Cardinal Muller: no need to clarify Amoris Laetitia [CC]

[Tantum_ergo]

How do you explain the fact that 200 years ago it was certain Church teaching that those that were not formal members of the Church in this life could not be saved, but the Church now teaches that those people can be saved - even pagans and atheists? Or that the Church once taught that loaning money at interest was intrinsically evil, but now teaches that charging interest is not sinful? Lots of developments look like contradictory changes depending on how they are viewed and presented. We now understand how those apparent about faces are actually developments of Church teaching. The same is true of this relatively minor development.

The first is simple. The understanding of who was a ‘member of the Church’ deepened. After all, prior to the reformation there were 'simply Christians". . .West and East, and many attempts where they ‘got back’ only to part again. . . once the fragmenting of Christianity and the ‘first generation’ material heretics were past, it became understood that those who professed protestant doctrines were still professing faith in the Father, Son, and Spirit (let’s not get into Unitarians, JWs, etc) and then, beyond, that even those who did not profess a faith in God were still children of God. Humanity makes us so. That is a reasonable development of understanding, because the idea that ‘membership in the Church saves’ was a true teaching, but not a completely understood teaching. Check your catechism, you will indeed find that those who are saved 'are saved through the Catholic Church. So the ‘original teaching’ was not wrong.

Interest is another thing. Prior to banks (I believe that started in Lombardy around the 13th or 14th centuries) there was no such thing as the interest that we know today. Money lenders charged extortionate fees. Usury is NOT the same as the current gold standard money in federally insured banks as we know it. IF that kind of banking we know today had existed in the time of Jesus, there would have been no need to condemn ‘interest’ (I repeat interest is not usury), or if the same standards then existed today, we would still condemn the ‘usury’ as that was understood.

We did NOT go from, “you can never charge any interest, whatsoever to 'ok it’s good”.
Again, no change, just a development in finance.

 

[pnewton]

Where did Jesus say that the remarried should be denied the Sacraments? The hubris of those willing to put those words in Jesus’ mouth is, frankly, astounding.

Was St Paul rigid, unmerciful or outright wrong when he said the following in 1 Corinthians?

If you read the quote, when Paul wrote this, it was the with the admonition that each should examine himself to determine if they are worthy.

Just saying

TMC:

Jesus never said that remarried should be denied communion. It is not in the Bible. There are those who believe it to be doctrine. A good case can be made for that. I do not believe it myself. I think the syllogism that arrives at this conclusion has an error.

 

[Abba]

It does not really take a lot of effort to discern that the way Jesus used the word Adultery is not perfectly aligned with the strict definition used nowadays in the West. A broad understanding and comparison of Magisterial statements re divorce and irregulars also leads the unbiased to the same conclusion that a range of less grave evils are also involved under that catchall word “adultery”.

A number of contributors here have already come to that conclusion simply on the basis of minor disharmonies in both the Biblical and Magisterial record if sexual adultery is the only definition to be held.

Interesting. I always thought it was just sexual infidelity that was meant by adultery. Where are these disharmonies noted?

 

[RCinMT]

What leads you to believe Conscience trumps everything?
AL has surely never stated such a thing.

Nothing leads me, per se, to believe that conscience (why the uppercase “C”?) trumps everything. But I’ve read repeatedly from people on this teaching that nobody can know the interior, if a d&r Catholic decides he/she just cannot live in continence but desires communion, he/she can receive.

I’ve had other discussions on this board with people who seem steeped in theology and Thomistic thought and who insist on the primacy of conscience. They even debate the merits of the CCC and argue that part of a well-formed conscience does not include knowing and obeying Church teaching.

So it led me to as the questions to which you’ve responded with the questions and comment, above. And note that I’m quite in earnest with my questions: they are not to be construed as hyperbole or sarcasm.

