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

[commenter]

A spouse experiences every moment of a marriage and its complex dynamics and knows his/her state of mind at the time of the marriage vows. I do not believe that any member of a marriage tribunal could possibly better know the existential validity of a marriage than a person who experiences it.

That would essentially mean the Church has no role in discerning which marriages should be annulled. In effect it means the Church has no role in in discerning who is ready to get married, since the “couple knows better”. Indirectly, it suggests the Church has no role in discerning who is ready to be ordained, since no seminary knows the soul of a seminarian better than the seminarian himself.

Keep in mind your post directly contradicts Pope Francis, and other popes, who did and do ratify the **authority ** and expertise of the marriage tribunals.

 

[Thomas_White]

That would essentially mean the Church has no role in discerning which marriages should be annulled. In effect it means the Church has no role in in discerning who is ready to get married, since the “couple knows better”. Indirectly, it suggests the Church has no role in discerning who is ready to be ordained, since no seminary knows the soul of a seminarian better than the seminarian himself.

Keep in mind your post directly contradicts Pope Francis, and other popes, who did and do ratify the **authority ** and expertise of the marriage tribunals.

My post says what it says and nothing more. I don’t see how saying that a person knows his or her own life experiences–including the dynamics of marriage and the complexity of one’s subjective or inner experiences–better than anyone else could is saying the Church has no role in marriage preparation, marriage tribunals and ordination and is a contradiction of Pope Francis.

As for knowing the soul of a seminarian (or of anyone else for that matter), I do not believe it is for another person to discern–observable behavior, yes; a person’s soul, no. I do not understand how this could even be thought possible.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I know I’ve brought this up at other points in this debate, but I would like this explained, please.

Not all that long ago, as far as Church history is concerned, around AD1530, there lived a King of England. This King was known to be a staunch defender of the Catholic Faith and he ruled a land which had long been faithful --a land which had even supplied an English Pope at one time.

This King had been married for 20 years to a good and faithful Catholic queen. When that queen was only 15, she had been married to this King’s older brother, but he was likewise only 15, and sickly. They did not consummate the marriage, and the young prince died only 6 months later. This king and the princess (now queen) married, had several children, but only one daughter survived infancy.

The king’s conscience began to bother him. Though he loved the queen and had thought himself free to marry, was he really free? She had been married to his brother --and now she was ‘barren’–that was the curse of those who married a brother’s wife, the Bible said so. Had he been free? Was that marriage truly valid in the eyes of God.

Over years (and with the impetus of a woman who demanded marriage before any kind of sexual relations, i.e. no mistress she) this king was convinced that his first marriage was invalid. He married the second woman quietly and announced that she was now his lawful wife, not the other woman.

The entire country of England was wrenched into Protestantism, and many people lost their lives, including two saints of the Church, St Thomas More and St John Fisher, over the issue of whether this was indeed a lawful marriage.

Now it appears that, in the context of this new AL, that was all for nothing.

Because Henry quite specifically mentions that it was his conscience that had determined the validity of his marriage to Anne, and the invalidity of that to Catherine.
AND Henry had not one, but two prelates, Cardinal Wolsey and later Archbishop Cramner, who concurred with him.

If AL had been in place in 1530, Henry could have quite successfully used it. He was himself well versed in theology, his conscience was paramount, and he had prelates in concurrence every step of the way.

If there is an attempt to read AL as permitting those in an irregular union which has not been judged valid by the Church and there is no chance (and the argument would have been used that, with Catherine’s nephew as Holy Roman Emperor and holding the Pope as a hostage, the Church ‘could not’ pronounce as it was under duress) of the Church being able to judge it, and if what is needed for those people to receive the sacraments, which would by definition establish them as being in full union/communion with the Catholic Church, is ‘primacy of conscience, self-determination of validity, and the guidance of a qualified prelate’, then Henry and Anne were in the right all along, and St Thomas More and St John Fisher died for a lie.

TE may I politely suggest this has little to do with the topic of this thread, present discussion or even AL…which does not seem to speak of the primacy of conscience as a single or even major deciding factor in a PP’S decision to provide Communion.

Of course it may indicate to a PP that he may discover reasonably objective grounds for deciding whether a Tribunal let a worthy case down for technical reasons. (Then again it is possible they are mistaken and there are no objective grounds discoverable). I would think this is but one duck of the many needing to be lined up in Pope Francis’s Accompanyment process.

