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TMC
Guest
Not all statements bear the same level of authority, but Apostolic Exhortations are authoritative documents, and the Pope has said Amoris Laetitia is “sound doctrine.”
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Vico
Guest
So it actually says that the Church approves living as brothers and sisters in some situations where the couple cannot separate, and states what many people point out.
K
KSU
Guest
An apostolic exhortation does not define Church doctrine. What Pope Francis is saying is don’t look to AL for any universally applicable teaching on Communion for those in irregular marriages. He says that the thinking of pastors and theologians,** if faithful to the Church**, honest, realistic and creative, will help us to achieve greater clarity. Even though unity of teaching and practice is certainly necessary, each country or region can seek solutions better suited to its culture and sensitive to its traditions and local needs."
Cardinal Schonborn agrees.
2.The Synod process allowed for an examination of the situation of families in today’s world, and thus for a broader vision and a renewed awareness of the importance of marriage and the family. The complexity of the issues that arose revealed the need for continued open discussion of a number of doctrinal, moral, spiritual, and pastoral questions. The thinking of pastors and theologians, if faithful to the Church,
honest, realistic and creative, will help us to achieve greater clarity. The debates carried on in the media, in certain publications and even among the Church’s ministers, range from an immoderate desire for total change without sufficient reflection or grounding, to an attitude that would solve everything by applying general rules or deriving undue conclusions from particular theological considerations.
3.Since “time is greater than space”, I would make it clear that not all discussions of doctrinal,
moral or pastoral issues need to be settled by interventions of the magisterium. Unity of teaching and practice is certainly necessary in the Church, but this does not preclude various ways of interpreting some aspects of that teaching or drawing certain consequences from it. This will always be the case as the Spirit guides us towards the entire truth (cf. Jn 16:13), until he leads us fully into the mystery of Christ and enables us to see all things as he does. Each country or region, moreover, can seek solutions better suited to its culture and sensitive to its traditions and local needs. For “cultures are in fact quite diverse and every general principle… needs to be inculturated, if it is to be respected and applied”.
Cardinal Schonborn agrees.
So, Archbishop Chaput dutifully provided solutions better suited to the culture of his Archdiocese, being sensitive to its traditions and local needs.
Introductory Paragraphs 2 an 3 of AMORIS LÆTITIA2.The Synod process allowed for an examination of the situation of families in today’s world, and thus for a broader vision and a renewed awareness of the importance of marriage and the family. The complexity of the issues that arose revealed the need for continued open discussion of a number of doctrinal, moral, spiritual, and pastoral questions. The thinking of pastors and theologians, if faithful to the Church,
honest, realistic and creative, will help us to achieve greater clarity. The debates carried on in the media, in certain publications and even among the Church’s ministers, range from an immoderate desire for total change without sufficient reflection or grounding, to an attitude that would solve everything by applying general rules or deriving undue conclusions from particular theological considerations.
3.Since “time is greater than space”, I would make it clear that not all discussions of doctrinal,
moral or pastoral issues need to be settled by interventions of the magisterium. Unity of teaching and practice is certainly necessary in the Church, but this does not preclude various ways of interpreting some aspects of that teaching or drawing certain consequences from it. This will always be the case as the Spirit guides us towards the entire truth (cf. Jn 16:13), until he leads us fully into the mystery of Christ and enables us to see all things as he does. Each country or region, moreover, can seek solutions better suited to its culture and sensitive to its traditions and local needs. For “cultures are in fact quite diverse and every general principle… needs to be inculturated, if it is to be respected and applied”.
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CrossofChrist
Guest
Exactly. And ISTM that the context is for pastors trying to help people who want to live as the Church desires, with the assumption (since AL says so explicitly a number of times) that everyone (pastor, couple, etc.) is striving to be faithful to Christ. So the issue in the footnote is raised and it’s up to the pastor/couple to find a creative solution to it. At least that’s how it seems to me.
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Vico
Guest
And the other footnote is 351 for item 305. Item 305 identifies a state of no subjective sin, which means properly disposed.
