(Comment Box is Open)
By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
The buzz about the Pope’s exhortation Amoris Laetitia (AL), The Joy of Love, on “Love in the Family,” is dominating every other conversation in the Church The document is a pretty big target, all 263 pages of it. The size also lends itself to target practice in another way: Just about any lobby in the Church can throw a dart at it and find something to advance their agenda. Pope Francis, it seems, finds his fatherhood in leaving none of his spiritual children disappointed.
The size of the document is a liability: Many commentators weighed in to agree that most will not read it. My Twitter poll on the subject, asking “Will you read Amoris Laetitia?” found that 52 percent of respondents said “Absolutely not; too long” and 48 percent with “Darn right I am.”
The change agents who have swarmed around and co-opted the Pope from early in his pontificate have not been disappointed, especially those in the pro-Kasper camp who seek to begin chiseling away at eucharistic discipline in the Church through admitting those in objective adultery after divorce and remarriage to Communion before the death of the former spouse or without benefit of annulment.
Ross Douthat writing in The New York Times zeroed in on elements such as the time bomb planted in the document in the form of footnote 351, what Raymond Arroyo labeled the “smoking footnote”:
“In certain cases, this can include the help of the sacraments. Hence, ‘I want to remind priests that the confessional must not be a torture chamber, but rather an encounter with the Lord’s mercy’ (apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium [November 24, 2013], 44: AAS 105 [2013], 1038). I would also point out that the Eucharist ‘is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak’ (ibid., 47: 1039).”
Douthat wrote that “deliberate ambiguity,” such as we find in footnote 351, does offer a center for a deeply divided Church but “not one that’s likely to permanently hold.” The Pope may only be buying time to delay an inevitable train wreck between teaching and praxis.
Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, one of those who presided over the ceremony presenting the exhortation, proposed that there’s “development of doctrine” between Familiaris Consortio (FC) of John Paul II and AL. Development, however, doesn’t open up what was previously closed off as footnote 351 of AL does in hinting at opening up Communion for the divorced and remarried after FC closed it off.
Antonio Socci confirms my impression of the result of footnote 351 in his comments published on the Rorate Caeli blog: What is obvious, he writes, is this: the prohibition to receive Communion for the divorced and remarried is no longer absolute. Also, that “after the indissolubility of marriage everything else will come toppling down: confession, commandments, natural law.”
The best commentary I’ve seen to this point on AL is from Raymond Cardinal Burke. He is at once perceptive and deft, placing AL within the whole of Catholic teaching in order to guide the faithful securely in their search for truth above all.
Some professed to be mystified and others even angered by Cardinal Burke’s so-called “puzzling” response in which he limned the status or the authority of the document itself without commenting at all upon the content. The cardinal set down markers such as the “Church has never held that every utterance of Successor of St. Peter be received as part of infallible Magisterium” and “AL has no authority to propose novel doctrinal or pastoral practices.” His decision to omit comment about the contents of AL while reaffirming the fence around papal infallibility revealed a bias nonetheless that served to downgrade the message of AL.
The Lord Himself counseled us to be “as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.” Cardinal Burke demonstrated the wisdom of this teaching as he sought to feed the sheep with truth in a time of confusion while walking the line as a cardinal who serves in fealty to the Holy Father.
The rock on which Pope Francis’ overture to the divorced and remarried would founder is n. 2384 of The Catechism of the Catholic Church which describes civil remarriage after divorce as “public and permanent adultery,” matter gravely sinful and thus necessarily confessed before restoration to a state of grace and suitability for reception of Holy Communion. If footnote 351 cannot be massaged into harmony with Church teaching it indeed is the elephant’s nose under the tent for throwing over the sacramental edifice by taking out a part without which the whole will topple.
My concern is that any document which makes it seem as though living so as to receive sacraments is burdensome is alarming and harmful, as pastors everywhere struggle to teach their people that sin and death are the true burdens that weigh humanity down.
Fr. James Martin, SJ, and Fr. Edward Beck are among those who have been teasing their fans for years, building hopes that Protestant morals will finally be enough to merit sacramental Communion. After rehearsing for years they now roll out a flawless performance. For these and other dissidents God is not supposed to be welcome in the bedroom. The point is, however, if you’re Catholic God does indeed belong in the bedroom and if He’s not welcome there you’re not Catholic.
Martin courts popularity with pathetically inadequate offerings such as “respect people’s consciences when it comes to moral decisions,” as if whatever they decide has to be morally upright. My response to him was: “Are you making an effort to form them?” The typically ambiguous tweet by Martin was later deleted.
John L. Allen with Crux suggests the Pope is offering pastoral and merciful “wiggle room” here. Let’s be honest, it’s about turning the whole Church into a “wiggle room.”
I am left wondering, will AL serve as a countersign to the Year of Mercy emphasis on a return to sacramental Confession for those who have neglected the sacrament for years? If divorced and remarried Catholics are given a pass on Confession, why shouldn’t also anyone else be who is likewise in a state of objective mortal sin?
The sum of my reading leaves me with the conclusion that AL has the same authority as a note from your pastor in the Sunday bulletin. It is the orthodox faith and morals contained in exhortations and other papal documents that abides, deserves quoting, has authority, and is cited by Denzinger and other documents of record.
My counsel is that people keep repeating “Scripture and Tradition,” and learn this through these two indivisible means saving faith and morals come. In Jesus Christ love is truth and truth is love; upon this grace which reveals the inner life of the Triune God holy Church stands or falls.
And AL calls for sex education? The bottom line on Church teaching is that parents have the final word on whether children receive alleged “sex education” and that physiological sex education is never to be treated in a classroom environment due to the fact that each child is in a different stage of development.
Dear Holy Father: The world, the flesh, and the Devil have unfortunately already taught us much about the “The Joy of Sex.” Could we instead have a little of “The Joy of the Sacraments,” please?
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