The Crisis in the Catholic Church

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There are those Catholics that believe Pope Francis has received a special anointing of the Holy Spirit that shows him a “way” of solving sinful situations people are in while not deviating from official Catholic teachings.

This involves discerning whether or not a sin has been committed when taking into account the situation and or circumstances. There are others who believe that the Deposit of Faith which includes Catholic understanding of Scripture, Dogma, and teachings are unchangeable – as God Himself is unchanging and that any effort to “reinterpret” the Deposit of Faith is error.

Official Catholic teaching has not changed, but the implementation of new understandings based on Amoris Laetitia has some celebrating, some confused, and some extremely upset.

So, what is at the heart of the crisis in our Church? It is the concept of “situation ethics”. Some, who support Pope Francis, will deny that this is the basis for this new understanding while others see this as the elephant in the room that some do not want to recognize.

By definition, situation ethics is the doctrine of flexibility in the application of moral laws according to circumstances. It recognizes “gray area” - that circumstances affects guilt or innocence, giving it the highest consideration. Some believe that in today’s complex world God is telling us through Pope Francis that sometimes what was considered always to be a sin may no longer be so when one takes into account a person’s situation or circumstances. They believe that following the Ten Commandments is not always possible, and God gave them to us as ideals we should strive towards. Others believe that “gray area” is a construct of man and the devil to rationalize sin as not being sin and that God does not mix “black and white” to create “gray area” – that “you are either with Me or against Me” as Christ has said in the gospels.

Let’s take an example – stealing. Before Amoris Laetitia we were taught that stealing was always sinful. How serious a sin was only for God to judge as He takes into account the person’s heart and circumstances in determining culpability – which is the degree of responsibility for that particular person in committing the sin. But it was always a sin. The Pope’s new teaching gives a person the flexibility to determine, which could be with the help of a priest, whether or not they committed a sin when they consider their circumstances and situation. Cardinal Cupich calls this “discerning truth”. A priest cannot tell someone that they can receive communion when he knows they have committed a serious sin. But if the priest and the person are “discerning” how to improve the situation then the priest can allow the person to receive holy communion. This “discernment” actually denies the state of the person’s soul as being in serious sin but allows communion because there is “discernment” about the situation. This is putting the situation as being more important than God’s laws - this is situation ethics.

finish reading at - https://catholic-crisis.info/
 
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Maybe I don’t understand the issues, well. But from what I looked into in the past, it sounded like another issue was whether one who wants to receive Communion even has to have the firm intention to give up the objectively grave sin.

I think we are talking about people here who do not have a deep psychological illness which gravely impairs their freedom.

As I see it, the even bigger issue is the decline in Marian devotion, and the consequent decline in Eucharistic devotion.

As Dr. Carrie Gress notes in her book “The Marion Option: God’s Solution for a Civilization in Crisis”, the Petrine dimension of the Church rests on Mary, the “seat of all divine graces” (Pius IX, Ineffablis Deus)

In other words, the Church is built on Peter (RocK), and the Rock rests on the immaculate earth which is Mary.

As Blessed Paul VI says, Mary is the way to Jesus Christ. If we turn to her who was given to us as our Mother by the Crucified Christ, the crisis in the Church will heal.
 
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The issue, as I pointed out, is the implementation of situation ethics via Amoris Laetitia - something Popes have condemned as evil… What was a sin previously can now be “discerned” not to be sin. Do you see how dangerous this is?
 
oppositeman13 said:
THE CRISIS IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

There are those Catholics that believe Pope Francis has received a special anointing of the Holy Spirit that shows him a “way” of solving sinful situations people are in while not deviating from official Catholic teachings.

This involves discerning whether or not a sin has been committed when taking into account the situation and or circumstances. There are others who believe that the Deposit of Faith which includes Catholic understanding of Scripture, Dogma, and teachings are unchangeable – as God Himself is unchanging and that any effort to “reinterpret” the Deposit of Faith is error.
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That’s not quite an unbiased or charitable way to frame the issue given that it’s about the Holy Father.
 
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How do you see that issue, Wesrock, and how do you generally see the crisis in the Church? I agree that we should always be respectful of the Holy Father, especially when we disagree with his approach or actions. Thank you.
 
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I’ll just say I’m wary of communion for sexually active divorced and remarried, but I’m no moral theologian. Even if my opinion seems at odds with the Pope’s personal opinion, I don’t think framing the situation the way the opening article does shows the proper respect due to the Apostolic See.
 