- For this reason, a pastor cannot feel that it is enough simply to apply moral laws to those living in “irregular” situations, as if they were stones to throw at people’s lives. This would bespeak the closed heart of one used to hiding behind the Church’s teachings, “sitting on the chair of Moses and judging at times with superiority and superficiality difficult cases and wounded families”.349 Along these same lines, the International Theological Commission has noted that “natural law could not be presented as an already established set of rules that impose themselves a priori on the moral subject; rather, it is a source of objective inspiration for the deeply personal process of making decisions”.350 Because of forms of conditioning and mitigating factors, it is possible that in an objective situation of sin – which may not be subjectively culpable, or fully such – a person can be living in God’s grace, can love and can also grow in the life of grace and charity, while receiving the Church’s help to this end.351
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KSU
Guest
For two years Catholics and the camp-following secular trouble-makers watched liberal and conservative prelates fight over the issue of whether or not people in irregular marriages (including homosexuals) could somehow legitimately receive Communion. That open debate–watching how the Church currently makes its sausage–was IMHO a mistake. Sensitive topics should be hashed out in private, as far as possible.
Goaded on by the media, many people waited with baited breath to see if Pope Francis finally would side with the liberals (typified by the Germans) or the conservatives (typified by the Africans). That was the second mistake: Did we really expect that there was even a snowball’s chance that the Holy Father would try to change doctrine, which was based on the words of Christ Himself, under the liberal proposal to call it just a new pastoral policy!?
Our third mistake was to concentrate on the, as it turned out, seemingly ambiguous minor aspect of AL-- the Communion issue–and treat it as the subject matter of AL. By doing so, we neglect the real value of AL–the doctrinally sound, beautifully treated central teaching about family and marriage.
What a shame that the great majority of Catholics in the pews will never know the true beauty and teaching of AL.
Goaded on by the media, many people waited with baited breath to see if Pope Francis finally would side with the liberals (typified by the Germans) or the conservatives (typified by the Africans). That was the second mistake: Did we really expect that there was even a snowball’s chance that the Holy Father would try to change doctrine, which was based on the words of Christ Himself, under the liberal proposal to call it just a new pastoral policy!?
Our third mistake was to concentrate on the, as it turned out, seemingly ambiguous minor aspect of AL-- the Communion issue–and treat it as the subject matter of AL. By doing so, we neglect the real value of AL–the doctrinally sound, beautifully treated central teaching about family and marriage.
What a shame that the great majority of Catholics in the pews will never know the true beauty and teaching of AL.
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irenaeus1
Guest
This is actually an excellent point, but it would seem that an apostolic exhortation would exhort, teach, and correct such an erroneous position. It does not make sense to state an erroneous position that certain people may hold or point out and then not counter it with Church teaching, but rather allow the erroneous position to stand uncontested as if it were simply one valid position among many.
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Vico
Guest
But the very people that point out are “knowing and accepting the possibility of living ‘as brothers and sisters’ which the Church offers them”. so they are not opposing what the Church offers.
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irenaeus1
Guest
This, too, is problematic. Just look at the middle portion of 305:
“natural law could not be presented as an already established set of rules that impose themselves a priori on the moral subject; rather, it is a source of objective inspiration for the deeply personal process of making decisions.”
This is simply untrue. The natural law is the eternal law of God, and is written on the human heart, to direct us to our final end. It is real and objective, not simply "a source of inspiration for the deeply personal process of making decisions”.
Then there’s the infamous footnote:
AL is stating here that individuals who are living in public grave sin can, in certain cases, be admitted to both the sacraments of Penance and Holy Communion while remaining in their sinful lifestyle, if it is determined that the individuals are not culpable for their sin. However, it is also very difficult to envisage any considerable number of cases where a certain individual would remain without culpability for grave sin after discerning the situation with a priest. If they are not culpable of the gravity of their situation after discernment, then the discernment was obviously without effect.
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irenaeus1
Guest
What, by saying they know what the Church offers and then point out that what the Church offers can harm the children and threaten faithfulness??? In other words, we know good and well what the Church offers, but if we do not continue in our adulterous relationship, faithfulness is endangered and the children will suffer. Really?
By the way, what faithfulness is being endangered here?
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Vico
Guest
No, that is not what it says. I recommend you read it again.
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irenaeus1
Guest
Does a person who is in the state of grace not have strength with God’s grace to carry out the objective demands of the divine law? Although one is in an objectively sinful state, what is being said (according to AL 305) is that they can actually still be said to be in the state of grace. That being said, is not the grace of God which produces righteousness in an individual sufficient to convert the individual from serious sin? Or is it possible that sanctifying grace allows an individual to remain inculpable of grave sin? Something appears to be wrong here.
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irenaeus1
Guest
"In such situations, many people… point out that if certain expressions of intimacy are lacking, ‘it often happens that faithfulness is endangered and the good of the children suffers’.”
