Amoris Laetitia's exception of the exception - possible explanations?

[goout]

Supporting others with their difficulties perhaps.
I find though that most are here to sound off and tell others how it should be than explore a range of possible explanations that might actually vindicate the one we call our Pope .

I really don’t know the mind and intentions of people posting here, none of whom I know. I’ll have to assume they realize the Pope needs no vindicating.

You know what is encouraging though, is to see a well educated laity that can respectfully make the case for the faith, and do it thoughtfully with references, rather than simply give opinions and attack others.
THAT is a good thing. Thanks for starting this thread.

 

[Ender]

Ender your seem to have a difficulty with the intrinsic ambiguity of language whose full meaning often rests on context.

I find it beyond ironic that you find ambiguity in simple declarative statements yet cannot recognize it in a document that is interpreted in contrary ways by those people (bishops) one would most expect to understand it.

Let’s look at your over simplistic appreciation of “intrinsically evil”.

“My” over simplistic understanding? How does quoting the definitions of prior popes constitute “my” understanding?

1. You seem to hold that adultery and personal killings are not analogs because there are exceptions to personal killings but not to adultery.

No, what I’m doing is pointing out the ways you play with words, specifically “killing.” Some killing is sinful, some is not, and it is inappropriate to blur that distinction. Also, the phrase “personal killings” is your own; it is not something the church uses, and since it is your own invention there is no way to know what you mean by it.

Well, I do not know where you got this conclusion from re adultery as this is the very point being investigated.

Clarify this point: does the church consider adultery to be an intrinsic evil? Yes/no

But it is quite clear to me that personal “killings” are always morally wrong. The CCC says as much as does “Thou shall not kill”. Yet we know that some personal “killings” are morally acceptable by reason of TPODE.

Personal killing is always morally wrong…but there are times when it is morally acceptable? Let me point out yet again the the first condition to be met in appealing to the principle of double effect is this:The action to be performed must be morally good in itself or at least morally indifferent or neutral.
As you have already declared that personal killing is always morally wrong it can never be excused by appealing to double effect.

You conclude there is only one solution to this confusion, ie “killing” is not intrinsically evil.

• There are no exceptions to an intrinsically evil act.
• There are exceptions to the prohibition against killing.
• Therefore killing is not intrinsically evil. QED

But then you have a problem with the CCC and the 5th Commandment. You get around this by saying it really means “Thou shall not kill the innocent” (ie murder).

Once again you are claiming I have said something when in fact what I have done is to cite JPII saying it. If you need other citations I can provide them as well.

It’s awkward though…because the Magisterium refuses to translate the 5th with murder these days.

“These days”? Have things changed since the days of JPII? Are they changed since BXVI? When do these days become those days?

And your understanding of a “moral act” “moral evil” and “physical evil” is somewhat vague.

Asserting something is not the same as demonstrating it, as you will discover if you ever try to support your claims with argument.

Ender

 

[Rau]

… I have accused no contruibutor here …

Blue, you have repeatedly proposed that other contributors “can’t swallow a bitter pill”, “are insufficiently trained to understand”, “lack capacity”, are arguing from “emotion”, etc. All of these assertions pass comment on attributes of the contributor, not the merits of the argument.

If you believe I have clearly ad hominem targeted a contributor please quote that back to me. I have never consciously intended to do so.

In all honesty Blue, you do so regularly, in this and other threads.

 

[Vico]

That would not be a logical extension of what I observed above.

The logical extension is that such doubts are idiosyncratic, the mind’s defence mechanism in face of a relatively clear but emotionally unpalatable pastoral direction by Pope Francis, a first stage in the grief process.

The answer is that older brother types need to have enough faith in the Holy Spirit’s leadership of the Church to work through their feelings of doubt and confusion u til they reach the other side by a process of grief and acceptance.
Faith is always required in the Christian life, constant freedom from subjective confusion and doubt was never promised by Jesus in this life. The Spirit leads us to the truth…that suggests a journey, an end point, not a starting out point to me.
We walk by faith, not by sight.

I mean what is not clear in the official statements not in doubting peoples minds.

 

[Rau]

Rau I am presenting a range of generic possibilities that validly and reasonably can assist people overcome their own brick walls.

Blue - my first observation is that the brick walls (or perhaps the “lighthouse building” would be the better metaphor) were built by the prior Church teaching, not by some unexplained flaw in the contributors here (nor by the Priests, Bishops, Cardinals and various commentators who’ve questioned how AL is to be understood alongside the prior Church teaching). [Not to be confused with the other metaphorical brick wall animated in my prior post ]

And second, it’s fine to present some possibilities - which in the circumstances we must agree are speculative. Logically, the next step is to work through those and see if they “hold water” so to speak. Objectively, we have not been able to get that far. We did not get beyond the speculative stage.

