (Mark 3:13-19). These men bear witness to the words they received from the very mouth of Jesus and the signs manifested by Him. These witnesses were called by the Lord to guarantee, from generation to generation, fidelity to the teaching which he himself presented. It is incumbent on them to deepen the understanding of the testimonies concerning this teaching and authenticate its tradition.
The teaching of the Lord has an exacting moral dimension. This teaching certainly urges us to a rational adherence to the golden rule, on which mankind’s great sages have meditated for centuries. Jesus brings this rule to its perfection. But the Church’s tradition has its own precepts of conduct, prime among which is love of God and one’s neighbor. In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets (Matt. 7:12). This double commandment is the fundamental benchmark for the actions of the Christian.
The Christian is called to be open to the inspiration of the Spirit, which is love, and to respond to this inspiration through faith, which acts through love (Gal. 5:6). Between the one (love) and the other (faith), the link is indissoluble.
If, in the teaching of the Church, this link is broken, Christian morality sinks into various forms of relativism or skepticism, to the point of contentment with subjective and fluctuating opinions. A severance is created between truth and action. There is no longer any reference to the truth, nor to the authority which guarantees it. Transgression is ultimately abolished, because the moral reference points imparted by God to man are rejected. Man, it will even be suggested, no longer needs to love God in order to achieve salvation, or to believe in his love. Morality is fatally split, and the door is open wide to legalism, agnosticism, and secularization. The rules for living taught by the prophets, by the Lord, by the Fathers of the Church, are methodically dismantled.
What then prevails are the dictates of the new jurists, heirs to the scribes and Pharisees. Morality hence becomes a form of gnostic positivism, a knowledge reserved for the initiates. This knowledge only acquires legitimacy in the purely voluntary decisions of those who claim the privilege of announcing a new morality, severed from the founding reference to the revealed truth.
In his teaching, St. Paul urges us to avoid the snares of a morality devoid of roots in the Revelation. This is how he exhorts Christians:
“You must not fall in with the manners of this world. There must be inward change, a remaking of your minds, so that you can satisfy yourselves what is God’s will, the good thing, the desirable thing, the perfect thing (Romans 12:2). And this is my prayer for you: may your love grow richer and richer yet, in the fullness of its knowledge and the depth of its perception, so that you may learn to prize what is of value” (Phil. 1:9s; 1 Tim. 5:19-22).

The Return Of Casuistry

Here one perceives the return of casuistry, believed to allow moralists to examine and resolve matters of conscience. Certain moralists intend to offer solutions which please those who have recourse to their superior knowledge. Among the casuists of yesterday and today, the fundamental principles of morality are eclipsed by the (frequently divergent) opinions pronounced by these grave spiritual advisers. The disinterest with which fundamental morality is now viewed leaves the way open for the introduction of a positive law, which removes standards of conduct from any remaining reference to the fundamental rules of morality.
The casuist, or neo-casuist, has become legislator and judge. He cultivates the art of confusing the faithful. Concern for the truth, revealed and accessible to reason, is now of no interest. Ultimately, the only interest will be in probable positions. Through probabilism, one proposition is open to contradictory interpretations.
Probabilism will make it possible to blow first hot, then cold, for and against. Forgotten is the teaching of Jesus: Let your word be “Yes” or “No”; anything more than this comes from the evil one (Matt. 5:37; 2 Cor. 1:20). However, each neo-casuist will go with his own interpretation. The tendency is toward a confusion of propositions, duplicity, double or triple truth, an avalanche of interpretations. The casuist has a divided heart but intends to be a friend to the world (Judges 4:4-8).
Progressively, the rules of behavior proceeding from the will of the Lord and handed down by the Magisterium of the Church are languishing in decline. The moral assessment of acts can therefore be modified. Not content with toning down this assessment, the casuists wish to transform the moral law itself. This will be the task of casuists, confessors, spiritual advisers, and, on occasion, bishops. All must have a concern to please. They must in consequence resort to compromise, accommodate their arguments to the satisfaction of human passions: no person must be rebuffed.
The moral assessment of an act no longer depends on whether it conforms to the will of God, as made known to us by Revelation. This depends on the intention of the moral agent and this intention can be modulated and molded by the spiritual adviser who supports his followers. In order to please, the spiritual adviser will have to soften the rigor of the doctrine handed down by tradition. The pastor will have to adapt his words to the nature of man, whose passions are naturally leading to sin.
Hence the progressive relegation of references to original sin and grace. The influence of Pelagius (a monk of British origin) is evident: Man must save himself and take his destiny into his own hands. Telling the truth forms no part of the role of the casuist, who must captivate, present a line of argument which is engaging, curry favor, make salvation easy, delight those who aspire to have itching ears (2 Tim. 4:3).
In short, the eclipse of the decisive contribution of the Revelation to morality is paving the way for the investiture of the casuist and creating a space favorable to the installation of a government of consciences. Space is shrinking for religious liberty, as offered in the Scriptures to the children of God and inseparable from adherence to faith in the Lord.
Let us therefore turn to an analysis of examples of areas in which the actions of the neo-casuists of today emerge clearly.