So the “certain expressions of intimacy are lacking” does not refer to living in continence as if brother and sister?
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Vico
Guest
A person can give scandal through a non sinful action. Scandal is based upon misleading the weak who do not understand. When people see some receiving the Eucharist and know that they appear to be living as husband and wife, they may mislead to sin. For culpability, it is complex and requires willfulness, and reception is always conditioned for this situation. A couple that cannot separate is not willfully remaining together in an objectively sinful situation. It is clear from the following in FC:
- … However, the Church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried. They are unable to be admitted thereto from the fact that their state and condition of life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and the Church which is signified and effected by the Eucharist. Besides this, there is another special pastoral reason: if these people were admitted to the Eucharist, the faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the Church’s teaching about the indissolubility of marriage.
w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_19811122_familiaris-consortio.html
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Vico
Guest
What I could not agree with was that it says: “we know good and well what the Church offers, but if we do not continue in our adulterous relationship, faithfulness is endangered and the children will suffer.”
It cannot apply to fruitfulness of new children in a brother and sister relationship like this but it can to “upbringing of the children”. It could apply to faithfulness if the couple was subjectively certain that their previous marriages were invalid, but then that is not an objective fact. That quote is from Gaudium et Spes 51: But where the intimacy of married life is broken off, its faithfulness can sometimes be imperilled and its quality of fruitfulness ruined, for then the upbringing of the children and the courage to accept new ones are both endangered
The reason is that it could not be an adulterous relationship is that it was stipulated that the couple fulfills the conditions given of repentance. The conditions referred to are given in FC:
84. … 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. This means, in practice, that
- when, for serious reasons, such as for example the children’s upbringing, a man and a woman cannot satisfy the obligation to separate, they* “take on themselves the duty to live in complete continence, that is, by abstinence from the acts proper to married couples.”
[180]
w2.vatican.va/content/john-pa…consortio.html
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irenaeus1
Guest
You are correct if they live as brother and sister, but if not, then they are indeed in an objectively sinful situation.
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irenaeus1
Guest
But this is essentially what the footnote is stating.
The context does not imply that the couple who is currently in an ‘irregular’ union came from previous marriages that were invalid. There is already an avenue to pursue for these situations. What AL appears to be discussing is how to handle those who have separated from their valid marriage and are now involved in a second union. Also, the quote from Gaudium et Spes is directed toward married couples regarding periodic abstinence and is being misapplied here to those in ‘irregular’ unions.
And of course, the problem here is that AL leaves off the second bullet point in your list above; i.e., quotes JPII, but cuts him off in mid-sentence.
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Vico
Guest
I am saying it is not and gave the reasons why I think so. Your comment is made before the reasoning is given, so I don’t know if wrote that after reading all or only a portion.
I agree with you that the context does not imply prior invalid marriage, but it is a possibility, and one that cannot always be resolved objectively.
It was also my point that the quote from Gaudium et Spes is directed toward married couples. It is not misapplied however, which is what I explained.
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irenaeus1
Guest
It IS misapplied because even if the ‘first’ marriage is deemed invalid, and that is a big ‘if’, the second union is still not a marriage, at least not until it is regularized (if the first marriage was invalid). But this is not addressed to those who are in valid marriages or those who have had their second union regularized. It is addressing those who have been divorced and civilly remarried.
Listen, I really want to believe what you are saying about the interpretation of AL, and if I squint hard enough, tilt my head a little, and read AL in a dimly lit room, I can possibly make some of these passages to be understood in an orthodox light. But not necessarily from the plain reading of the text. The lack of precise language and clarity from an Apostolic Exhortation is quite amazing to me. But I do appreciate your (name removed by moderator)ut as this really is a help to me.
What about where AL explains that “divorced and remarried” Catholics can find themselves in a situation where “a second union consolidated over time, with new children, proven fidelity, generous self giving, Christian commitment, a consciousness of its irregularity and of the great difficulty of going back without feeling in conscience that one would fall into new sins.”? So now AL is stating that an adulterous union can have all these descriptors?.. AL is stating that a union which violates the fidelity due to the marriage vows (vows of the ‘first’ marriage) can itself demonstrate “proven fidelity”, that a union contrary to the command of Christ and that contravenes God’s law can in fact display “Christian commitment”, and that an adulterous union can be the place to provide “generous self-giving”.
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