Too many people don’t want to admit that they lack formation in and awareness of orthodox Catholic moral theology, not to mention having a poor understanding of the teaching authority of the Church and how it functions, to be able to comment on Amoris Laetitia in any useful fashion.
That is not an adequate definition of heresy, nor is an anonymous poster on CAF in a position to declare who is or is not a heretic. That is typically cause for an infraction here, by the way.
Inasmuch as the Bishops’ conferences of the world are currently considering the document with the help of the leading scholarship and experts available, what people here think Amoris Laetitia ‘seems to allow’ is irrelevant and a judgment built on no authority, and generally, no real knowledge of the issues involved. Your speculations are only that, and using them as a basis for shrill accusations of heresy is unseemly.
Given your concern for proper Catholic belief and praxis, it is also worth adding that the accusations made towards others in your posts, and in this thread generally, are not in line with the Catholic requirements for charitable conduct and fraternal correction. You might want to consider what level of credibility that brings to your contributions. And I suggest that you research what formal heresy actually entails, and who has the authority to use the term meaningfully.
In Christ,
Withburga
Listen here before to start talking down on what I know and don’t know. I know what heresy means and it’s a word I avoid using like the plague. But if the shoes fits …
I’m not advocating for formal heresy just yet, in saying its material heresy if the way AL seems to be interpreted by Pope Francis.
I mean why the need to interpret the document??? Shouldn’t the language be clear? Why ever since Vatcian II does the church not speak clearly anymore? As Bishop Athansaius Schneider always asks too. AL honestly is problematic document as on the face of it it can be interpreted in an orthodox light but it’s is strangely ambiguous at the crucial points that were debated at the synod.
Ever since Vatican II the church has this habit of using A LOT of words which realkysbay nothing and are ambiguous. Again something The graceful bishop alluded to again. He is one of the mat voices of Catholic orthodoxy that speaks openly about the problems in Rome.
His reflection of AL includes this :
*"Our Holy Father, Pope Francis, has invited us all to make a contribution to reflection and dialogue on the sensitive issues surrounding marriage and the family. “The thinking of pastors and theologians, if faithful to the Church, honest, realistic and creative, will help us to achieve greater clarity” (AL, 2).
If we analyze certain statements of AL with intellectual honesty within their proper context, we find ourselves faced with difficulties when trying to interpret them in accordance with the traditional doctrine of the Church.
This is due to the absence of the concrete and explicit affirmation of the doctrine and constant practice of the Church, founded on the Word of God and reiterated by Pope John Paul II, who said, “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. Reconciliation in the sacrament of Penance which would open the way to the Eucharist, can only be granted to those who … 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 … they take on themselves the duty to live in complete continence, that is, by abstinence from the acts proper to married couples” (Familiaris Consortio, 84).
Pope Francis had not established “a new general norm of Canon Law, applicable to all cases” (AL n. 300). He says, however, in note 336: “This is also the case with regard to sacramental discipline, since discernment can recognize that in a particular situation no grave fault exists”. Obviously referring to the divorced and remarried, the Pope says in AL, no. 305 that, “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.” In note 351, the Pope clarifies his statement by saying that “in some cases, this may include the help of the sacraments”.
In the same chapter VIII of AL, n. 298, the Pope speaks of the divorced involved in “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. The Church acknowledges situations “where, for serious reasons, such as the children’s upbringing, a man and woman cannot satisfy the obligation to separate””. In note 329, the Pope cites the document Gaudium et Spes of the Second Vatican Council; unfortunately, he does so in an incorrect fashion, because in the passage in question, the council refers only to valid Christian marriage. The application of this statement to divorced persons may cause the impression that a valid marriage is to be equated to the union of divorced persons, if not in theory, then in practice.
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