Vatican’s legal chief says desire to change enough for Communion

[pnewton]

I feel some contributors here actually have no experience of the intuitive realities yourself and even Thomas White on this point take for granted.
.

I will accept part of the blame. I flipped it pretty fast from the theoretical to the personal. But maybe that is part of the problem. Priest have do have their head in orthodoxy and their hands in the mud. I sometimes think we can’t appreciate this. Jesus is the ultimate example, being eternal Truth yet taking on flesh.

 

[Thomas_White]

It is all pretty obvious really.
But like riding a bike, if you have never done it before one is at sixes and sevens and cannot even be talked to.

I feel some contributors here actually have no experience of the intuitive realities yourself and even Thomas White on this point take for granted.

Which is pretty much why I am not contributing much more here, a waste of energy sad to say.

I guess I should also accept part of the blame. My experience has been that knowledge is not limited to objective (i.e., external) learning and that spiritual insights can be learned through faith alone. It involves intuition and practical reason and is essentially a feeling. It is an experience.

In the modern world, there is a very strong preference for the scientific model of learning, and this is explained as a cultural paradigm in the papal encyclical Laudato si. Ironically, while the intense focus on objective learning works well for science, it is a disaster for religion. Human reason and language are limited, but faith, intuition and feeling are open to deep insights, in the way of the long history of Catholic Saints. Of this, I have slowly come to realize that it is true that not everyone has “experience of the intuitive realities”, and when this experience is absent the discussion goes nowhere. Or it goes in an endless loop, as it does in discussions about the conscience where there is always a return to the theme that a “properly formed conscience” must always conform to Church teaching–even though the CCC plainly and clearly states otherwise and Pope Benedict XVI has explicitly made this clear. It does not seem to matter, and so one begins to wonder in light of that if there are those who just cannot understand the teaching because they have had no experience with it. This is not a criticism, as such, but a recognition of a reality of the current era.

Anyway, the difficulty has become apparent, and it does seem that discussion with those that “have no experience of the intuitive realities” is a waste of time.

 

[Rau]

I’d be interested to hear of anyone’s experiences wherein their (certain) conscience directed them contrary to church doctrine.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I’d be interested to hear of anyone’s experiences wherein their (certain) conscience directed them contrary to church doctrine.

Well some of us already have methinks .
But of course in such an indirect way so as not to scandalise on a public Catholic Forum…which is surely the way of such faithful Catholics…its an applied judgement in the privacy of one’s own life before God and not a prideful, ostentatious “finger” to God, the Church or His more materially obedient “little ones”.

Often such is not “contrary to church doctrine” - rather sometimes those negative doctrines are simply not seen to apply to some messy concrete situations, other positive ones are reasonably seen to apply instead.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I can split hairs as well as your good self but I usually know when pedanticism or OCD is kicking in; so I won’t write screeds other than to note a few logic fallacies and leave readers to work out the remainder for themselves:

• four examples of persons quoting Jerome’s Letter55 over 40 years of theological studies, debate, teaching and converse with 100s of priests and scholars sounds “rare” to me.
• You can call the woman “Rufina” for all I care. I did say “let’s call her Fabiola” afterall .
• I could go on, but why? When a child wants to throw the toys out of the cot there is none so perfect to arrest that.

So lets cut to the chase:

Apparently your tactic of choice is to try to discredit St. Jerome and myself for the reason that we refer to material not contained in the original subject matter. I cannot understand why this should be the case.

Well it seems one of us is on planet facts and the other maybe not so much.
No “tactics”, no conspiracy, just looking at the text and trying to form broad objective conclusions.

This isn’t scholar rocket science.
Jerome clearly provided some marriage advice re Fabiola that is now seen as wholly unjustifiable given the facts presented to him for advice and our current church teaching on marriage.

Amandus: “Can a woman put away an adulterous or sodomite husband, remarry, and receive Holy Communion without repenting?”