Primacy of conscience is of course the main criterion of whether a couple may approach Jesus in Communion, as per Canon 916. However the PP also in conscience must follow out the duties of Canon 915 and determine whether to provide Communion to those who believe they may approach. His duty is based on objective grounds re their disposition and the severity of their alleged public sins. That is a prudential judgement and hardly a matter of simply discerning technical adultery.

 

[Rau]

…Therefore, it is understandable that those who cannot easily digest this bitter pastoral pill…

What is “bitter” about it?

The simple point I make is that the more faithful Catholic would more likely look to their own theological incapacities than the Pope’s when faced with a “new” teaching they cannot understand.

I guess we could all say “Oh, well, he must be right” and then recognise there is not much need for the thread? IMHO, it is not about “theological incapacities”. It is about an inadequate exposition. Sufficiently inadequate that 4 cardinals (never mind their method…) found it necessary to query fundamental elements of it. With the greatest respect to the Pope, but in all objectivity, I believe Francis has somewhat a track record in this regard. The Zika debacle comes to mind. You will recall the insane hoops you put yourself through (without success) to try and gleen a different moral object that must apply when one uses ABC to avoid a Zika baby - such hoop jumping prompted by another papal statement that could fairly be judged an inadequate exposition of the matter.

A time comes when all the explaining in the world will not enlighten those who do not have the capacity to understand.

Distinguishing the basis for the altered rules from those that came before** should not be difficult**. After all, the prior rules and their theological basis are relatively straightforward. The present difficulty is not (IMHO) due to a failing in those seeking to understand as you persistently claim.

The pastoral direction is set, if some are unable or unwilling to** see or try and discover a possible theological justification **for it at the moment

Thank you Blue - you make my point! Why in heaven’s name is a mission of discovery in search of a “possible theological justification” required? Perhaps the theological justification could just be written down plainly? As it was for the prior rules.

 

[Rau]

Good quote, but you have not answered my challenge though.
Find a tradition that consistently says this about all forms of adultery.

Would not the more reasonable request be to you - to identify where, in the context of apparent adultery - para (80) of Veritatis Splendor is found wanting?

The question then is whether cases of indirect adultery are able to be reasonably identified…just as such can be done for killing in lethal self defence.

So, a Human Act was done which, indirectly, and not directly willed, involved entry into another marriage (which itself is already sounding invalid by virtue of a lack of free choice…), and which indirectly, and not directly willed, involved sexual relations.

I believe Pope Francis would not be averse to exploring this theological possibility [of indirect adultery].

Is that what you believe may underpin this element of AL? Perhaps it will be written down - if not for us - then perhaps for the 4 cardinals who asked some reasonable questions.

Direct personal killings are of course forbidden always and everywhere. But indirect personal killings are not. Check the CCC, it’s very clear on this point.
Therefore just because some offence is intrinsically evil does not mean that it cannot be indirectly chosen for proportionate reasons.

This distorts the meaning of intrinsically evil acts. That which is intrinsically evil may not ever be licitly done [could Veritatis Splendor be any clearer on that?], not for a proportionate reason nor any other. The human act which may see a person in self-defence act in a manner leading to the death of the aggressor was not the committing of an intrinsically evil act - its object is of a different species. It was not the thing forbidden by the law.

 

[Vico]

I think most are aware of this attenuated culpability angle as it was discussed deeply in the locked thread that gave rise to this one. As it was well known in the time of Veritas Splendor I am assuming something more is needed if we are to justify Pope Francis going further than what JPII allowed…ie the exception of his exception.

In Familaris Consortio: "the Church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried. " but then states “Reconciliation in the sacrament of Penance which would open the way to the Eucharist, can only be granted to those who, repenting of having broken the sign of the Covenant and of fidelity to Christ, are sincerely ready to undertake a way of life that is no longer in contradiction to the indissolubility of marriage.”

