Reading Amoris Laetitia in Light of Trent

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I think the new emphasis on Mercy is much needed. It is a complete nightmare to go through a full annulment process with testimony, witnesses etc. It takes too long and the cost used to be to me ridiculous.

JMO

“Been there, done that, got the T Shirt.” I pray others have a more positive experience than I did which was nothing more than a “paper chase” and begging people to be witnesses to a process many Catholics themselves don’t understand. The issue is consent at the time of marriage not who did what to who later.

Mary
 
I was just thinking that the definition of the word “news” sure has changed.
 
Rau said:
A practical and down to earth treatment.

Noting: “Absolution must be preceded by a desire to avoid that sin again.”

I can well believe that the remarried who are trying to live as brother and sister are entitled to absolution and communion.
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👍 Amen. The core there is that we are absolved from sins we let go. But that bit everyone agrees on. It is the other ideas suggesting that God can just ignore the sins WE are holding on to and declare us forgiven anyway, ala Protestant Lutheran, Calvinist core ideas, that is where debate is. But that is the bit that is also hard to defend of course, unless one finds even more doctrines to chip away in the attempt to create a support for one wrong and also very old belief.

Indeed, I have seen obviously intelligent people here unwittingly resort to all sorts of wrong ideas in an attempt to defend the Maltese and similar positions. Each time, with each new angle, each new stab, I am even more convinced that the position is inherently indefensible. It always takes them back to the same dead end which is essentially a reharshing of old and settled debates, many with attached anathemas, whatever direction they try, whatever “new” insight they think they discover in scripture in the effort to mount this frankly futile defense.

Watching this has made me wonder if Catholicism is a bit “booby-trapped” in the sense that the only direction you go once you deny one truth is three of four other more untruths! And its not lesser but even more fundamental untruths too that must be chipped away at to defend the one! Examples: The infallibility of the church, the final revelation of God to the world in Jesus, the inerrancy of scripture, the lordship of Christ in the duty to obey (and not just believe) him, the nature of salvation, free will, the efficacy of grace…There is just no way to justify the one untruth you are attached to except by “supporting” it with another untruth even if that is not your intention. I think its just the problem of trying to reinvent the wheel 2 millenia later.

But I do wonder if this is part of that protection promised by Christ to the church, part of that guarantee. It makes sure that even “less” truths (to our eyes) which we might be tempted to do away with for convenience, stay intact.
 
Rau said:
A practical and down to earth treatment.

Noting: “Absolution must be preceded by a desire to avoid that sin again.”

I can well believe that the remarried who are trying to live as brother and sister are entitled to absolution and communion.
Click to expand...
The intention to sin makes it impossible for one to be detached from that sin by absolution. It’s like saying “I choose X” and have the church say “We detach you from X by force!”. If someone continues to knowingly choose sin X then the church has no power in heaven or earth to take that sin away from them: THAT is the dignity of free will and personhood.

It is not mercy for the church to pretend to do what she cannot do. What the church can do is continue to bless that person and keep them in the fold and pray for them to find the strength and grace to supply the indespensable subjective element required for their own salvation in addition to the grace provided by God especially in penance: conversion.

The idea that conversion is not necessary is literally a heresy promoted by the first protestants and already condemned by the church 500 years ago. It goes completely against free will.

Martin Luther is reputed to have said that committing adultery 600 times could not cause him to lose his salvation. We have come full circle now when we have Catholics saying almost exactly the same thing. That God can save us without our conversion. Something the church calls the sin of presumption.

They will even try to quote the Bible and in a protestantesque manner insinuate downright heretical interpretations such as “Jesus did not require conversion in order to loosen someone from their sins. You see he only SAID to go and sin no more but did not require it.” You know you are holding on to a wrong belief when every attempt you make to support it leads you to commit ten other errors.
 
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