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

[Wandile]

Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, one of the four cardinals who have asked the Pope to clarify Amoris Laetitia, has said that it matters because people’s eternal salvation is at stake.

Speaking to the Italian newspaper Il Foglio, Cardinal Caffarra said: “We are talking about questions that are not secondary. It is not a discussion of whether [eating] fish violates or does not violate abstinence. These are most serious questions for the life of the Church and for the eternal salvation of the faithful.”

The cardinal went on: “Never forget, this is the supreme law of the Church: the eternal salvation of the faithful, not other concerns. Jesus founded His Church so that the faithful would have eternal life and have it in abundance.”

In the interview, translated by Andrew Guernsey, Cardinal Caffarra says that the confusion and anxiety in the Church, in the aftermath of Amoris Laetitia, is so obvious that “only a blind man” could miss it.

For more see HERE for more.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

It was the New Advent site I went to, and there is no need to look elsewhere as I am sure that what they assert in one place will not be contradicted in another.

Ender

This is not the attitude of a sincere truth seeker I suggest. Culpable ignorance?
You are not open, it seems, to the possibility your erroneous moral theology world view (which we all have to varying degrees) has caused you to misunderstand the “sin” section of the Encyclopedia re “moral evil”…meaning that the meaning you take away may well be checked by more apposite sections of the same source.

If this is your attitude to truth I see no further reason to continue freely assisting you with my expensive education in this area.

You just go ahead believing that all that my moral theology professors taught me is rightly contradicted by your first impressions of a very deep article in New Advent that you refuse to compare with other relevant sections .

 

[Ender]

That is exactly what my clause in red means Ender.
If someone has done their best to inform themselves and their conscience is still erroneous, they are indeed invincably ignorant.
Ignorance is non culpable if one has made reasonable effort to be informed.

The reasons for our error determine our culpability, and making a “reasonable effort” is not counted among those reasons.

You will not find a non ambiguous Magisterial statement that gainsays this…because it’s traditional teaching.

Can we agree that the catechism counts as a Magisterial statement? Once again what you assert is not what the church teaches.1792 Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one’s passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience, rejection of the Church’s authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct.
Wait…assertion of the autonomy of conscience is a mistake? Rejection of the church’s teaching is an error? The conscience must be properly formed, and it is not properly formed if it starts from the assumption that one is justified in doing whatever he believes is right, including rejecting church doctrine.1794 A good and pure conscience is enlightened by true faith…

Your sincere inability to accept this point here on CAF is well demonstrated and itself is a likely example of the non culpable ignorance we speak of.

To counter my specific citations you cite…nothing whatever other than your own self proclaimed expertise. If you are as well trained in this area as you claim you ought to be able to provide sounder arguments.

Ender

 

[JPUSC]

“If we speak explicitly about communion for the divorced and remarried, you do not know what a terrible mess we will make. So we won’t speak plainly, do it in a way that the premises are there, then I will draw out the conclusions.”

Pope Francis to Archbishop Bruno Forte, the Archbishop of Chieti-Vasto, Italy chosen by the Pope to be the special secretary to the synods, relayed during a presentation on the Pope’s recent exhortation Amoris Laetitia.

Italian news website, Zonalocale.it
zonalocale.it/2016/05/03/-nessuno-si-deve-sentire-escluso-dalla-chiesa-/20471

 

[JPUSC]

“If we speak explicitly about communion for the divorced and remarried, you do not know what a terrible mess we will make. So we won’t speak plainly, do it in a way that the premises are there, then I will draw out the conclusions.”

Pope Francis to Archbishop Bruno Forte, the Archbishop of Chieti-Vasto, Italy chosen by the Pope to be the special secretary to the synods, relayed during a presentation on the Pope’s recent exhortation Amoris Laetitia.

Italian news website, Zonalocale.it
zonalocale.it/2016/05/03/-nessuno-si-deve-sentire-escluso-dalla-chiesa-/20471

 

[JPUSC]

“If we speak explicitly about communion for the divorced and remarried, you do not know what a terrible mess we will make. So we won’t speak plainly, do it in a way that the premises are there, then I will draw out the conclusions.”

Pope Francis to Archbishop Bruno Forte, the Archbishop of Chieti-Vasto, Italy chosen by the Pope to be the special secretary to the synods, relayed during a presentation on the Pope’s recent exhortation Amoris Laetitia.