To the extent that we address the question of whether or not sexual acts of the “remarried” are adulterous, this is quite the re-run of the Zika/contraception thread. You put in the yards there to try and work through an idea, based on “indirect contraception”, which would have kept the popular interpretation of Francis’s statement in line with Church teaching. But in the context of a happily married couple fearful of Zika - it didn’t work - it was impossible to escape the evil moral object of (direct) contraception. [Which left me to conclude that the only context in which the interpretation of Francis’s statement (as “allowing contraception”) was one of a woman seeking to prevent/mitigate the consequences of an *unjust act forced upon her - analogous to rape. So the act was not the moral one of contraception - just as it is not that in a post-rape scenario.]

On the present matter, you’ve speculated whether there is an indirect “mode” whereby what appears to be adultery is in fact not. Of course it would be interesting to work that through and see if it can work. My inclination is that it may not. And what worries me about that line of thinking is that it may tend to encourage one to believe that the act ought be “excusable” by circumstances. [NB. PODE does not do that.] As we know, that thinking can lead us to a place where the negative precepts are increasingly easy to dismiss as "not applying because…“more lives could be saved”, or “grandma was ready to die”, or…

 

[Rau]

Ender your seem to have a difficulty with the intrinsic ambiguity of language whose full meaning often rests on context. You seem to treat language like mathematical symbols and wonder why you see confusion everywhere because people just as intelligent as yourself, and often better educated, see things you fail to see. Saying “do you not understand” does not suggest you are particularly open to the possibility that you may be the one who holds things poorly .

Ad hominem?

Let’s look at your over simplistic appreciation of…

Ad hominem?

Yet we know that some personal “killings” are morally acceptable by reason of TPODE.

TPODE may help explain that said killings are not the thing proscribed by the 5th. The TPODE does NOT serve to identify “exceptions”.

… I belive my under-the-hood professional understanding of moral evil and other evils is more precise than your “drivers manual” appreciation of those conceptual realities.

Ad hominem?

I therefore translate the 5th and 6th Commandment to mean “Thou shall not personally directly kill” and likewise with adultery. This does fully accord with the CCC.

That’s fine. Thus, killing in self defence can be licit since it is not at all captured by the commandment. “Thou shall’t not kill” does not proscribe all acts which cause death (even of the innocent).

So what this means is that lethal self defence is not in fact an exception to -]not killing /-]the 5th commandment…

I think this is the point both Ender and I have made. it was you who spoke of exceptions.

…A moral act has three fonts from which we guage it’s sinfulness or not. A licit indirect killing no longer has killing (grave matter) as its object font. The object font is now protecting the wife and kids. The intention font is good (so long as one intends the object font not the consequences font), the circumstances/consequences font involves grave physical evils…but if the goods obtained outweigh these grave evils (the principle of proportionality) then this font becomes good overall. Therefore in licit lethal self defence all fonts are good and so the whole moral act is praiseworthy.

Agreed. My guess is Ender likewise agrees.

The question is are some physical acts of alleged adultery able to be validly treated in the same way.

Pope Francis has already indicated the reality holds pastorally.

What does “the reality holds pastorally” mean? What exactly did the Pope say on this point…or is this an inference you draw?

If this be true then theology must be able to accommodate his apparent exception to the 6th Commandment.

With emphasis on “apparent” exception - for the negative precepts, properly understood - have no exceptions. The question thus is: can a second marriage and the acts proper to marriage be something other than adultery, ie. a double effect?

And your arguments against it simply don’t hold water yet sorry Ender.
If we understand the Commandments as prohibiting direct personal acts of killings and adultery then arguments of intrinsic evil are irrelevant.

Indirect adultery is but a speculation. At this point, it appears you no more can see how such can arise than anyone else.

The question simply becomes, how do we know there can never be indirect acts of adultery?

Well, never say never! But adulterous relationships have existed for a long time. If one can licitly (re)marry and live maritally while married to another - you’d think the explanation would have come to light by now.

Perhaps there are other possibilities:

• There is adultery, but it is being “justified” somehow (eg. on the consequences of the options) eek; I believe one of the questions in the dubia seeks to rule out this possibility.
• The question of adultery, per se, is not being addressed - but rather the circumstances whereby one may receive/be given communion.

 

[pnewton]

Which implies that it is not a matter of those that persevere obstinately in manifest grave sin.

I have absolutely no idea where you get that implication. It seems made up. Paragraph 300 does not mention manifest grave sin, obstinate or otherwise. The Pope is explaining the limitations of canon law, and it seems you bounced back to it in a circle.

