Catholicism can and must change, Francis forcefully tells Italian church gathering

[JimG]

Here’s how I see it, Pope Paul VI could well have approved the lifting of the ban on Contraception, because I’m sure that the Bishops in the commission were able to draft a document and reinterpret the teaching in a modern light.

Maybe Pope Francis cannot change doctrine, but he can appoint some canon lawyers to reframe it.

No, Pope Paul VI had no authority to change doctrine. So he could not have changed it. The Anglican Church changed their doctrine on contraception in 1930–the first Protestant communion to break with the Catholic Church on this doctrine. That helped to enable the sexual revolution, bringing about all the evils that Paul VI had warned about.

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

… opening the doors for "the abandoned, the forgotten, [and even more so], the imperfect.

Lord, grant me the courage, humility and wisdom you gave to St. Francis of Assisi, so I too may kiss the leper. Amen

Poignant words of you both. Poignant words.

 

[TCEL]

Is it really a stretch to think that he simply wants some of us to change our approach, and not the substance?

 

[Brendan]

Consider that St Paul and most early Christians appeared to believe that the Parousia and Second Coming would take place in their lifetimes. Was their understanding of this doctrine ‘full’? Did not the passage of time suggest that a deeper insight was needed into the words of Christ?.

The fullness of Revelation was not accomplished until the death of the last Apostle, St. John.

At that point, the fullness of the Deposit of Faith had been given to mankind.

 

[Brendan]

Here’s how I see it, Pope Paul VI could well have approved the lifting of the ban on Contraception, because I’m sure that the Bishops in the commission were able to draft a document and reinterpret the teaching in a modern light.

Maybe Pope Francis cannot change doctrine, but he can appoint some canon lawyers to reframe it.

Not possible, as the immoral nature of it was already known to the Church. It is part of the Deposit of Faith. Paul VI, like all Popes, is prevented by the Holy Spirit from binding the Church to error.

 

[Thomas_White]

Development of doctrine isn’t a dogma. If you think it is, then show the canon condemning those who reject development of doctrine.

Rather than answer that, it would be better if you looked at Dei Verbum and the link in a comment above to the theology of Joseph Ratzinger. Then argue with it, if you will.

 

[Thomas_White]

Not possible, as the immoral nature of it was already known to the Church. It is part of the Deposit of Faith. Paul VI, like all Popes, is prevented by the Holy Spirit from binding the Church to error.

Pope Paul VI also said the question was worthy of further discussion.

 

[Brendan]

Pope Paul VI also said the question was worthy of further discussion.

Certainly, the Church can always discuss HOW evil an intrinsic evil is. But the Church could not declare it anything to be anything but evil.

 

[Thomas_White]

Certainly, the Church can always discuss HOW evil an intrinsic evil is. But the Church could not declare it anything to be anything but evil.

Not going to argue about what Pope Paul VI said either.

 

[Brendan]

Not going to argue about what Pope Paul VI said either.

Nope, I am well confident that he was quite aware of what his processor, Pope Pius XI had to say in regards. So it was already WELL known to him that contraception was an intrinsic evil.

But no reason, however grave, may be put forward by which anything intrinsically against nature may become conformable to nature and morally good. Since, therefore, the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who in exercising it deliberately frustrate its natural power and purpose sin against nature and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically vicious

-Casti Connubii 54

Would you have expected Pope Paul to disagree with a moral truth?

Especially when Vatican II had already agreed it was immoral

These, based on the nature of the human person and his acts, preserve the full sense of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love. Such a goal cannot be achieved unless the virtue of conjugal chastity is sincerely practiced. Relying on these principles, sons of the Church may not undertake methods of birth control which are found blameworthy by the teaching authority of the Church in its unfolding of the divine law.(14)

Constitution Gaudium et Spes 51

The footnote referenced is… Casti Connubii

 

[EmperorNapoleon]

Nope, I am well confident that he was quite aware of what his processor, Pope Pius XI had to say in regards. So it was already WELL known to him that contraception was an intrinsic evil.