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I don’t see I said anything disrespectful. I am trying to present the problem as I see it.
 
oppositeman13 said:
The issue, as I pointed out, is the implementation of situation ethics via Amoris Laetitia - something Popes have condemned as evil… What was a sin previously can now be “discerned” not to be sin. Do you see how dangerous this is?
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Sin is sin. Culpability of sin is another matter. For example, stealing is always a grave sin; however, if someone were to coerce you to steal by holding a gun to your head, the act of stealing is still objectively a grave sin, but, you cannot fully be held culpable considering you did not act with deliberate and free consent.
 
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I agree with you. Where there is great danger for a soul is to “discern truth” as Cardinal Cupich has said - what was a sin could no longer be considered sinful when a person “discerns” that they are not responsible because of the circumstances or situation. Satan now has an open door to convince a person that they have not sinned - all because of personal discernment.
 
oppositeman13 said:
I agree with you. Where there is great danger for a soul is to “discern truth” as Cardinal Cupich has said - what was a sin could no longer be considered sinful when a person “discerns” that they are not responsible because of the circumstances or situation. Satan now has an open door to convince a person that they have not sinned - all because of personal discernment.
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That would seem like a deliberate exploitation of feigning ignorance to continue in sin. That is a personal problem, not a Church problem. We are called to examine ourselves as we know what is in our hearts; pastors and others can only determine accountability insofar as what we personally share with them.

“Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in the faith. Test yourselves.” 2 Corinthians 13:5
 
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In the past we did not personally discern whether or not stealing or lying etc was a sin - don’t you see the danger in opening this door? Our church should be doing everything to safeguard souls not give them rope to hang themselves - with the blessing of the church people will begin to discern, with the help of satan, whether or not they committed a sin - before it was clear to them that they did and now not so.
 
oppositeman13 said:
In the past we did not personally discern whether or not stealing or lying etc was a sin - don’t you see the danger in opening this door? Our church should be doing everything to safeguard souls not give them rope to hang themselves - with the blessing of the church people will begin to discern, with the help of satan, whether or not they committed a sin - before it was clear to them that they did and now not so.
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But, no one is saying that stealing or lying is not a sin. As I said before, sin will always be sin. To be held personally accountable for a sin to be mortal, three conditions must apply:

1857 For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: "Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.

If you do not like those parameters, then that is your affair, but, nonetheless, it is Church teaching. There are plenty of examples of individuals committing grave sins where they did not have “full knowledge” and/or “deliberate consent”. Were they still sins? Of course, but someone cannot duly hold personal culpability if one of those criteria are not met.
 
Well, the article is surely an opinion. I didn’t know that crisis was a spirituality.
 
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Situation ethics opens a door to satan that has not previously existed and some people will let him in - I can’t image anyone denying this will not happen. That is one of the reasons Popes have condemned it. Don’t you see the elephant in the room? It’s a church problem because through the teachings of the church who knows how many souls can be lost. The church has now given people an easy way to deny sin - to me this is frightening.
 
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yes it my view of the situation - they are other views of what is going on that deserve peoples attention. What I am trying to do is to educate people - of course beginning with my own views but I encourage people to look into other views so they can make an informed decision as to what they want to believe about communion for the remarried etc. Remember that people come to the forum just to read and some of them may need to be encouraged to take more responsibility in educating themselves as to the issues that Amoris Laetitia presents.
 
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I really don’t see the lack of a hard bright-line rule for sin being a “crisis” for the Church. God gave us all consciences, the ability to discern, and clergy to help us. I can tell you right now that the clergy I’ve dealt with lately have not been the least bit shy about calling out anyone and anything they see as being a sin.

If people would just concern themselves with the sins they personally are committing, and addressing those, and leaving other people’s sins to them to deal with unless perhaps the other person is your family member or close friend, maybe they wouldn’t get so wound up over this stuff and sounding like Chicken Little.
 
Disagree - we are called by God to be concerned for the welfare of not only our church but all our brothers and sisters. Conversation as long as it is constructive is a way of doing that.
 
Yeah, I get that many people who post on this site think it’s their God-given mission to go around correcting their brothers, including in many cases the clergy and the Pope. I just wonder how many of these people who want to correct others make an effort to take the plank out of their own eye first, especially with respect to the sin of pride, which it seems they frequently appear to have quite a bit of.
 
I am not correcting anyone - just informing them of my view with the hope of conversation that will benefit all who take part. Scripture tells us to correct our sisters and brothers by the way - but that is not what is going on here - my main concern as stated in the post is situation ethics.
 
Amoris Laetitia does not teach situational ethics, any more than the Catholic doctrine on primacy of conscience teaches situational ethics. Why? Because the objective ethics of a situation remain. I have two big objections with the article. One, is the problem of rhetoric, using “bogey man” terms to represent the position of Amoris Laetitia which are not in the document. Second, it begs the question too much, assuming in the position the points it attempts to make.

Anyway, that is my reading of it.
 
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