So to repent and be sincerely ready could have multiple forms not merely the one then given. However, it becomes more obvious, in the later statement by the CDF, that annulment that is the key issue, which then involves a matter not of difference in gravity between venial and mortal but the existence of a marriage.

c. Admittedly, it cannot be excluded that mistakes occur in marriage cases. In some parts of the Church, well-functioning marriage tribunals still do not exist. Occasionally, such cases last an excessive amount of time. Once in a while they conclude with questionable decisions. Here it seems that the application of epikeia in the internal forum is not automatically excluded from the outset. This is implied in the 1994 letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in which it was stated that new canonical ways of demonstrating nullity should exclude “as far as possible” every divergence from the truth verifiable in the judicial process (cf. No. 9). Some theologians are of the opinion that the faithful ought to adhere strictly even in the internal forum to juridical decisions which they believe to be false. Others maintain that exceptions are possible here in the internal forum, because the juridical forum does not deal with norms of divine law, but rather with norms of ecclesiastical law. This question, however, demands further study and clarification. Admittedly, the conditions for asserting an exception would need to be clarified very precisely, in order to avoid arbitrariness and to safeguard the public character of marriage, removing it from subjective decisions.

vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19980101_ratzinger-comm-divorced_en.html

That same statement contains a footnote No. 4 from 2005:

During the meeting with clergy in the Diocese of Aosta, which took place 25 July 2005, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of this difficult question: “ those who were married in the Church for the sake of tradition but were not truly believers, and who later find themselves in a new and invalid marriage and subsequently convert, discover faith and feel excluded from the Sacrament, are in a particularly painful situation. This really is a cause of great suffering and when I was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, I invited various Bishops’ Conferences and experts to study this problem: a sacrament celebrated without faith. Whether, in fact, a moment of invalidity could be discovered here because the Sacrament was found to be lacking a fundamental dimension, I do not dare to say. I personally thought so, but from the discussions we had I realized that it is a highly complex problem and ought to be studied further. But given these people’s painful plight, it must be studied further.”

 

[Rau]

…Direct personal killing is always and everywhere immoral.

And acts of legitimate self defense occasioning death, and legitimate acts in a just war, and legitimate capital punishment are not that. The 5th does not forbid them. They do not break the 5th. They are not an exception. They are simply not what the law forbids.

 

[pnewton]

…, and if what is needed for those people to receive the sacraments, which would by definition establish them as being in full union/communion with the Catholic Church, is ‘primacy of conscience, self-determination of validity, and the guidance of a qualified prelate’, then Henry and Anne were in the right all along, and St Thomas More and St John Fisher died for a lie.

Pope Francis warned against seeing people as categories. Therefore, it is unwise to compare any couple today with King Henry’s situation. That is exactly what the pope does not want. If it is deemed possible that some may receive communion, it does not mean that all, most and most definitely King Henry may/should have been able to receive communion. Again, the straw man. No one here has even suggested that St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher died for a lie, and no, it does not Amoris Laetitia in the most liberal of interpretations does not mean they died for a lie. I think the error of this conclusion is obvious.

 

[pnewton]

That would essentially mean the Church has no role in discerning which marriages should be annulled. In effect it means the Church has no role in in discerning who is ready to get married, since the “couple knows better”. Indirectly, it suggests the Church has no role in discerning who is ready to be ordained, since no seminary knows the soul of a seminarian better than the seminarian himself.

Keep in mind your post directly contradicts Pope Francis, and other popes, who did and do ratify the **authority ** and expertise of the marriage tribunals.

Another straw man. It was not said that the Church should have no role. It was said that the a person knows what is in his mind more than a tribunal. If this isn’t self-evident, I don’t know what is. That is all. Of course, the Church still has a role, even if in the internal forum. No one that this Amoris Laetitia is a DIY project.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Pope Francis warned against seeing people as categories. Therefore, it is unwise to compare any couple today with King Henry’s situation. That is exactly what the pope does not want. If it is deemed possible that some may receive communion, it does not mean that all, most and most definitely King Henry may/should have been able to receive communion. Again, the straw man. No one here has even suggested that St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher died for a lie, and no, it does not Amoris Laetitia in the most liberal of interpretations does not mean they died for a lie. I think the error of this conclusion is obvious.

Please explain the error, and how, given the facts as stated, why ‘most definitely’ King Henry should not have received communion.

What makes his situation different from a man in an irregular union with a second wife today, whose conscience tells him that the first union, although it cannot somehow be brought to the Church to determine validity for some reason, and whose prelate agrees with him that in fact the first union was not valid, and the second one is???

