Well, well, well, everyone, I have discovered Blue Horizon’s secret. And it’s all her fault, because she erroneously said that Card. Cottier had provided a good definition of rigorism, and I planned to contend that he had provided no definition at all.
In my research to find an actual definition of the word, I ran across the little-known definition of rigorism: “(in the Roman Catholic Church) formerly, the doctrine that in doubtful cases of conscience the strict course is always to be followed.”
Well, of course I had to follow that up, and read a few articles, which were slightly confusing in the differences in small details, but I got the gist of the thing.
There is a whole area of Catholic moral theology which concentrates on when one may act in a certain way, and within (?) that area, a set of schools of thought which discuss the matter along a spectrum, since it is true that decisions so often do lie along a spectrum.
Imagine, if you will, a line, at the left of which is the idea of Rigorism (possibly exceeded by Absolute Rigorism). Some of my sources indicated a difference between Rigorism and Absolute Rigorism; unfortunately, it was difficult for me to tell if there is definitely a difference or not, and I don’t have time to look into the matter right now.
Rigorism holds that in the case of doubt, one *must *stick to what is known to be morally permitted —one is not permitted to veer onto the other side of liberty— or, that to veer to the side of liberty, the view must be most or almost certainly probably all right.
So now we know what Cardinal Cottier was talking about, and I must say that I disagree with him, but will not go into that now.
To get back to the spectrum, on the opposite side of Rigorism is Laxism, which holds that to err on the side of liberty is morally acceptable even if there is only slight evidence that to do so would be moral, or as few as one opinion that it would be all right.
These two extremes, Rigorism (or maybe only Absolute Rigorism) and Laxism, have been condemned in some form by the Vatican,
In between these two extremes lie a few other choices, with varying degrees of balance, known as Æquiprobabilism, Probabilism, and Probabiliorism.
And then there is one which is slightly different from the above systems: Compensationism. Compensationism adds a new element to the equation, that of a reason proportionate in gravity to the gravity of the law involved.
Oooohhhhh, iiiinnnnteresting! This begins to sound a lot like the arguments put forth for various courses of action, but in particular, for allowing the D&R to receive the Eucharist: you know what I mean, all the *stories *of people *feeling bad. *
The argument may rest on something BH pointed out in my commenting that leaving would not involve sin. BH pointed out that in Familiaris Consortio, St Pope JP2 had said that couples could live continue to live together “when for serious reasons… a man and a woman cannot satisfy the obligation to separate,” which BH in post 193 on page 13 considers to form a basis for the sinfulness of a D&R couple’s separating if there are children involved.
Well, this is as far as I have gotten with this, but it explains a lot to me, and it is quite a relief to me to understand that there is (or may be, after all, it is not *certain *that Pope Francis is operating under this moral system) some reasoning behind this… event.
Link to Catholic Encyclopedia article
Link to Wikipedia article
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