St. Jerome: “Nope. And just in case you’re wondering, a husband can’t put away an adulterous wife, remarry, and receive Holy Communion without repenting either.”

…which to me seems perfectly reasonable.

Of course it seems so thus far.
But you still seem to deny he also said, referring to Fabiola:

"If this seems hard to her … What I am about to say may sound novel but after all it is not new but old for it is supported by the witness of the old testament. If she leaves her second husband and desires to be reconciled with her first, she cannot be so now; for it is written in Deuteronomy…"

He knows what he says, even by the standards of his day, is unusual (“novel”) but he still goes on to place this burden (unable to return) upon Fabiola regardless. And with a proof text from the OT that we both agree is not in accord with the facts given him.

He may have been a good exegete(within the limitations of his time) but a pastor or moral theologian…hmmn.

He appears to assume through the lenses of his own experience and psyche that Fabiola is in the same position as that woman of the OT. And even if Jerome could be convinced that Fabiola was not “cheating” and there was no “annulment” it is not at all clear in this letter55 alone that it would change his position re Fabiola.

So I reasonably call that indications of misogyny and rigorism (some sort of return to select portions of the Mosaic Law?) which he knew was on the edge in his own time and is certainly at odds with Catholic doctrine now.

But perhaps you can quote other texts that contradict his position here in Letter 55?

So given Jerome’s concluding extreme comment and loose interest in the marital facts provided him it is entirely reasonable to cast shadows over the absolute inspired truth some seem to accord to his prior comments of whether Fabiola may receive Communion.

 

[Rau]

…Often such is not “contrary to church doctrine” - rather sometimes those negative doctrines are simply not seen to apply to some messy concrete situations, other positive ones are reasonably seen to apply instead.

In which case the individual concerned is not faced with the dilemma of a conscience leaning contrary to doctrine, is he? The case of real interest is when the actor himself recognises doctrine to be at odds with conscience.

Now I can recall a number of CAFers who have announced they do experience this ‘conflict’ scenario - not on this thread (despite all the sincere and detailed theoretical discussion of this issue), but rather on other threads eg. some concerning homosexuality and SSM. They are Catholics, they know what the Church teaches, but they reject it in light of experiences (eg. a homosexual child) and claim a perfectly “clear” conscience. Apparently, their conscience is assuring them that the Church has simply got this area of moral teaching all wrong. Do they do “right” to encourage their child in their same sex relationship? To stand up for SSM, and so on?

 

[Blue_Horizon]

In which case the individual concerned is not faced with the dilemma of a conscience leaning contrary to doctrine, is he? The case of real interest is when the actor himself recognises doctrine to be at odds with conscience.

Now I can recall a number of CAFers who have announced they do experience this ‘conflict’ scenario - not on this thread (despite all the sincere and detailed theoretical discussion of this issue), but rather on other threads eg. some concerning homosexuality and SSM. They are Catholics, they know what the Church teaches, but they reject it in light of experiences (eg. a homosexual child) and claim a perfectly “clear” conscience. Apparently, their conscience is assuring them that the Church has simply got this area of moral teaching all wrong. Do they do “right” to encourage their child in their same sex relationship? To stand up for SSM, and so on?

I am not going to respond other than to provide you some references.
The reason being is that I, at least, have already made observations here and elsewhere with you on the two distinct (universal principles and applied concrete particular cases) ways in which conscience may blamelessly err.

Certain conscience, according to the Scholastics, is primarily and mostly seen to err when applying accepted moral principles. That is not surprising as conscience is largely about judgements of the “practical intellect”. Also because, as Aquinas states, the further we descend from basic universal truths (eg to derived universal truths then to particular application thereof) the more prone is human intellect to error.

However Aquinas does state in a number of places that conscience can at times blamelessly err even at the level of speculative universal moral principles - especially if those truths are derived from more basic moral principles. I suggest contraception is one of them. Fornication may be another, especially in a secular or non Christian country.