Italian news website, Zonalocale.it
zonalocale.it/2016/05/03/-nessuno-si-deve-sentire-escluso-dalla-chiesa-/20471

 

[JPUSC]

“If we speak explicitly about communion for the divorced and remarried, you do not know what a terrible mess we will make. So we won’t speak plainly, do it in a way that the premises are there, then I will draw out the conclusions.”

Pope Francis to Archbishop Bruno Forte, the Archbishop of Chieti-Vasto, Italy chosen by the Pope to be the special secretary to the synods, relayed during a presentation on the Pope’s recent exhortation Amoris Laetitia.

Italian news website, Zonalocale.it
zonalocale.it/2016/05/03/-nessuno-si-deve-sentire-escluso-dalla-chiesa-/20471

 

[Ender]

This is not the attitude of a sincere truth seeker I suggest. Culpable ignorance?
You are not open, it seems, to the possibility your erroneous moral theology world view (which we all have to varying degrees) has caused you to misunderstand the “sin” section of the Encyclopedia re “moral evil”…meaning that the meaning you take away may well be checked by more apposite sections of the same source.

Tell you what, you go through a “more apposite section of the same source” and pull out the passage that contradicts what the same source says in the section on sin. Here’s your chance to demonstrate just how erroneous my moral theology world view really is. How can you pass up this opportunity? After all, you implied you have already done this, so how much work could it be to provide us with those citations?

If this is your attitude to truth I see no further reason to continue freely assisting you with my expensive education in this area.

My attitude toward truth is more basic: assertions are not facts. If you cannot support your claims with anything more compelling than “I know what I’m talking about” you can hardly expect to be taken seriously.

You just go ahead believing that all that my moral theology professors taught me is rightly contradicted by your first impressions of a very deep article in New Advent that you refuse to compare with other relevant sections .

The possibility that you misunderstood or mis-remember what your professors taught should not be discounted.

Ender

 

[Thomas_White]

People always seem to omit ‘the rest of the story’ about primacy of conscience, that is, the requirement that it be ‘well-formed’. For a Catholic, a well-formed conscience will always in the end be in line with the established teaching of the Church regarding faith and morals.

And this is what is so very often not understood: "Joseph Cardinal Ritzinger has said a certain judgement of conscience must be obeyed even above Ecclesiastical (i.e., papal) authority."

There might be doubt at some point, especially in the beginning since catechesis and modern society are so relentlessly wrong and so full of emotional angst- but a well-formed conscience will be conformed to the Church because “The Holy Spirit cannot stand against Himself”.

A Catholic who, perhaps raised by strongly secular parents, surrounded by secular friends, emotionally bombarded with messages of ‘love and tolerance’ from all those he holds dear, taught to think of Catholicism wrongly for decades, and whose encounters with the truth always seem to be with ‘rigid’ or ‘hateful’ or ‘hypocritical’ and nasty people, is indeed going to find it difficult to inform his or her conscience correctly, BUT difficult does not mean impossible.

In modern society, with its emphasis on the primary of ‘the individual’ and the constant directive of ‘question everything’ and ‘think for yourself’, one of the hardest tasks for a person, especially an intelligent, educated person raised in the ‘open tent’ or ‘rationalist’ way, is to humbly submit to the teachings of the Church that he or she finds most opposed to his or her own ‘feelings’. Because that is in the end, for most, the stumbling block. Not the actual acceptance ‘by the head’, but ‘by the heart’. Remember St. Augustine, who KNEW that chastity was required of him by Divine Law and who indeed prayed for it, but for years, 'NOT YET?" That was the emotionalism, the need to keep the ‘feelings’ even when one knew in the mind that they actions were wrong.

It does not help that lately feelings are made into the image and likeness of God for so many. . .

Notice how ‘easy’ it is to espouse the teachings that one likes but how hard for the ones that we want to kind of ‘glide over’, or to 'explain in a more, ‘accompanying’ or ‘positive’ and not ‘torturing’ way. . . But Catholicism is not a menu to choose from, it is a following of God-Made-Man who told us to pick up the cross, not leave it there because it was ‘too hard’. . .

