Does anyone know what’s meant by this?..
I see it more in terms of refraining from ‘subjective’ judgement of an individual’s state of mind in relation to God on the basis of his/her objectively sinful situation. This is to be left in the privacy of the confessional.
Way back in the mid-19th century, Pio Nono (Blessed Pius IX of
'Syllabus of Errors’ fame) was questioned about people who were outside the church or members of schismatic Christian sects. Objectively, such individuals were deemed to be in a gravely sinful situation owing to the fact that “outside the Church” there is no salvation, as the dogma goes. It had long been recognised that simply lacking baptism or the fullness of the sacraments did not equal immediate damnation but for a long time people had popularly understood this ‘exception’, so to speak, in terms of those having an ‘explicit desire’ for baptism or reception into the true Church.
Pio Nono - that champion of inflexible orthodoxy - surprised many by his seemingly ‘soft’ stance on this issue. He utilized the same objectivity/subjectivity distinction that our present Holy Father has applied to “irregular” relationships:
Singulari Quadam, 1854:**
Code:
174. "It must, of course, be held as a matter of faith that outside the apostolic Roman Church no one can be saved, that the Church is the only ark of salvation, and that whoever does not enter it will perish in the flood. On the other hand, it must likewise be held as certain that those who are affected by ignorance of the true religion, if it is invincible ignorance, are not subject to any guilt in this matter before the eyes of the Lord. **Now, then, who could presume in himself an ability to set the boundaries of such ignorance, taking into consideration the natural differences of peoples, lands, native talents, and so many other factors?** **Only when we have been released from the bonds of this body and see God just as He is (see John 3:2) shall we really understand how close and beautiful a bond joins Divine mercy with Divine justice**."
Quanto Conficiamur Moerore, 1863:
Code:
"...We all know that those who are afflicted with invincible ignorance with regard to our holy religion, if they carefully keep the precepts of the natural law that have been written by God in the hearts of men, if they are prepared to obey God, and if they lead a virtuous and dutiful life, can attain eternal life by the power of divine light and grace."
Some were unhappy with Pius IX’s definition of ‘invincible ignorance’ and ‘baptism by implicit desire’ given above. The controversial part was the following:
Now, then, who could presume in himself an ability to set the boundaries of such ignorance, taking into consideration the natural differences of peoples, lands, native talents, and so many other factors?
In essence, this was as open-ended as possible: the Pope explicitly said that Catholics should not ‘presume’ to set the ‘boundaries’ of the inculpable ‘ignorance’ that kept many millions of Protestants, Muslims, Jews in an *‘objectively sinful’ * state of ‘un-belief’ or ‘lack of full belief’ without having any personal culpability for this due to “
so many factors” that the Pope didn’t even care to specify which meant that they could “
attain eternal life by the power of divine light and grace”. Only God could ascertain this. For individual Catholics to do so was
'presumptuous’ according to the Pope.
My point being: should anyone be surprised that this theological distinction between ‘objective sinfulness’ vs ‘subjective culpability mitigated by innumerable factors’, is not merely confined to disbelief/heresy but can validly be applied to a whole range of other objectively sinful situations, including irregular ‘sexual’ ones? The criteria Pope Francis has laid out for pastors in relation to irregular unions is much less “expansive” than the seemingly ‘carte-blanche’ criteria provided by Pius IX in relation to those in objective states of unbelief and heresy.
Its nothing new nor is it a violation of our tradituon. Sometimes, I feel that people don’t really get the nuances of Catholic theology. Evangelical Protestantism is a good deal more simplistic and black/white in orientation, perhaps folk are too ‘
Protestanized’.
