A caution from Archbishop Chaput: dishonest mercy helps no one

[clem456]

The question was how would you know a person was in what you called an “objective state of mortal sin” and not whether the Church can rule on whether or not a person can receive communion.

You’re the one bringing the issue up.
The poster never claimed knowledge of an individual’s culpability.
The poster has answered you in that regard.
Why do you keep throwing that up?
Are you creating straw men? :yup:

 

[St_Francis]

The question was how would you know a person was in what you called an “objective state of mortal sin” and not whether the Church can rule on whether or not a person can receive communion.

The word you sometimes means the person(s) addressed, and sometimes just a general person, the way we use the word one as a pronoun. Since I would be so completely uninvolved in the judging of another specific person’s state, your question was beyond irrelevant, to the point that it did not occur to me that you were asking about me, if that is indeed what you were doing.

 

[LongingSoul]

Yesterday when making this point Father asked the group:
“What do we call it when someone forces love on someone else?”
And the obvious replies came, which I will not specify since it bothers some to hear it.
God will not force his love and mercy on us. A god in this image is one of violence and domination, even though it be nominally “mercy”. It is a perversion of the image of the true God.

Good Lord. I’ve heard it all. Your Priest told you the definition of rape is a man ‘forcing his love on a woman’. I honestly believe you’ve made that story up to suit your wacky agenda but there is something very disturbing all the same if men truly believe that rape is ‘forcing love on a woman’.

 

[clem456]

We have come to believe in God’s love: in these words the Christian can express the fundamental decision of his life. Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.

This exhortation from Benedict’s Deus et Caritas highlights the reality of the Christian relationship with God.
God desires our free response. Our response is a choice, or “:decision” to move in God’s direction. Love does not ask for static immobilization in our hearts of stone. He asks to know him, to move , to repent, to convert. To die to self. This is all about movement.

We don’t stay where we are and presume that God saves us despite our own selves. He saves us, with our cooperation, not in violation of our intransigent will.

 

[clem456]

Similarly St John Paul 2:

Following the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and paying close attention to the special needs of our times, I devoted the encyclical Redemptor hominis to the truth about man, a truth that is revealed to us in its fullness and depth in Christ. A no less important need in these critical and difficult times impels me to draw attention once again in Christ to the countenance of the "Father of mercies and God of all comfort."5 We read in the Constitution Gaudium et spes: “Christ the new Adam…fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his lofty calling,” and does it "in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love."6 The words that I have quoted are clear testimony to the fact that man cannot be manifested in the full dignity of his nature without reference…to God. Man and man’s lofty calling are revealed in Christ through the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love.

Again emphasizing that man is called.
What does it mean to be called? God speaks to us and asks us to listen and respond, to move. To repent, to convert. These are words of decision and action.
Confirming one’s self comfortably and feeling good about sin is not an honest experience of God’s mercy.

(can’t help but notice that St John Paul 2 points to the teaching of the Church…good enough for him, good enough for me)

 

[Thomas_White]

So, fine, let people be on their spiritual journeys. And let them understand that there are levels, and that recieving the Eucharist while objectively in a state of mortal sin may be ruinous to one’s eternity on more than one level.

The question of what is “an objective state of mortal sin” was asked in response to your comment quoted above (#143). If there is such a thing as an “objective state of mortal sin” then it is knowledge that can be known by others. I myself am unable to ascertain that another person is in the state of mortal sin, so I thought perhaps you could explain how this knowledge is learned.

You need not answer the question, of course, but this is why I asked.

 

[St_Francis]

The question of what is “an objective state of mortal sin” was asked in response to your comment quoted above (#143). If there is such a thing as an “objective state of mortal sin” then it is knowledge that can be known by others. I myself am unable to ascertain that another person is in the state of mortal sin, so I thought perhaps you could explain how this knowledge is learned.

You need not answer the question, of course, but this is why I asked.

And I answered that question. Twice.

 

[clem456]

Good Lord. I’ve heard it all. Your Priest told you the definition of rape is a man ‘forcing his love on a woman’. I honestly believe you’ve made that story up to suit your wacky agenda but there is something very disturbing all the same if men truly believe that rape is ‘forcing love on a woman’.

Are you able to address the content of the post without twisting the words of others?

Can you do that ?

 

[St_Francis]

Right, sins like murder, theft, etc.

The situation of a divorced and remarried couple as I used as an example, would not fit into this situation for they themselves know in their hearts, their first marriage failed to exist for some reason.

The current marriage does in fact exist and is expressed in their love for each other in the children they’ve brought into the world, and the lives they’ve lived.