Was the future Pope Benedict XVI then wrong, you think? As a theologian he wrote extensively on the subject of the conscience:

"Over the pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority there still stands one’s own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, if necessary even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority. Conscience confronts [the individual] with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, and one which in the last resort is beyond the claim of external social groups, even of the official Church." --Pope Benedict XVI (then Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger), Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, 1968, on Guadium et spes, Part 1, Chapter 1. (emphasis added)

Do you understand why this is so important? I will offer a clue: each of us will stand alone before Christ at the Last Judgmemt.

 

[AKDee]

I agree. I am very concerned about this. I read an article where a local bishop is telling the divorced/remarried they can have communion if they are “at peace with God” and frankly I think that is a very spiritually dangerous approach. People can be horribly misled by their own consciences, even if they think they are well formed. We need the guidance of the church for a reason. There is an annulment process for a reason. I expect that people will now just say, “Well, I am at peace with God, so I don’t need to seek an annulment.” Perhaps they will have some protection from the fact that they were doing what a priest instructed, but even so they will be sinning. Christ could not have been more clear in Mark 10:6-12 - there is no ambiguity.

 

[FollowChrist34]

“If we speak explicitly about communion for the divorced and remarried, you do not know what a terrible mess we will make. So we won’t speak plainly, do it in a way that the premises are there, then I will draw out the conclusions.”

Pope Francis to Archbishop Bruno Forte, the Archbishop of Chieti-Vasto, Italy chosen by the Pope to be the special secretary to the synods, relayed during a presentation on the Pope’s recent exhortation Amoris Laetitia.

Italian news website, Zonalocale.it
zonalocale.it/2016/05/03/-nessuno-si-deve-sentire-escluso-dalla-chiesa-/20471

Yep…:sad_yes: This is not surprising.

This is why I will never be a good Catholic - one of the main reasons anyway - only a middling, C+ one. I can never maintain enough ‘discretion’ (hesitancy?) (hope?) in the face of the obvious. I stub my toe on this time and again. When I get something, I get it. A lack of ‘religious correctness’. Not sure how this propriety is obtained - not that I necessarily want it. I am honestly mystified by it.

 

[Thomas_White]

People always seem to omit ‘the rest of the story’ about primacy of conscience, that is, the requirement that it be ‘well-formed’. For a Catholic, a well-formed conscience will always in the end be in line with the established teaching of the Church regarding faith and morals.

And this is what is so very often not understood: "Joseph Cardinal Ritzinger has said a certain judgement of conscience must be obeyed even above Ecclesiastical (i.e., papal) authority."

There might be doubt at some point, especially in the beginning since catechesis and modern society are so relentlessly wrong and so full of emotional angst- but a well-formed conscience will be conformed to the Church because “The Holy Spirit cannot stand against Himself”.

A Catholic who, perhaps raised by strongly secular parents, surrounded by secular friends, emotionally bombarded with messages of ‘love and tolerance’ from all those he holds dear, taught to think of Catholicism wrongly for decades, and whose encounters with the truth always seem to be with ‘rigid’ or ‘hateful’ or ‘hypocritical’ and nasty people, is indeed going to find it difficult to inform his or her conscience correctly, BUT difficult does not mean impossible.

In modern society, with its emphasis on the primary of ‘the individual’ and the constant directive of ‘question everything’ and ‘think for yourself’, one of the hardest tasks for a person, especially an intelligent, educated person raised in the ‘open tent’ or ‘rationalist’ way, is to humbly submit to the teachings of the Church that he or she finds most opposed to his or her own ‘feelings’. Because that is in the end, for most, the stumbling block. Not the actual acceptance ‘by the head’, but ‘by the heart’. Remember St. Augustine, who KNEW that chastity was required of him by Divine Law and who indeed prayed for it, but for years, 'NOT YET?" That was the emotionalism, the need to keep the ‘feelings’ even when one knew in the mind that they actions were wrong.

It does not help that lately feelings are made into the image and likeness of God for so many. . .

Notice how ‘easy’ it is to espouse the teachings that one likes but how hard for the ones that we want to kind of ‘glide over’, or to 'explain in a more, ‘accompanying’ or ‘positive’ and not ‘torturing’ way. . . But Catholicism is not a menu to choose from, it is a following of God-Made-Man who told us to pick up the cross, not leave it there because it was ‘too hard’. . .