 

[Vico]

I thought to look into the teachings of the Orthodox Church and how they came to accept three marriages even though they believe in the indissolubility of marriage and consider marriage ‘eternal’ and were the same Church as the Catholic Church up until the schism of 1054 a.d… I am still with my mouth opened as it dropped when I realized that they have a different definition for the word ‘adultery’ then I , and the Catholic Church and probably all of you.

Adultery, as I have understood it, is exactly what Jesus said:
Matthew:
And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.
Matthew:
27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’[e] 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
John:
8 Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, 2 but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. 3 As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.

I have read these passages to mean by ‘adultery’ - sexual immorality and the exception to divorce being exactly if a partner has sex with another. But, the Orthodox Church defines adultery as what I would say: infidelity. To them what is meant in the Bible is ‘infidelity.’ So, if a spouse is an alcoholic or spends too much time away (maybe business trips that last months) or is too obsessed with making money - these things would qualify in the Orthodox Church as ‘adultery’ because the spouse is being put in a second place. Interesting.

Then I read that prior to the schism the Church was permitting re-marrriages and it does so out of mercy. I am still looking into this, I cannot find references to such nor exactly when the Orthodox Church started accepting three marriages except for a mention that it was prior to the 10th century.

” Orthodox Church recognizes the sanctity of marriage and sees it as a life-long commitment. However, there are certain circumstances in which it becomes evident that there is no love or commitment in a relationship. While the Church stands opposed to divorce, the Church, in its concern for the salvation of its people, does permit divorced individuals to marry a second and even a third time.

“The Order of the Second or Third Marriage is somewhat different than that celebrated as a first marriage and it bears a penitential character. Second or third marriages are performed by “economy”—that is, out of concern for the spiritual well-being of the parties involved and as an exception to the rule, so to speak.” oca.org/questions/sacramentmarriage/divorce-and-remarriage1

I am just finding it interesting to see how the Orthodox Church having shared its first 1,054 years as Catholic and having valid sacraments can reach such positions in regards to marriage and re-marriage.

Well, indirectly, this situation brings the two churches closer.

How?

The Catholic and Orthodox were not in full communion when the Lateran Councils or the Council of Trent the council decrees on marriage were issued (session 24 Trent) for:

• validity of marriage dependent upon the wedding taking place before a priest and two witnesses (Chapter 1, renewed from The Lateran Council)
• the right of the innocent party to marry again was denied so long as the other party was alive, even if the other party had committed adultery. (Canons 5 and 7)
• the excellence of celibacy (Canon 10)
• condemned concubinage, (Chapter 8)

ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/TRENT24.HTM

 

[Tantum_ergo]

If you read the quote, when Paul wrote this, it was the with the admonition that each should examine himself to determine if they are worthy.

Just saying

TMC:

Jesus never said that remarried should be denied communion. It is not in the Bible. There are those who believe it to be doctrine. A good case can be made for that. I do not believe it myself. I think the syllogism that arrives at this conclusion has an error.

Of course you might make the case that JESUS never said that any sinner (adulterer, fornicator, murderer, you name it( should be 'denied communion). However, He also never said, “Come to the table, eat and drink my Body and Blood, whether you are sinful or clean, whether you intend to obey Me or not”.

We have to rely on God’s written word, Sacred Tradition, the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Magisterium through the working of the Holy Spirit to know what Jesus teaches (since the Spirit is guiding us to all Truth).

We have quite a bit of teaching that gives good and excellent reasoning why those in objective mortal sin and who intend to remain in such cannot receive.

Tell me this. Since Jesus 'never said" that women could not be priests", do you believe there is ever a chance that women can be? If not, why not?

 

[pnewton]

Why would YOU think a priest is better? One person as opposed to several? Do we let juries consist of ONE person?

We let one person to hold final authority in the Church. We allow one person decide if sins my be absolved. Your point, while valid, only addresses the practicality of what the Pope has proposed, not whether it is doctrinally permissible, at least on this one issue.