-Casti Connubii 54

Would you have expected Pope Paul to disagree with a moral truth?

Especially when Vatican II had already agreed it was immoral

Gaudium et Spes 51

The footnote referenced is… Casti Connubii

Casti Conubii and Gaudium et Spes are not an infallible encyclicals.

 

[Thomas_White]

Nope, I am well confident that he was quite aware of what his processor, Pope Pius XI had to say in regards. So it was already WELL known to him that contraception was an intrinsic evil.

-Casti Connubii 54

Would you have expected Pope Paul to disagree with a moral truth?

Especially when Vatican II had already agreed it was immoral

Constitution Gaudium et Spes 51

The footnote referenced is… Casti Connubii

I mentioned what I know Pope Paul VI said at the time of Humae Vitae, and I don’t need a righteous lecture about Casti Connubii in reply. It is obvious you are going to disagree with whatever is said, and I’m not sure why. But you haven’t been correct about anything yet in your replies to me. I am sorry to have to say it, and I say it with all due respect.

 

[EmperorNapoleon]

I mentioned what I know Pope Paul VI said at the time of Humae Vitae, and I don’t need a righteous lecture about Casti Connubii in reply. It is obvious you are going to disagree with whatever is said, and I’m not sure why. But you haven’t been correct about anything yet in your replies to me. I am sorry to have to say it, and I say it with all due respect.

I think these exchanges highlight part of what Pope Francis is talking about. The Church cannot be so rigid in its interpretation of sin that all it sees is sin wherever it looks. It must be open to seeking a deeper understanding of the nature of sin so that it has the flexibility to properly discern in response to new information and context. The issue of contraception is a great example of why.

 

[JimG]

I think these exchanges highlight part of what Pope Francis is talking about. The Church cannot be so rigid in its interpretation of sin that all it sees is sin wherever it looks. It must be open to seeking a deeper understanding of the nature of sin so that it has the flexibility to properly discern in response to new information and context. The issue of contraception is a great example of why.

The issue of contraception is a good example, which is why I always recommend this book.

 

[Thomas_White]

I think these exchanges highlight part of what Pope Francis is talking about. The Church cannot be so rigid in its interpretation of sin that all it sees is sin wherever it looks. It must be open to seeking a deeper understanding of the nature of sin so that it has the flexibility to properly discern in response to new information and context. The issue of contraception is a great example of why.

Yes, and I agree. One thing is the rigid view of the world as either/or, as black and white, and it probably has more of a psychological component than spiritual. There is also a strong tendency toward intolerance of different views and the judging others in this mindset, and it often looks like sublimated aggression. None of this is with reference to anyone in particular, but I tend to think the explanation is sometimes in the psychological domain.

 

[JimG]

Yes, and I agree. One thing is the rigid view of the world as either/or, as black and white, and it probably has more of a psychological component than spiritual. There is also a strong tendency toward intolerance of different views and the judging others in this mindset, and it often looks like sublimated aggression. None of this is with reference to anyone in particular, but I tend to think the explanation really is in the psychological domain.

Are you saying that morality is mostly a matter of psychology? We no longer need manuals of morality or examinations of conscience, because a therapist will suffice?

But since you mention psychology, there is this.

 

[Thomas_White]

Are you saying that morality is mostly a matter of psychology? We no longer need manuals of morality or examinations of conscience, because a therapist will suffice?

But since you mention psychology, there is this.

No, I am not saying morality is mostly a matter of psychology or of psychology at all. I was referring to a personality type.