Was the future Pope Benedict XVI wrong, you think? As a theologian he wrote extensively on the subject of the conscience:

"Over the pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority there still stands one’s own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, if necessary even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority. Conscience confronts [the individual] with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, and one which in the last resort is beyond the claim of external social groups, even of the official Church." --Pope Benedict XVI (then Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger), Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, 1968, on Guadium et spes, Part 1, Chapter 1. (emphasis added)

 

[JimG]

I agree. I am very concerned about this. I read an article where a local bishop is telling the divorced/remarried they can have communion if they are “at peace with God” and frankly I think that is a very spiritually dangerous approach. People can be horribly misled by their own consciences, even if they think they are well formed. We need the guidance of the church for a reason. There is an annulment process for a reason. I expect that people will now just say, “Well, I am at peace with God, so I don’t need to seek an annulment.” Perhaps they will have some protection from the fact that they were doing what a priest instructed, but even so they will be sinning. Christ could not have been more clear in Mark 10:6-12 - there is no ambiguity.

It’s true that people can be horribly misled by their own consciences. This occurs because they have not formed their conscience correctly. The conscience is an aspect of the intellectual faculty whereby we judge the rightness or wrongness of proposed actions. Human intellect is not infallible and is subject to wishful thinking and undue influence by emotion.

 

[Ender]

And this is what is so very often not understood: "Joseph Cardinal Ritzinger has said a certain judgement of conscience must be obeyed even above Ecclesiastical (i.e., papal) authority."

Was the future Pope Benedict XVI wrong, you think? As a theologian he wrote extensively on the subject of the conscience:

Ratzinger did indeed write extensively on this subject, but what he wrote is not quite what you appear to believe. He was very concerned with the erroneous conscience and what was being implied in its regard.*The erroneous conscience, by sheltering the person from the exacting demands of truth, saves him …—thus went the argument.
*This is Blue Horizon’s argument: that the sincere conscience is not responsible for the sins it leads to, and it is a position Ratzinger completely rejected.*What I was only dimly aware of in this conversation became glaringly clear a little later in a dispute among colleagues about the justifying power of the erroneous conscience. Objecting to this thesis, someone countered that if this were so then the Nazi SS would be justified and we should seek them in heaven since they carried out all their atrocities with fanatic conviction and complete certainty of conscience. Another responded with utmost assurance that of course this was indeed the case. There is no doubting the fact that Hitler and his accomplices who were deeply convinced of their cause, could not have acted otherwise. Therefore, the objective terribleness of their deeds notwithstanding, they acted morally, subjectively speaking. Since they followed their albeit mistaken consciences, one would have to recognize their conduct as moral and, as a result, should not doubt their eternal salvation. Since that conversation, I knew with complete certainty that something was wrong with the theory of justifying power of the subjective conscience, that, **in other words, a concept of conscience which leads to such conclusions must be false.
***Ender

 

[Ender]

More from Cardinal Ratzinger on the erroneous conscience.* Whoever equates conscience with superficial conviction, identifies conscience with a pseudo-rational certainty, a certainty which in fact has been woven from self- righteousness, conformity and lethargy.
*There is little doubt that when he says we must follow the certain judgment of our conscience he does not have this conception of the conscience in mind.*Conscience is degraded to a mechanism for rationalization …
*This seems to be exactly what we’re dealing with in those who claim we are justified in ignoring church doctrines if we don’t believe them.*Certainly, one must follow an erroneous conscience. But the departure from truth which took place beforehand and now takes its revenge is the actual guilt which first lulls man into false security and then abandons him in the trackless waste.
*Ender

 

[_Abyssinia]

Sections of Amoris Laetitia are copied from an essay written more than 20 years ago by a close associate of Pope Francis, a Catholic University professor has revealed.

Writing in Crux, Michael Pakaluk shows that a footnote in the controversial Chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia, and other passages from the papal document, are drawn almost verbatim from an article published in 1995 by Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernandez. Since the Argentine archbishop is known to be an adviser to the Pope, and is believed to have drafted the encyclical Laudato Si’, it seems most likely that Archbishop Fernandez also helped to draft Amoris Laetitia, and incorporated some of his own previous work into the document.