Because that IS the situation, is it not, in which AL has said that people in said unions, who intended to continue sexual relations, having determined it is a valid union, MAY be admitted to communion.

Can you tell me that Henry would absolutely, positively, be denied communion under AL were that in force at the time? And please do not attempt to use “different times” as a reason to jettison the comparison. By that logic, you’d automatically exclude anybody who isn’t alive right this minute from consideration. Which would indeed make this a new teaching entirely.

For example, take the teaching on suicide. We now recognize that a person who commits suicide may not be in his or her right mind, or may repent just prior to death, and that they may not automatically be guilty of unrepented mortal sin. But 300 years and more ago, a person who committed suicide could not be buried in consecrated ground; they were considered to have died in mortal sin.

But here’s the thing. HAD the psychological understanding been available to people 300 years ago, the persons would be treated as they are today. Just as, to put it in reverse, if we did NOT have this understanding today, the persons would still be treated as they were then. Doctrinal development does not mean that we can’t believe that had a development existed years before it actually happened, that it would not have been held to.

SO had AL existed at the time of Henry and Catherine, can you assure me categorically that Henry would NEVER have been able to receive? If so, why? If not, then the changes in AL are either a positive development as you claim, in which people receive ‘mercy’ and Christ’s teachings are more deeply understood. . .or it’s a complete 180.

Again, back to suicide. Now the thing with the development, psychologically speaking, is that suicide itself is still objective mortal sin. In other words, the fact that the person may have suffered to the point of being incapable of reasoning does not ‘cancel’ the mortal sin and make it ‘not mortal.’ The objective mortal sin is still there, just as it was understood 300 years and more again.

Now back to AL. Here’s the thing. Adultery is an objective mortal sin. Continuing in adultery and then receiving communion on top was two mortal sins.
What AL appears to do (to some) is to remit both and make the reception of communion not a sin by making the adultery not a sin.

And that is a 180 degree change. We aren’t saying, “yes, adultery is still objectively sinful but there are reasons why it has to continue” (because there are no reasons it has to) and then on top, “because the person just can’t help it, it’s OK to receive communion”.

At least, I hope we aren’t. Because that to me appears to be what the bottom line is on this teaching as it has been implemented in South America, and proposed in Germany, and in Rome itself. . .

 

[commenter]

It was not said that the Church should have no role. It was said that the a person knows what is in his mind more than a tribunal. If this isn’t self-evident, I don’t know what is. That is all. Of course, the Church still has a role, even if in the internal forum. No one that this Amoris Laetitia is a DIY project.

The tribunal includes:

1. the priests and staff, trained and experienced specifically in marriage, training far beyond what most priests get;
2. priest who knows the couple or individual seeking relief;
3. the couple or individual seeking relief is included!
4. prayer and discernment;

Any makeshift alternative includes only:
2. a priest who knows the couple or individual;
3. the couple or individual seeking relief
4. prayer and discernment

Notice the tribunal includes everything the makeshift alternative includes. And more.

There is no reason to believe priests and laity in the tribunal, specifically trained in marriage are going to be less caring for the individual or couple’s own needs and the needs of the families than a pastor who has only a limited experience working with marriages and couples. Training and experience tend to make people more sensitive and competent, not more bound up with technicalities. But the pastor is still part of the tribunal process.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Would not the more reasonable request be to you - to identify where, in the context of apparent adultery - para (80) of Veritatis Splendor is found wanting?

I asked for a tradition…and in relation to adultery, it’s not a diffucult ask for such an important assertion by the contributor.

So, a Human Act was done which, indirectly, and not directly willed, involved entry into another marriage (which itself is already sounding invalid by virtue of a lack of free choice…), and which indirectly, and not directly willed, involved sexual relations

.
You are slowly getting there…even if the insight is currently exceeding your personal credibility limits. But given FI has already done this re his pastoral directives why would you expect the possible theological underpinnings be easier to accept?

This distorts the meaning of intrinsically evil acts. That which is intrinsically evil may not ever be licitly done [could Veritatis Splendor be any clearer on that?], not for a proportionate reason nor any other.

If you study the theology of indirect moral acts a little more deeply I believe you will find flaws in your cogitations here.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

What is “bitter” about it?

Ask Ender.