 

[Thomas_White]

It really is amazing to me that you believe these people have “simply rejected” papal exhortation and failed to try to grapple with how it could be a development of doctrine. Maybe, just maybe, they have tried VERY hard and simply cannot resolve the contradiction they find there and it is those who insist there is a development that have failed to resolve this contradiction and resorted to demanding that others accept that there isnt a contradiction on a mere declaration.

Is it so very difficult? It concerns CCC 1857 and canon 915 of the 1983 code of canon law. But there is also what I have charitably said is a hopeless endeavor. Others have explained what AL is about in significant detail, and all I have seen in reply is the mantra about existing doctrine and the nonsense that development of doctrine does not involve change. Do I understand what must be the exasperation of Pope Francis and many others? I think so. I also think, in this instance, one ought to be aware of whom it is that one is in fundamental disagreement with.

These catholics who struggle with this are actually very devout. They care. That’s why the struggle. If they can reconcile anything the pope says with the rest of the magisterium, they do. It is because they CANNOT in this case that we are in this stalemate, assuming that the Maltese position is in line with the Pope’s views of course.

Assuming that the Maltese position is in line with the pope’s views is quite an assumption. Do you have a reference for it?

 

[TMC]

The first is simple. The understanding of who was a ‘member of the Church’ deepened. After all, prior to the reformation there were 'simply Christians". . .West and East, and many attempts where they ‘got back’ only to part again. . . once the fragmenting of Christianity and the ‘first generation’ material heretics were past, it became understood that those who professed protestant doctrines were still professing faith in the Father, Son, and Spirit (let’s not get into Unitarians, JWs, etc) and then, beyond, that even those who did not profess a faith in God were still children of God. Humanity makes us so. That is a reasonable development of understanding, because the idea that ‘membership in the Church saves’ was a true teaching, but not a completely understood teaching. Check your catechism, you will indeed find that those who are saved 'are saved through the Catholic Church. So the ‘original teaching’ was not wrong.

Interest is another thing. Prior to banks (I believe that started in Lombardy around the 13th or 14th centuries) there was no such thing as the interest that we know today. Money lenders charged extortionate fees. Usury is NOT the same as the current gold standard money in federally insured banks as we know it. IF that kind of banking we know today had existed in the time of Jesus, there would have been no need to condemn ‘interest’ (I repeat interest is not usury), or if the same standards then existed today, we would still condemn the ‘usury’ as that was understood.

We did NOT go from, “you can never charge any interest, whatsoever to 'ok it’s good”.
Again, no change, just a development in finance.

I agree that one can understand the changes in doctrine I described as part of a continuity. But many Catholics did not (and some still do not). At the time those changes were implemented they caused much more consternation and resistance than AL. My point is that this much smaller change in doctrine is also understandable (more easily understandable) than those much larger changes. That much is obvious from the relatively mild response to these change compared to those.

A few specific points. Its not true that there was no such thing as interest before modern banks. The principle of interest has been understood and applied for thousands of years - but it was prohibited to Christians by the Church. That doctrine developed, just at this current doctrine is developing. Like that doctrine, we are not going from barring all remarried from the Sacraments to “ok its good.” Like interest, there are still boundaries, but the boundaries have shifted. In this case, the shift is relatively small, where with interest the shift was quite large.

 

[Vico]

Interesting. I always thought it was just sexual infidelity that was meant by adultery. Where are these disharmonies noted?

Matthew 5:27-28
You have heard that it was said to them of old: Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart.

 

[Thomas_White]

Matthew 5:27-28
You have heard that it was said to them of old: Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Given that the “adultery” is a transliteration from Aramaic to Greek and a translation from Greek to Latin to English, it raises the question of what “adultery” actually means in this verse.

 

[JimG]

Is there anything in the text of A.L. which states that a particular doctrine is being modified, changed, or developed? Not according to the Prefect of the CDF, Cardinal Muller, who said that the doctrine remains unchanged.

