You’re just going to have to read AL… it’s plain as day. Each situation is different and needs to be discerned carefully with a priest. In some objective situations of sin, subjective cupability does not exist… under rare circumstances, that may open the door to the help of the sacraments… if it is determined that a state of grave still does not exist.
I’m not very bright… even I get this.
No one has suggested that all fornicators come forward to receive the Eucharist.
I have thankyou, and there are number of unexplained aspects. Not least of which is how to interpret footnote 351, which can be understood to support the historic teaching or contradict it.
And so if we’re to take the “liberal” interpretation of AL, what has changed since Familiaris Consortio paragraph 84? Or the 1994 CDF letter on Communion for the civilly divorced and remarried? Familiaris Consortio in particular claims its teaching that the unmarried couple must live as brother and sister is based on scripture. Was Pope St John Paul II or any of the other Popes therefore wrong about the sinfulness of sex outside of marriage? Do you think the Church has been wrong for 2,000 years about its understanding of Scripture or what Christ says about divorce and adultery? Indeed, he tells the woman caught in adultery “go
and sin no more” not “go, and carry on as you like”. If something was wrong in those days, it’s wrong in our days. Yes cannot become no, evil cannot become good if we live in a world with an objective morality (that’s the whole point of Veritatis Splendor). If Christ meant to teach that actually one can have sex outside of marriage in some cases, and not be committing adultery, why did he present a teaching on the indissolubility of marriage
which was more conservative than that of the pharisees?
The “help of the sacraments” is already available through the Sacrament of Confession and committing to live as brother and sister. We cannot confess sins and receive a valid absolution if we have absolutely no intention of changing our ways. We simply would not be repenting of our sin, but demanding forgiveness anyway. It is a false human mercy to see that the path to salvation is hard and then not encourage somebody to take it. It’s taking the easy way out to avoid feeling bad or having to tell somebody the truth of their situation.
You state that subjective culpability may not exist in such states. But how could that new proposition actually work practically? A couple, at least one of whom is already in an existing Sacramental Marriage, engages in sexual activity with another person to whom they are not married in the eyes of God (the valid Sacramental marriage still being intact). They know that the Church teaches sex outside of marriage is mortal sin (adultery). But, somehow, it’s ok that they can carry on and ignore that? The classic example used is that the other person will leave them if they stop to have sex, which may cause the breakdown of the emotional relationship and children involved may come to economic or emotional harm. But think what is actually being suggested here; a person accepts the Church’s teachings on the immorality of sex outside of marriage and Christ’s teachings on the subject, but is forced by circumstance or another’s actions to do it… how is that anything but an abusive relationship? Why would the Church encourage people to have sex against their will? What kind of an example does such a relationship give to the children? If it’s not against the person’s will or intention, then they are culpable because they are deciding to do it of their own volition.
Also, you state “discerned carefully with a priest”. Marriage tribunals require expert involvement from multiple people, considering of evidence and strict application of theological guidance because of the danger of accidentally declaring a valid marriage invalid. If it all just comes down to the local parish Priest, we end up in the same situation with different Bishop’s teachings on AL where in one parish a couple are in mortal sin and in the next they are completely fine. How is that “Catholic” in the literal sense of the word (“universal” or “everywhere”)?
You appear to hold that these circumstances only apply in extreme cases, but that isn’t what the Bishops of Malta and San Diego are now teaching. How long before a stern rebuke is given by the CDF to condemn interpretations that one is not in a state of mortal sin if you “believe you are at peace with God”? Bishop McElroy of San Diego has also raised the question of such an interpretation of AL to those in homosexual unions. Cardinal Napier, sarcastically, raised the question about those in Africa in polygamous unions. If you’re so sure of the rationale that limits your interpretation solely to those extreme situations, why can people so easily extrapolate it into other possibly unintended areas of moral teaching?
The question all comes down to “what is the truth”. As we’ve been clearly taught over the past 2,000 years, truth is an objective fact regardless of subjective conscience or circumstance. Pope St John Paul II’s encyclical Veritatis Splendor was very clear on the dangers of a relativistic or subjective attitude to morality, and condemned it because those attitudes could never teach that some actions were always and everywhere evil actions. If conscious, premeditated and habitual sex outside of marriage can be explained away because it’s hard to keep God’s commandments, then they can be explained away in other situations, from homosexuality, to murder and abortion etc.