 

[Justin_Swanton]

What I pick up from the address is that the Pope is pitting against each other aspects of Catholicism that in fact are meant to work hand-in-hand together:

Before the problems of the church it is not useful to search for solutions in conservatism or fundamentalism, in the restoration of obsolete conduct and forms that no longer have the capacity of being significant culturally
Why do traditional-minded Catholics opt for ‘obsolete conduct and forms’? (what, by the way, is meant by ‘obsolete conduct’?) Not because they are nostalgic for the 50’s - most of them weren’t born then - but because the obsolete forms, eg the TLM, are unambiguously Catholic in their ethos. The TLM is not about the Latin, it’s about a reverent, supernaturally Christ-centred liturgy that is incapable of being bent into any other shape. In other words, it is dependable. The New Mass, to take a non-obsolete example, can be celebrated reverently, but it is also elastic enough to be celebrated in other ways. What traditional-minded Catholics are looking for is something that should have been there already in the ‘regular’ liturgy.

Christian doctrine is not a closed system incapable of generating questions, doubts, interrogatives – but is alive, knows being unsettled, enlivened
Christian doctrine by the fact it is doctrine (as opposed to non-defined and non-dogmatic opinions) is precisely ‘incapable of generating questions, doubts, interrogatives’. Not every theological question has been settled by the Church, e.g. the fate of babies who die before baptism, but the questions that matter, that are capable of making us ‘unsettled’, have been resolved, long ago.

Speaking to Gnosticism, which widely held that people should shun the material world in favor of the spiritual realm, Francis identified such thinking today with that which "brings us to trust in logical and clear reasoning … which however loses the tenderness of the flesh of the brother
If there is any time in history when we need to use logical and clear reasoning it is now. Logical and clear reasoning on matters of the Faith is not in opposition with the tenderness of the flesh of the brother, since every part of our Faith exhorts us to love our neighbour as ourselves.

Speaking to Pelagianism, which holds that humans can achieve salvation on their own without divine help, the pontiff said that in the modern day it “brings us to have trust in structures, in organizations, in perfect plans, however abstract.”
“Often it brings us to assume a style of control, of hardness, of normalcy,” said Francis.
What is meant by ‘structures’ and ‘organisations’? The Church is a structure and an organisation, a divinely instituted hierarchy whose purpose is to govern, instruct and sanctify. A Catholic is meant to trust the structure as a child trusts his mother. Trusting the Church does not mean assuming a ‘style of control, of hardness, of normalcy’, quite the opposite. The great reforming saints utterly trusted the structure and organisation of the Church.

 

[Thomas_White]

Before the problems of the church it is not useful to search for solutions in conservatism or fundamentalism, in the restoration of obsolete conduct and forms that no longer have the capacity of being significant culturally

Why do traditional-minded Catholics opt for ‘obsolete conduct and forms’? (what, by the way, is meant by ‘obsolete conduct’?) Not because they are nostalgic for the 50’s - most of them weren’t born then - but because the obsolete forms, eg the TLM, are unambiguously Catholic in their ethos. The TLM is not about the Latin, it’s about a reverent, supernaturally Christ-centred liturgy that is incapable of being bent into any other shape. In other words, it is dependable. The New Mass, to take a non-obsolete example, can be celebrated reverently, but it is also elastic enough to be celebrated in other ways. What traditional-minded Catholics are looking for is something that should have been there already in the ‘regular’ liturgy.

I have to disagree that traditional Catholicism is synomomous with conservatism and fundamentalism. The EF Mass, though not in practice the Tridentine Mass of the 50’s, is a valid form of the Mass and is hardly obsolete. And, in part, it is about the Latin, although non-verbal communication is very significant. The EF Mass remains of cultural significance for many Catholics, and that is why it is observed.

Fundamentalism has never been accepted by the Church. The division between ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ Catholics did not exist in the pre-Vatican II era in the way it does today, and there is now often the political associated with these terms when they are used to describe the perspective of a Catholic. The TLM would not seem a good example for making the point, but I don’t believe equating traditional Catholicism with fundamentalism or conservatism could make the point in any case. That debate is now more about legalism.

 

[outremer]

I find it interesting that Pope Francis lumped conservatism with fundamentalism in this speech.

“In facing ills or the problems of the Church,” the Pope went on, “it is useless to look for solutions in conservatism and fundamentalism, in the restoration of practices and outdated forms that aren’t even able to be culturally meaningful.”

Here