Did not numerous bishops publish guidelines which essentially said the same thing?

But if A.L. is to be taken as a true “development of doctrine,” then that fact at least needs to be clarified.

 

[Abba]

Matthew 5:27-28
You have heard that it was said to them of old: Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Of course, but, that is still connected to sex and the intimate relationship between a man and a woman.

However, I never thought of alcohol abuse, absence, and having something more important like love for money or an obsession with a hobby etc., as adultery and as such, falling under the biblical exception for divorce. It’s funny that in the list of possible ways a spouse may commit adultery the priest does not mention physical abuse.

+++

Now that I mention physical abuse, that would be a situation where the spouse may qualify to receive the Eucharist according to AL. Let’s say a man or woman who remarried and had children and the decades have gone and the person has come close to the Church, but due to physical abuse is not in a situation to leave the spouse nor to demand they live as brother and sister. There are situations in this big wide world.

+++

I consider Michael Bruce Ross, a serial killer who raped 7 out of the 8 young ladies he killed. I don’t know if he was able to receive the Eurachist and the Viaticum before he was executed. What we do know is that the monks buried him in their monastery cemetery. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Bruce_Ross

He repented of killing eight young ladies and he is in good standing just like many people who have committed murder. People have been forgiven for doing most horrible things, even child molestation, and if they repent they are forgiven.

What of those who have remarried who repent for having decades earlier decide to remarry and live at the periphery of the Church. The doors are closed to them even though they did not kill, rape, torture etc… and simply formed a family and raised some kids. It’s true they continue in a sinful condition but there are mitigating situations and I consider what the philosopher/theologian that I linked to earlier said about sin being and act and not a condition. It’s true the victims of a divorce continue to suffer but, so do the families of the victims of murder and with the other crimes the victim themselves included - yet, the aggressor can repent and receive the Eucharist.

Indeed, Pope Francis will go down in history as the Pope of Mercy.

 

[Vico]

Given that the “adultery” is a transliteration from Aramaic to Greek and a translation from Greek to Latin to English, it raises the question of what “adultery” actually means in this verse.

adultery
ܓܪܗ

dukhrana.com/peshitta/analyze_verse.php?verse=Matthew+5:28&font=Estrangelo+Edessa&size=150%&source=khabouris

 

[Thomas_White]

adultery
ܓܪܗ

dukhrana.com/peshitta/analyze_verse.php?verse=Matthew+5:28&font=Estrangelo+Edessa&size=150%&source=khabouris

Thanks. I’ve always found it curious that the verse doesn’t even mention marriage and seems like it would apply to any man. What do you think?

 

[Thomas_White]

Is there anything in the text of A.L. which states that a particular doctrine is being modified, changed, or developed? Not according to the Prefect of the CDF, Cardinal Muller, who said that the doctrine remains unchanged.

Did not numerous bishops publish guidelines which essentially said the same thing?

But if A.L. is to be taken as a true “development of doctrine,” then that fact at least needs to be clarified.

At the presentation of *Amoris Latitia * to the media, Cardinal Schoenborn said there “is an organic development of doctrine” in AL when compared to Familiaris Consortio.

americamagazine.org/content/dispatches/pope-francis-exhortation-family-organic-development-doctrine

 

[edwayne]

While I am still contemplating the arguments being made that doctrine has not changed but merely the discipline, I would presume that those who interpret Amoris Laetitia in a more progressive manner seeing no rupture with past magisterial teaching would at least concede that the Maltese bishops seemed to have gone beyond AL. Besides the problem of allowing, in the final analysis, the individual’s sense of being ‘at peace with God’ to apparently trump any accompaniment or discernment provided by the priest and be sufficient for admission to holy communion, the bishops seem to propose something that is a rupture in doctrinal teaching, not merely in disciplinary practice. Namely, stating that it may be impossible for a person who is justified (i.e., possesses sanctifying grace and therefore in the state of grace) to obey God’s commandment. Does this not seem problematic as this was definitively anathematized at the Council of Trent? How is this point argued to be in continuity with past Church teaching?