I guess we could all say “Oh, well, he must be right” and then recognise there is not much need for the thread?

Yes there shouldn’t be a need for this thread.
But in the remote chance that those who cannot accept FI’s new pastoral directives may do so if theological openings are demonstrated then this compassion is worth effecting.

Why in heaven’s name is a mission of discovery in search of a “possible theological justification” required? Perhaps the theological justification could just be written down plainly? As it was for the prior rules.

For people like Ender who find it a bitter task to follow FI when he cannot personally understand.

Psych 101 is hardly needed to understand that sometimes a religio/cultural shift is so great that no satisfactory explanation is possible for some world views because it is a change in values that is needed…not intellectual clarity.

Jesus wants some of these impure adulterers to come to Communion.
This is ultimately the value that is changing today…and some of our older brother fellow Catholics just cannot accept this. So no words will ever suffice.

I hope C. Bourke, Ender and perhaps yourself will warm to this in time…the horse is already bolting pastorally…theology or no theology…though the reasons are actually clear enough for those who have ears.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

In Familaris Consortio: "the Church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried. " but then states “Reconciliation in the sacrament of Penance which would open the way to the Eucharist, can only be granted to those who, repenting of having broken the sign of the Covenant and of fidelity to Christ, are sincerely ready to undertake a way of life that is no longer in contradiction to the indissolubility of marriage.”

So to repent and be sincerely ready could have multiple forms not merely the one then given. However, it becomes more obvious, in the later statement by the CDF, that annulment that is the key issue, which then involves a matter not of difference in gravity between venial and mortal but the existence of a marriage.

c. Admittedly, it cannot be excluded that mistakes occur in marriage cases. In some parts of the Church, well-functioning marriage tribunals still do not exist. Occasionally, such cases last an excessive amount of time. Once in a while they conclude with questionable decisions. Here it seems that the application of epikeia in the internal forum is not automatically excluded from the outset. This is implied in the 1994 letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in which it was stated that new canonical ways of demonstrating nullity should exclude “as far as possible” every divergence from the truth verifiable in the judicial process (cf. No. 9). Some theologians are of the opinion that the faithful ought to adhere strictly even in the internal forum to juridical decisions which they believe to be false. Others maintain that exceptions are possible here in the internal forum, because the juridical forum does not deal with norms of divine law, but rather with norms of ecclesiastical law. This question, however, demands further study and clarification. Admittedly, the conditions for asserting an exception would need to be clarified very precisely, in order to avoid arbitrariness and to safeguard the public character of marriage, removing it from subjective decisions.

vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19980101_ratzinger-comm-divorced_en.html

That same statement contains a footnote No. 4 from 2005:

During the meeting with clergy in the Diocese of Aosta, which took place 25 July 2005, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of this difficult question: “ those who were married in the Church for the sake of tradition but were not truly believers, and who later find themselves in a new and invalid marriage and subsequently convert, discover faith and feel excluded from the Sacrament, are in a particularly painful situation. This really is a cause of great suffering and when I was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, I invited various Bishops’ Conferences and experts to study this problem: a sacrament celebrated without faith. Whether, in fact, a moment of invalidity could be discovered here because the Sacrament was found to be lacking a fundamental dimension, I do not dare to say. I personally thought so, but from the discussions we had I realized that it is a highly complex problem and ought to be studied further. But given these people’s painful plight, it must be studied further.”

You have some great insights here. Esp the bit about the seriousness not being about mortal or venial sin but the visible status of the 2nd marriage and how that contradicts Church teaching.

I think many readers thought the problem was the unsanctified receiving Jesus. That would be a form of ritual purity concerns if it were true methinks. But that is not the issue as you observe.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

And acts of legitimate self defense occasioning death, and legitimate acts in a just war, and legitimate capital punishment are not that. The 5th does not forbid them. They do not break the 5th. They are not an exception. They are simply not what the law forbids.

Kindly reread my analysis.
I went to some trouble to state the analogy is with personal, not state, killings.
We are after all talking of personal adultery not state cultic ritual prostitution.

You will find from the CCC that all such killings are intrinsically evil…self defence is an exception only for proportionality reasons and must not be directly willed even if foreseen as necessary and executed accordingly.

What makes you believe the same law that forbids killing, but recognises rare cases of non imputable killings can never do the same for some types of irregular marriages?