Only the couple with pastoral guidance can come to an understanding of where they are at in relation to their faith.

Its why Pope Francis called for the synod to look at the issue.

If it was a black and white as you present, the synod would never have been called for.

Jim

The reason synods and other meetings of the Church are called is usually to resolve a conflict. Conflict can be generated not by an existing problem but by people suggesting changes. Some German bishops have been publically advocating the use of the internal forum for decades now, and they continue to publically advocate it despite the issuance of a clarification by the Vatican that this is not a thing that can be done.

There are very good reasons for the current system and that is why we have the current system. No one on this thread or elsewhere that I have seen has explained why the change should be made, what improvement it would result it, or how to avoid the very real spiritual dangers inherent in the proposed use of the internal forum.

 

[St_Francis]

The whole point the pope is making is about “the trust in and transformative power of God’s grace”.
He and others are not suggesting a minimizing of “sin”.
I think Chaput is missing the point entirely.
“Transform” is the operative word here…and he seems to be closed to it while the pope is trying to embrace it.

.

Do you understand why the system is the way it is? Can you explain why the proposed changes are needed or desirable? How would the spiritual dangers be avoided in the new system?

It’s all well and good for some German and other bishops to propose this or that, and it certainly gives people the immediate gratification of feeling good and of receiving accolades from the press, etc., but there are important questions that need to be considered. One cannot make a huge change like this simply because it’s popular.

 

[clem456]

The whole point the pope is making is about “the trust in and transformative power of God’s grace”.
He and others are not suggesting a minimizing of “sin”.
I think Chaput is missing the point entirely.
“Transform” is the operative word here…and he seems to be closed to it while the pope is trying to embrace it.

.

What does the word “transform” mean to you?
I really cannot see how the two men are at odds.

 

[ProdigalSun]

The whole point the pope is making is about “the trust in and transformative power of God’s grace”.
He and others are not suggesting a minimizing of “sin”.
I think Chaput is missing the point entirely.
“Transform” is the operative word here…and he seems to be closed to it while the pope is trying to embrace it.

.

OK, the question I have is who needs to do the transforming? Is it the couple who is in an irregular marriage (by the Churches standards). Will their view of their lives together change so that they seek an annulment from the first marriage. If one is granted, they will get there current relationship blessed so that it is now a marriage. If the first marriage is considered valid ( no annulment allowed), will the couple live together as brother and sister so that they are not fornicating. Is this the transformation you are visualizing?

If not then it is the church that would need to transform, to change its view of sinning and receiving communion. If the couple is allowed to sin and receive then why should anyone be told not to receive when in mortal sin.

I pray the Church will remain true to the word of God!

Peace!

 

[LongingSoul]

Do you understand why the system is the way it is? Can you explain why the proposed changes are needed or desirable? How would the spiritual dangers be avoided in the new system?

It’s all well and good for some German and other bishops to propose this or that, and it certainly gives people the immediate gratification of feeling good and of receiving accolades from the press, etc., but there are important questions that need to be considered. One cannot make a huge change like this simply because it’s popular.

I have personally not got the impression that there would be a ‘new system’ or ‘huge change’. Going by past discussion about the issue within the Church, while there are some proposals to change the general rule, (the then)Card. Ratzinger and currently Pope Francis have stressed that that will not happen.

It will most probably have the nature of a letter, speech or message directed to the people listening today… similar to Pope Paul VI letter regarding the Church attitude towards mixed marriage in 1970.

The reality is that these situations have been occurring frequently as people born in an era of secularism, are naturally coming back to the Church family because of the experience of family life.

This is an interesting testimony which pretty much all Catholic Priests in the west are aware of…

aleteia.org/2015/11/18/divorce-remarriage-and-communion-its-personal-2/

 

[clem456]

PART THREE
LIFE IN CHRIST

SECTION ONE
MAN’S VOCATION LIFE IN THE SPIRIT

CHAPTER ONE
THE DIGNITY OF THE HUMAN PERSON

ARTICLE 3
MAN’S FREEDOM

1730 God created man a rational being, conferring on him **the dignity of a person **who can initiate and control his own actions. "God willed that man should be ‘left in the hand of his own counsel,’ so that he might **of his own accord seek his Creator **and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him."26

Man is rational and therefore like God; he is created with free will and is master over his acts.27

The denial of our own role in choosing God detracts from human dignity, as it detracts from our responsibility to seek, to listen, to choose wisely. The following section of the CCC is entitled thus:

I. FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY
…
1731 Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, **to act **or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility. By free will one shapes one’s own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude.
…
1742 Freedom and grace. The grace of Christ is not in the slightest way a rival of our freedom when this freedom accords with the sense of the true and the good that God has put in the human heart. On the contrary, as Christian experience attests especially in prayer, the more docile we are to the promptings of grace, the more we grow in inner freedom and confidence during trials, such as those we face in the pressures and constraints of the outer world. By the working of grace the Holy Spirit **educates us **in spiritual freedom in order to make us **free collaborators **in his work in the Church and in the world:

And we live in hope:

I. MERCY AND SIN
1847 "God created us without us: but he did not will to save us without us."116 To receive his mercy, we must admit our faults. "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."117

1848 As St. Paul affirms, "Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more."118 But to do its work grace must **uncover sin so as to convert **our hearts and bestow on us "righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."119 Like a physician who probes the wound before treating it, God, by his Word and by his Spirit, **casts a living light on sin: **

**Conversion requires **convincing of sin; it includes the interior judgment of conscience, and this, being a proof of the action of the Spirit of truth in man’s inmost being, becomes at the same time the start of a new grant of grace and love: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Thus in this “convincing concerning sin” we discover a double gift: the gift of the truth of conscience and the gift of the certainty of redemption. The Spirit of truth is the Consoler

When our heart is made of stone and insists on staying where it is, we do not experience conversion and God’s mercy.

 

[Thomas_White]

And I answered that question. Twice.

And I answered that question. Twice.

Yes, but the correct answer would have been there is no such thing as “an objective state of mortal sin”. It is only a presumption.

 

[LongingSoul]

OK, the question I have is who needs to do the transforming? Is it the couple who is in an irregular marriage (by the Churches standards). Will their view of their lives together change so that they seek an annulment from the first marriage. If one is granted, they will get there current relationship blessed so that it is now a marriage. If the first marriage is considered valid ( no annulment allowed), will the couple live together as brother and sister so that they are not fornicating. Is this the transformation you are visualizing?

If not then it is the church that would need to transform, to change its view of sinning and receiving communion. If the couple is allowed to sin and receive then why should anyone be told not to receive when in mortal sin.

I pray the Church will remain true to the word of God!

Peace!

Time and understanding about human beings has transformed the strict prohibitions in other ways for example, the experience of addicts and the nature of addiction is acknowledged to reduce culpability in a person who is faithful in every other way. Choice and capacity to consent to sinful acts have always been an area of pastoral mercy in Priests estimation of worthiness to receive absolution and communion.

 

[ProdigalSun]

Why the obsession by some with the divorced and remarried who have not obtained an annullment receiving communion when it cannot be objectively known whether or not they are in the state of mortal sin? It is a presumption, and it is further a presumption that such persons are unrepentant and therefore should not be extended mercy (as has been argued).

It cannot be objectively known whether or not anyone receiving communion is in the state of mortal sin.

Well duh! Of course no one will know. That is why Satanists are able to steal the host. But (as many people on the forum have told you) this is not what we are talking about.

 

[Thomas_White]

The reason synods and other meetings of the Church are called is usually to resolve a conflict. Conflict can be generated not by an existing problem but by people suggesting changes. Some German bishops have been publically advocating the use of the internal forum for decades now, and they continue to publically advocate it despite the issuance of a clarification by the Vatican that this is not a thing that can be done.

There are very good reasons for the current system and that is why we have the current system. No one on this thread or elsewhere that I have seen has explained why the change should be made, what improvement it would result it, or how to avoid the very real spiritual dangers inherent in the proposed use of the internal forum.

As I understand the final synod document, what was recommended would involve both the internal forum (the forum of conscience) and the external forum (a determination made by a priest under his bishop). The existing tribunal process uses both forums, and the difference is whether a determination of Nullity is made by a tribunal judge or a Catholic priest.

It is difficult to see how a person would petition a marriage tribunal to hear a marriage case without first having used the internal forum concerning the validity of his or her marriage. The reaction to the recommendation of the synod by some appears based either on a lack of knowledge or a misunderstanding of what it appears was recommended. But perhaps it also involves the classic resistance to change where change, any change, is perceived by some as threatening.

 

[ProdigalSun]

Yes, but the correct answer would have been there is no such thing as “an objective state of mortal sin”. It is only a presumption.

That is nonsense. God knows if we are in Mortal sin, that is not presumption.

 

[Thomas_White]

That is nonsense. God knows if we are in Mortal sin, that is not presumption.

Indeed God knows. That is the correct answer.