Pope Francis lets the world in on the Church’s best-kept secret

[KSU]

cruxnow.com/church/2016/04/08/pope-francis-lets-the-world-in-on-the-churchs-best-kept-secret/

In his CRUX article, John Allen has let the cat out of the bag. Amoris Laetitia has been the occasion for Liberal (my term) Catholics to come out of the closet and admit that for them there always have been two Catholic Faiths. First, the heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away/ let your yes mean yes and your no mean no, Faith; and, second, the opposite, “spirit of things in the Church”, Faith:

QUOTE… Amoris Laetitia represents a breakthrough of no small consequence, because for once in a Vatican text, what got enunciated wasn’t simply the law but also the space for pastoral practice – which is where the Church’s long-underappreciated capacity for subtlety and compassion usually enters the picture.

In other words, what Pope Francis has done is let the rest of the world in on one of the best-kept secrets about the Catholic Church: Yes, the Church has laws, and it takes them very seriously. But even more than law it has flesh-and-blood people, and it takes their circumstances and struggles seriously too.

At one stage, Francis writes that the divorced and remarried can find themselves in situations “which should not be pigeonholed or fit into overly rigid classifications, leaving no room for a suitable personal and pastoral discernment.”

In reality, that’s been the spirit of things in the Church forever, to greater and lesser degrees depending on time and place. Still, it somehow feels new, and important, to hear a pope saying it out loud. END QUOTE

Once again the Vatican Press Office will have to “clarify” the matter.

 

[JimG]

No big secret. It’s not a surprise that the Church has always been pastoral. It’s not a surprise that the Church has always been dogmatic. And the two do not conflict.

 

[KSU]

No big secret. It’s not a surprise that the Church has always been pastoral. It’s not a surprise that the Church has always been dogmatic. And the two do not conflict.

They are not supposed to conflict is the accurate way to put it. But of course they do conflict in Liberal practice:

QUOTE For one thing, that sort of pastoral adaptation, sometimes referred to as an “internal forum” solution, is already happening. In many parishes, you can find divorced and remarried Catholics who come forward for communion, and many pastors have either quietly encouraged them to do so or, at least, never discouraged them, choosing to respect whatever decision they’ve made in conscience.

For another, the language in Amoris Laetitia on the Communion question is sufficiently elastic that both sides in the debate can take consolation, meaning that those pastors and bishops inclined to a stricter reading of Church law probably won’t feel compelled to revise their thinking, and neither will those given to a more flexible stance. END QUOTE

 

[JimG]

Well, I guess that they need not conflict. I have used the example of my divorced and remarried aunt before. She refrained from communion but continued being active in her parish. Both she and her pastor understood the situation. That was a pastoral solution that also met the requirements of dogma.

 

[KSU]

Well, I guess that they need not conflict. I have used the example of my divorced and remarried aunt before. She refrained from communion but continued being active in her parish. Both she and her pastor understood the situation. That was a pastoral solution that also met the requirements of dogma.