This is what FI is in fact opening the door to pastorally is he not?

I do not find it difficult to observe the possibility that some irregulars would love to respect Jesus’s call to abandon their marriage and cease sexual relations if they thought it for the best and it would actually work. Alas, like not wanting to use lethal force to protect the family, sometimes we have to do what we would rather not because objectively it is the right choice when certain difficult circumstances rob us of some free choices.

 

[pnewton]

Please explain the error, and how, given the facts as stated, why ‘most definitely’ King Henry should not have received communion.

Easy. The pope made the determination. Even under Amoris Laetitia if the Pope, or even a priest in the internal forum understands that communion in a situation would be contrary to doctrine and the good of the soul, it is to be denied still.

But if you are going to say the time does not matter, then the Mosaic law that permitted divorce, and was also given by God, still needs to be explained. Why did God permit an exception for the hard hear then? Furthermore, the communion between God and David, and his subsequent forgiveness after a sin with Bathsheba, while still keeping her as wife, needs to fit with the same eternal truth that King Henry does.

 

[pnewton]

The tribunal includes:

1. the priests and staff, trained and experienced specifically in marriage, training far beyond what most priests get;
2. priest who knows the couple or individual seeking relief;
3. the couple or individual seeking relief is included!
4. prayer and discernment;

Any makeshift alternative includes only:
2. a priest who knows the couple or individual;
3. the couple or individual seeking relief
4. prayer and discernment

Notice the tribunal includes everything the makeshift alternative includes. And more.

But in neither case is it just the couple, or the person, as was stated above. I think it safe to assume a tribunal is capable. It will always remain the primary instrument by which such determinations are made.

BTW, I do not know about the labeling as “make-shift” a procedure the Pope has approved of, as well as the Family Synod. I think it important to steer away from emotional rhetoric, even to a fault. The Church injects political correctness in most documents to keep from muddying the waters with emotion. It is a good practice, especially when the topic becomes emotionally charged.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

The tribunal includes:

1. the priests and staff, trained and experienced specifically in marriage, training far beyond what most priests get;
2. priest who knows the couple or individual seeking relief;
3. the couple or individual seeking relief is included!
4. prayer and discernment;

Any makeshift alternative includes only:
2. a priest who knows the couple or individual;
3. the couple or individual seeking relief
4. prayer and discernment

Notice the tribunal includes everything the makeshift alternative includes. And more.

There is no reason to believe priests and laity in the tribunal, specifically trained in marriage are going to be less caring for the individual or couple’s own needs and the needs of the families than a pastor who has only a limited experience working with marriages and couples. Training and experience tend to make people more sensitive and competent, not more bound up with technicalities. But the pastor is still part of the tribunal process.

The accompanyment process does not exercise the powers of a Tribunal.
What actually is your point?

 

[Blue_Horizon]

…then is this not, in fact, another means of declaring the original marriage invalid? The adoption of a new standard to judge validity?

I do not understand why some contributors are so obsessed with the admission of some irregulars to Communion by a PP that they can only accept this if it’s equivalent to a decree of nullity.

Clearly such admission to Communion is not by such a determination and there is no intrinsic reason why it must be.
Only the conditions of Canon 915 must be currently heeded by my understanding.

 

[Thomas_White]

Psych 101 is hardly needed to understand that sometimes a religio/cultural shift is so great that no satisfactory explanation is possible for some world views because it is a change in values that is needed…not intellectual clarity.

Perhaps it would prove helpful at this time to quote “Dei Verbum”:

"…what was handed down to the Apostles includes everything which contributes toward the holiness of life and increase in faith of the peoples of God; and so the Church in her teaching, life and worship perpetuates and hands on to all generations all that she herself is, all that she believes.

"This tradition, which comes from the Apostles develops in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. For there is a growth in the understanding of the realities and words which have been handed down. This happens through the contemplation and study made by believers, who treasure these things in their heart (see Luke, 2: 19,51) through a penetrating understanding of the spiritual realities which they experience, and the preaching of those who have received through Episcopal succession the sure gift of truth. For as the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her." --Dogmatic Constitution of Divine Revelation ‘Dei Verbum’, 8

Though it is far from clear what a “change in values” would ultimately entail, it is noted that Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger has said that Revelation continues until the end of time.