The use of material from an earlier essay raises new questions about the papal document, Pakaluk observes. Are the passages in question the teaching of the magisterium, or the thoughts of Archbishop Fernandez? Has the archbishop deliberately exploited his position to give his ideas—which were controversial at the time of their first appearance, and contain at least one grossly inaccurate quotation from St. Thomas Aquinas—the stamp of papal approval? And has Archbishop Fernandez needlessly embarrassed the Pontiff by using his own words. As Pakaluk observes, “In secular contexts, a ghostwriter who exposed the author he was serving to charges of plagiarism would be dismissed as reckless.”

catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=30488

 

[JPUSC]

’No turning back’

The theologian widely acknowledged as the principal ghostwriter of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, says the Jesuit pontiff has already begun changing the Church in ways that cannot be reversed.

Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernandez, rector of the Catholic University of Argentina, said that, even if the pope’s adversaries tried to turn back the clock in the next pontificate, the People of God would not stand for it.

“The people are with (Francis) and not with his few adversaries,” he said in an exclusive published Sunday in the Italian daily, Corriere della Sera.

The 52-year-old Fernandez is one of the pope’s principal theological advisers. Francis, who had to fight Vatican opposition to name his fellow countryman university rector in 2009, appointed the theologian titular archbishop only two months after he became pope.

The archbishop said the 78-year-old Jesuit pope is patiently laying the groundwork for reforms that cannot be undone.

“No, there’s no turning back,” he told the paper’s highly respected political analyst, Massimo Franco.

“If and when Francis is no longer pope, his legacy will remain strong,” the archbishop said.

"For example, the pope is convinced that the things he’s already written or said cannot be condemned as an error. Therefore, in the future anyone can repeat those things without fear of being sanctioned,” he added.

Archbishop Fernandez is one of the leading theological aides to the pope, who last year was appointed to a special commission inside the Synod of Bishops…

“The pope goes slow because he wants to be sure that the changes have a deep impact. The slow pace is necessary to ensure the effectiveness of the changes. He knows there are those hoping that the next pope will be turn everything back around. If you go slowly it’s more difficult to turn things back. He makes this clear when he says ‘time is greater than space.’”

“The pope must have his reasons, because he knows very well what he’s doing. He must have an objective that we don’t understand yet. You have to realize that he is aiming at a reform that is irreversible. If one day he should intuit that he’s running out of time and he doesn’t have enough time to do what the Spirit is asking him, you can be sure he will speed up."

international.la-croix.com/news/no-turning-back/1220

 

[E_7]

So when exactly will the Pope answer? Still in the air? No official date?

 

[jeannetherese]

The more in-depth article from which Catholic Culture presents the segment above is posted at Crux and may Be reached through the link below:

cruxnow.com/commentary/2017/01/15/ethicist-says-ghostwriters-role-amoris-troubling/

 

[Richca]

Valletta, Malta, Jan 13, 2017 / 11:31 am (CNA/EWTN News).- As debate over Amoris laetitia continues to gain steam, the Maltese bishops have come out with a new set of pastoral guidelines allowing divorced-and-remarried persons in certain cases, after “honest discernment”, to receive Communion.

The introduction to the guidelines opens by saying that “like the star which led the Magi toward their encounter with Jesus,” Amoris laetitia also “enlightens our families in their journey toward Jesus as his disciples.”

This message also includes couples and families in “complex situations,” such as those who are separated or divorced and have entered into new unions.

While these people might have “lost their first marriage,” many have not lost hope in Christ, and “earnestly desire to live in harmony with God and the Church, so much so that they are asking us what they can do in order to be able to celebrate the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.”

Like the Magi “these persons – at times after a strenuous and difficult journey – are able to meet Christ who offers them a future even when it is impossible for them to follow the same route as before,” the bishops said.

Through a process of “accompaniment and honest discernment,” God is able to open new paths to these people, “even if their previous journey may have been one of darkness, marked with past mistakes or sad experiences of betrayal and abandonment.”

Signed by Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta and Bishop Mario Grech of Gozo, the guidelines were published Jan. 13 and consist of 14 bullet points priests are to use when accompanying couples in irregular situations.

Full article…

A critique of the Maltese bishops document from Fr. Brian Harrison, O.S., titled ‘The Maltese Falcons’

onepeterfive.com/the-maltese-falcons/

A point of concern among others I find in this document from the Maltese bishops is that there is not a single quote from Holy Scripture, the word of God, including the four gospels of Jesus Christ to be found in the whole document. There is a reference to the Magi and to John 12, 21, and that’s it.