 

[Pulvis]

While I am still contemplating the arguments being made that doctrine has not changed but merely the discipline, I would presume that those who interpret Amoris Laetitia in a more progressive manner seeing no rupture with past magisterial teaching would at least concede that the Maltese bishops seemed to have gone beyond AL. Besides the problem of allowing, in the final analysis, the individual’s sense of being ‘at peace with God’ to apparently trump any accompaniment or discernment provided by the priest and be sufficient for admission to holy communion, the bishops seem to propose something that is a rupture in doctrinal teaching, not merely in disciplinary practice. Namely, stating that it may be impossible for a person who is justified (i.e., possesses sanctifying grace and therefore in the state of grace) to obey God’s commandment. Does this not seem problematic as this was definitively anathematized at the Council of Trent? How is this point argued to be in continuity with past Church teaching?

It seems to me Ed it depends on whether you believe the totality of the teachings of the Church from the beginning at Pentecost, or you pick and choose from the last 50 years. Trent does not seem to carry much weight any longer.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

The first is simple. The understanding of who was a ‘member of the Church’ deepened. After all, prior to the reformation there were 'simply Christians". . .West and East, and many attempts where they ‘got back’ only to part again. . . once the fragmenting of Christianity and the ‘first generation’ material heretics were past, it became understood that those who professed protestant doctrines were still professing faith in the Father, Son, and Spirit (let’s not get into Unitarians, JWs, etc) and then, beyond, that even those who did not profess a faith in God were still children of God. Humanity makes us so. That is a reasonable development of understanding, because the idea that ‘membership in the Church saves’ was a true teaching, but not a completely understood teaching. Check your catechism, you will indeed find that those who are saved 'are saved through the Catholic Church. So the ‘original teaching’ was not wrong.

Interest is another thing. Prior to banks (I believe that started in Lombardy around the 13th or 14th centuries) there was no such thing as the interest that we know today. Money lenders charged extortionate fees. Usury is NOT the same as the current gold standard money in federally insured banks as we know it. IF that kind of banking we know today had existed in the time of Jesus, there would have been no need to condemn ‘interest’ (I repeat interest is not usury), or if the same standards then existed today, we would still condemn the ‘usury’ as that was understood.

We did NOT go from, “you can never charge any interest, whatsoever to 'ok it’s good”.
Again, no change, just a development in finance.

And likewise it seems we are expanding our understanding of exactly what sort of adulterers Jesus and past Popes condemned.

While you personally may not prudentially accept there is any elbow room on the question it is a logical possibility and therefore no “contradiction” is inelectubly or intrinsically present between Pope Francis and even recent Popes.

Of course many Catholics no doubt were “confused” or saw “logical contradictions” in those developments of the past re such things as atheists and heretic Protestants being saved after all.

Nothing new under the sun here methinks.

 

[Vico]

While I am still contemplating the arguments being made that doctrine has not changed but merely the discipline, I would presume that those who interpret Amoris Laetitia in a more progressive manner seeing no rupture with past magisterial teaching would at least concede that the Maltese bishops seemed to have gone beyond AL. Besides the problem of allowing, in the final analysis, the individual’s sense of being ‘at peace with God’ to apparently trump any accompaniment or discernment provided by the priest and be sufficient for admission to holy communion, the bishops seem to propose something that is a rupture in doctrinal teaching, not merely in disciplinary practice. Namely, stating that it may be impossible for a person who is justified (i.e., possesses sanctifying grace and therefore in the state of grace) to obey God’s commandment. Does this not seem problematic as this was definitively anathematized at the Council of Trent? How is this point argued to be in continuity with past Church teaching?

The Catechism addresses this:
1735 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.