The Government
Of Consciences

With the arrival in the Church of governors of conscience, we perceive the proximity of the casuistical notion of government of the city with the notion to be found, for example, in Machiavelli, Boëtie, and Hobbes. Without asserting or making themselves accountable for this, the neo-casuists are certainly heirs of these masters in the art of governing slaves, an art to be found in the three authors cited above.
A mortal God, the Leviathan defines what is just and what is good; he decides what men should think and wish for. It is he, the Leviathan, who governs the consciences, thoughts, and actions of all his subjects. He is accountable to no one. He must rule over the consciences of his subjects and define the good they should seek and the evil against which they should guard. Any political authority ultimately has its source in this mortal God, who is the governor of consciences. With the three authors cited above, we can see that the neo-casuists have aligned themselves with the theoreticians of tyranny and totalitarianism.
Does not the ABC of totalitarian power consist, first of all, in the subjugation, the alienation, of conscience? By this means, the casuists offer a robust guarantee to all who wish to establish a single civil religion which is easily controllable, and laws discriminating against citizens.

To Adapt The Sacraments?

In order to please everyone, it is necessary to adapt the Sacraments. Let us take the case of the Sacrament of penitence. The disinterest with which this Sacrament is today viewed can be understood through the rigorism demonstrated by confessors in the times of the elders. At least, so we are assured by the casuists. Today, the confessor should learn to make this Sacrament a Sacrament which pleases penitents. However, in toning down the severity attributed to this Sacrament, the casuist separates the penitent from the grace offered by God. The neo-casuist of today distances the sinner from the divine source of mercy. It is, however, to this that he must return.
The consequences of this deliberate deviation are paradoxical and dramatic. The new morality leads the Christian to render the Sacrament of penitence, and hence the Cross of Christ and his resurrection, futile (1 Cor. 1:17). If this Sacrament is no longer received as one of the major manifestations of the merciful love of God for us, if it is no longer perceived as necessary to salvation, it will soon cease to be necessary to instruct bishops or priests to offer Sacramental absolution to sinners.
The rarity and, ultimately, the disappearance of the Sacramental offer of pardon by the priest will lead, and in reality has already led, to other estrangements, including that of the ordained priesthood and the Eucharist. And so on for the Sacraments of Christian initiation (Baptism and Confirmation), the Sacrament of the Sick, not to speak of the liturgy in general….
At any rate, for the neo-casuists, there is in fact no longer a Revelation to be received or a tradition to be handed down. As has already been remarked, The truth is the new! The new is the new seal of the truth. This new casuistry is leading Christians to make a clean break with the past. Finally, the obsession with compromise is pushing the new casuists toward a return to nature, as before original sin.

The Question
Of “Remarriage”

The teaching of the neo-casuists calls to mind the spirit of compromise demonstrated to a considerable extent by the English bishops vis-à-vis Henry VIII. This question has relevance today, although the modalities of compromise are different. Who are the clerics from all orders who seek to please the powerful in this world? Are they swearers or refusers? How great is the number of pastors of all ranks who wish to make allegiance to the powerful of this world, albeit easily and without the need to swear publicly fidelity to the new “values” of the world today?
In pushing to facilitate “remarriage,” the neo-casuists are giving their backing to all those political players who are undermining respect for life and the family. With their assistance, annulments of marriage will be easy, as will repeat or flexible “marriages.”
The neo-casuists show great interest in cases of divorced persons who are “remarried.” As in other cases, the different stages of their approach provide a good illustration of salami tactics (Matyas Rákosi, 1947). According to these tactics, what one would never concede as a whole is conceded slice by slice. So let us follow the process.
First slice: At the point of departure we find, of course, references to the teaching in the Scriptures on marriage and the Church’s doctrine on this question. Second slice: Emphasis is placed on the difficulties in “receiving” this teaching. Third slice, in the form of a question: Are “remarried” divorced persons in a state of grave sin?
The fourth slice consists of the entry on the scene of the spiritual adviser, who will help “remarried” divorced persons to “discern,” that is, to choose whatever suits them in their situation. The spiritual adviser must show himself to be understanding and indulgent. He must demonstrate compassion, but what compassion? For the casuist, in effect, when one undertakes a moral assessment of an act, concern for compassion must take precedence over the assessment of actions which are objectively wrong: the adviser must be lenient, adapt to circumstances.
With the fifth slice of salami, each individual will be able to discern, personally and with full freedom of thought, what suits him best. In effect, along the way, the word discernment has become equivocal, ambiguous. It is not to be interpreted in the Pauline sense recalled in the scriptural references cited above. It is not a matter of seeking the will of God, but of discerning the right choice, the choice which will maximize the itching of the ears evoked by St. Paul (2 Tim. 4:3).