 

[pnewton]

The questions in the dubia, if answered in such a way as to confirm JP II’s teachings,… It has little to do with canon law, and nothing to do with a debate about what may or may not be infallible.

I disagree, and to get back to the original topic, this is where she or he will find some explanation. For the debate of what is and is not doctrine is central to why some take issue with Amoris Laetitia. John Paul II did teach as supreme pontiff, but he also was top administrator of the Church. In the matter of administrating, that is, discipline, popes can change, and should.

 

[Rau]

I disagree, and to get back to the original topic, this is where she or he will find some explanation. For the debate of what is and is not doctrine is central to why some take issue with Amoris Laetitia. John Paul II did teach as supreme pontiff, but he also was top administrator of the Church. In the matter of administrating, that is, discipline, popes can change, and should.

Of course. Many disciplines can come and go with the times, but we are not normally in doubt as to what is discipline and what is doctrine.

Is it your view that who may approach communion is a matter of discipline only?

Note that the post of mine to which you responded had in mind the several questions of the dubia that referred to doctrine dealt with in Veritatis Splendor.

 

[graciew]

Of course. Many disciplines can come and go with the times, but we are not normally in doubt as to what is discipline and what is doctrine.

.

Who said this speaking at the opening of the conference of the diocese of Rome in the Lateran Basilica on June 16? Guess!

“For your own peace of mind, I have to tell you that everything that is written in the exhortation [Amoris Laetitia] – and here I refer to the words of a great theologian who once was a secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Schönborn, who presented it [Amoris Laetitia] – everything is Thomistic, from the beginning to the end. It is sound doctrine. But, so many times, we want it to be so that sound doctrine would have a mathematical security which does not, in fact, exist – neither in a lax and indulgent way, nor in a stiff and rigid way.”

 

[OraLabora]

Is it your view that who may approach communion is a matter of discipline only?

Is the matter of what constitutes “mortal sin” a matter of discipline or doctrine?

If it is doctrine, and is applicable to all grave sin as the CCC claims, then is it not possible that the grave matter of adultery, in some limited and extenuating circumstances of the type AL clearly states, also subjected to this doctrine?

 

[pnewton]

Of course. Many disciplines can come and go with the times, but we are not normally in doubt as to what is discipline and what is doctrine.

Is it your view that who may approach communion is a matter of discipline only?
.

I believe it is primarily a discipline. Doctrine sets the limits, but within those limits, there are a wide variety of disciplines that would be acceptable. Yes, this is one of the problems I see possible in the dubia.

I understand the pragmatic need for such disciplines, but I do not believe that it is doctrine. After all, it is not the objective mortal sin that keeps us from receiving the grace of God in non-sacramental ways. After the commission of an objective mortal sin, the Christian may not be in the least out of favor with God, if there was no actual sin, or a lesser sin.

By the way, I am not convinced the follow up question above is useful. The state of the soul and the doctrine around that is not the same as the Church deciding who can and cannot receive communion. Communion may not be allowed for those who are not in a state of sin, but because they are out of communion. Likewise, communion has been denied for those who are in communion but in a state of objective mortal sin, which of course is not the same as being in the state of mortal sin.

 

[Richca]

Who said this speaking at the opening of the conference of the diocese of Rome in the Lateran Basilica on June 16? Guess!

“For your own peace of mind, I have to tell you that everything that is written in the exhortation [Amoris Laetitia] – and here I refer to the words of a great theologian who once was a secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Schönborn, who presented it [Amoris Laetitia] – everything is Thomistic, from the beginning to the end. It is sound doctrine. But, so many times, we want it to be so that sound doctrine would have a mathematical security which does not, in fact, exist – neither in a lax and indulgent way, nor in a stiff and rigid way.”

You might want to read the following from Father Basil Cole OP, who teaches moral, spiritual and dogmatic theology at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington D.C… It is an article written exclusively for the National Catholic Register titled ‘Is Amoris Laetitia Really Thomistic?’

ncregister.com/blog/edward-pentin/is-amoris-laetitia-thomistic

 

[Vico]

I have absolutely no idea where you get that implication. It seems made up. Paragraph 300 does not mention manifest grave sin, obstinate or otherwise. The Pope is explaining the limitations of canon law, and it seems you bounced back to it in a circle.

You don’t follow the logic?

1. Canon law is about those that persevere in manifest grave sin.
2. Canon law will not be used in anyway to address any possible exceptions.
3. Therefore perseverance in manifest grave sin will not be used to address any possible exceptions.

 

[Rau]

Who said this speaking at the opening of the conference of the diocese of Rome in the Lateran Basilica on June 16? Guess!