Aquinas Quotes:

"The judgment of reason is corrupted in two ways: in one way regarding a universal
proposition; in the second way regarding a particular proposition because of an emotion.

Therefore, corruption of judgment regarding things that belong to faith or good morals
belongs to the sin of heresy if the corruption should indeed regard a universal proposition, but not if the corruption should regard a particular proposition because of emotion,
as Prov. 14:22 says: “All who do evil err.” For example, one who were to hold as a universal proposition that fornication is not a sin would lack faith, but we do not think that
a fornicator who chooses fornication as good because of a lustful emotion lacks faith. And
likewise it would pertain to heresy if one were to judge universally that God does not
cause every good, or that the good of grace is due to one’s merits. But it would not belong
to heresy if the judgment of reason is corrupted regarding a particular proposition because of an inordinate love of excellence that originates in inordinate desires, so that one
imagines that one can have some good from oneself or from one’s own merits. And such
belongs to pride."

“What is not really good seems to be good for two reasons. It sometimes seems to be good because of a defect of the intellect, as when one has a false opinion about a prospective action, as is evident in the case of a person who thinks that fornication is not a
sin, or even of a person without the use of reason, and such a defect regarding the intellect lessens or totally excuses moral fault. And sometimes there is a defect regarding the will rather than the intellect itself. For “an end seems to a person as the person is disposed,” as the Ethics says,” since we know by experience that things seem good to us
regarding things we love and bad to us regarding things we hate. And so when a person
is inordinately disposed toward something, the inordinate disposition hinders the
intellect’s judgment regarding a particular object of choice. And so the defect is chiefly
in the disposition, not the cognition. And so we say that the sinner sins in ignorance, as
the Ethics says," and not because of ignorance."

“But we should note that there are in moral actions two kinds of knowledge that can
prevent sin. One kind is universal, whereby we judge that an action is right or wrong,
and such knowledge sometimes keeps persons from sin. For example, a person judging
that fornication is a sin abstains from it, and if ignorance were to deprive the person of
such knowledge… And the second kind of knowledge that guides us in our moral actions and can prevent sin is particular knowledge, namely, knowledge of the circumstances of the very action, since universal knowledge apart from
particulars does not cause us to act…”

“And since ignorance rests in the intellect, we can consider the relation of ignorance
to the voluntary by the relation of the intellect to the will. For an act of the intellect necessarily precedes an act of the will, since the understood good is the object of the will.
And so when ignorance takes away knowledge by the intellect, the act of the will is taken
away, and so the voluntary regarding what is unknown is taken away. And so if regarding the same act, one knows something and is ignorant of something else, there can be
something voluntary regarding what is known. But regarding what is unknown, there
is always something involuntary. This may be because the deformity of an act is unknown.
For example, a person who does not know that fornication is a sin indeed voluntarily
commits fornication but does not voluntarily commit sin.”

 

[Rau]

I am not going to respond other than to provide you some references.
The reason being is that I, at least, have already made observations here and elsewhere with you on the two distinct (universal principles and applied concrete particular cases) ways in which conscience may blamelessly err.

It would be better to address my point, rather than this strawman which is not in dispute.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

It would be better to address my point, rather than this strawman which is not in dispute.

Why is everything an argument with you .

I don’t actually care … but generously offered you something to take you further down what is fairly cut and dried. If you think you already know the answer and Aquinas has nothing to offer below then wonderful, just go your own way.

 

[Rau]

Why is everything an argument with you .

I don’t actually care … but generously offered you something to take you further down what is fairly cut and dried. If you think you already know the answer and Aquinas has nothing to offer below then wonderful, just go your own way.

I don’t accept that explanation for your response. We can talk further if/when you address the point I raised in the first para of post #356.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I don’t accept that explanation for your response. We can talk further if/when you address the point I raised in the first para of post #356.

That you like to argue about everything now seems a self evident truth whether you accept it or not .