“Mitigating factors do not change this objective situation,” they explained. “To change a discipline of the Church rooted in doctrine and affirmed by the constant Magisterium of the Church, an explicit declaration would be necessary. This cannot be found in the apostolic exhortation. Wherever a reader may have doubts as of how to interpret a certain passage, a sound guiding principle of interpretation is to read those passages in light of the clearly affirmed doctrine of the Church. To seek ‘doctrinal novelty,’ as some claim to have found in the text, where it is not stated, is to do violence to the text.”