“For your own peace of mind, I have to tell you that everything that is written in the exhortation [Amoris Laetitia] – and here I refer to the words of a great theologian who once was a secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Schönborn, who presented it [Amoris Laetitia] – everything is Thomistic, from the beginning to the end. It is sound doctrine. But, so many times, we want it to be so that sound doctrine would have a mathematical security which does not, in fact, exist – neither in a lax and indulgent way, nor in a stiff and rigid way.”

Pnewton might wish to comment on that.

I understand the good Cardinal is a strong advocate for the proposals in AL. I note that the Priest (and Theologian) who wrote the article quoted in post #203 remarked that the Cardinal has expressed none of the theological reasoning that might buttress the proposal.

*“Defenders of the change, chief among them Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, have said that the change they advocate is not a reversal of former teaching but a development of doctrine. I have so far seen nothing which convinces me that this is more than mere affirmation, unsupported by cogent, rational demonstration.” *

 

[Rau]

I understand the pragmatic need for such disciplines, but I do not believe that it is doctrine. After all, it is not the objective mortal sin that keeps us from receiving the grace of God in non-sacramental ways. After the commission of an objective mortal sin, the Christian may not be in the least out of favor with God, if there was no actual sin, or a lesser sin.

I can well imagine that the person who attempts to live as brother and sister but fails (even repeatedly) may not be guilty of mortal sin.

The more pointed question pertains to the person who determines that there is *no obligation *to live as brother and sister. Upon what does that conclusion rest? A conscientious belief in the invalidity of the prior marriage? Or something else?

Now arguably, the right to receive communion may perhaps be separable from all these considerations.

 

[graciew]

You might want to read the following from Father Basil Cole OP, who teaches moral, spiritual and dogmatic theology at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington D.C… It is an article written exclusively for the National Catholic Register titled ‘Is Amoris Laetitia Really Thomistic?’

ncregister.com/blog/edward-pentin/is-amoris-laetitia-thomistic

I have my Bishop,thank you. And I mean thank you for sharing it really.
And I will keep the peace of mind the Pope has offered and cherish it. I am not worried.
And though I really struggled with Aristotelian-Thomistic, I passed the subjects at the University many years ago,too many… How could I discuss any of it seriously with the Pope no less?.

I am glad Jesus did not allow the woman brought to Him to be stoned. That was the law: Stoning her.And we cannot say Jesus didn t know it. Perhaps one of my favourite passages. I cannot fathom her fear…nor His compassion.
And I cannot help remembering Brother Jay. He used to teach us: because " it is the loving thing to do".

 

[Rau]

Is the matter of what constitutes “mortal sin” a matter of discipline or doctrine?

Doctrine.

If it is doctrine, and is applicable to all grave sin as the CCC claims, then is it not possible that the grave matter of adultery, in some limited and extenuating circumstances of the type AL clearly states, also subjected to this doctrine?

Of course. Your point?

 

[graciew]

Pnewton might wish to comment on that.

I understand the good Cardinal is a strong advocate for the proposals in AL. I note that the Priest (and Theologian) who wrote the article quoted in post #203 remarked that the Cardinal has expressed none of the theological reasoning that might buttress the proposal.

"Defenders of the change, chief among them Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, have said that the change they advocate is not a reversal of former teaching but a development of doctrine. I have so far seen nothing which convinces me that this is more than mere affirmation, unsupported by cogent, rational demonstration."

It was Pope Francis.
He said it in June.

 

[Vico]

I have absolutely no idea where you get that implication. It seems made up. Paragraph 300 does not mention manifest grave sin, obstinate or otherwise. The Pope is explaining the limitations of canon law, and it seems you bounced back to it in a circle.

A important statementfrom AL 300 footnote 336 is from EVANGELII GAUDIUM:

336 This is also the case with regard to sacramental
discipline, since discernment can recognize that in a particular
situation no grave fault exists. In such cases, what is found in
another document applies: cf. Evangelii Gaudium (24 November
2013), 44 and 47: AAS 105 (2013), 1038-1040.

1. Moreover, pastors and the lay faithful who accompany their brothers and sisters in faith or on a journey of openness to God must always remember what the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches quite clearly: “Imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors”.[49] Consequently, without detracting from the evangelical ideal, they need to accompany with mercy and patience the eventual stages of personal growth as these progressively occur.[50] I want to remind priests that the confessional must not be a torture chamber but rather an encounter with the Lord’s mercy which spurs us on to do our best. A small step, in the midst of great human limitations, can be more pleasing to God than a life which appears outwardly in order but moves through the day without confronting great difficulties. Everyone needs to be touched by the comfort and attraction of God’s saving love, which is mysteriously at work in each person, above and beyond their faults and failings.