Whatever about what someone has said about what the Pope said,A well-known professor of ecclesiology writing in the official Vatican newspaper says that Pope Francis’ recent document on the family, Amoris Laetitia, is a classic example of the “ordinary magisterium” that must be “must be firmly accepted and held.”
cruxnow.com/vatican/2016/08/23/vatican-paper-says-popes-family-doc-must-firmly-accepted/
The instruction - issued by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now-retired Pope Benedict XVI - explained three levels of church teaching with the corresponding levels of assent they require.Whatever about what someone has said about what the Pope said,
Has.the Vatican said the Pope spoke infallibly?
I read that Catholic bishops in Rome said the Pope did not write infallibly in that document so it is not binding for Catholics.
When a Pope wants to change an aspect of the doctrine, then he has to do so clearly, so as to make it binding.
Important magisterial tenets cannot be changed by half sentences or somewhat ambiguous footnotes.”
“Statements that can be interpreted in different ways are a risky thing,” he added.
“One has to simply accept the fact that his [Pope Francis’s] way of speaking can at times be somewhat imprecise, indeed nonchalant. …
Source: catholiccitizens.org/views/66724/archbishop-ganswein-says-loyalty-pope-benedict-makes-unwelcome-germany/Statistics show that German bishops’ early predictions of a “Francis effect” of increased Mass attendance and vocations has not transpired, Archbishop Gänswein observed.
Accepting “Amoris Laetitia” as authoritative church teaching, Pie-Ninot said, applies also to the document’s “most significant words” about the possibility of people divorced and remarried without an annulment receiving Communion in limited circumstances.
As Cardinal Burke pointed out,Yes, of course it is. What else would it be?
With all due respect to Cardinal Burke, the Pope has actually made the opposite clear. Amoris Laetitia is a magisterial teaching document, and is owed due deference. The article that the Vatican put out certainly clarifies that, if there was any confusion. The Pope’s teachings are not always (or even usually or generally) infallible, but they are Papal teaching and magisterial in nature.As Cardinal Burke pointed out,
Pope Francis makes clear, from the beginning, that the post-synodal apostolic exhortation is not an act of the magisterium (3).
And elsewhere again:
With the publication of Amoris Laetitia, the task of pastors and other teachers of the faith is to present it within the context of the Church’s teaching and discipline, so that it serves to build up the body of Christ in its first cell of life, which is marriage and the family. In other words, the post-synodal apostolic exhortation can only be correctly interpreted, as a non-magisterial document, using the key of the magisterium, as it is described in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (85-87).
My husband lives in an “irregular” union and can now receive communion. This change implies I no longer have life on earth. Did the Church get it wrong before this exhortation that adultery is a sin?Writing in the Vatican newspaper, a Spanish ecclesiology professor said that Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia is part of the non-definitive ordinary Magisterium of the Roman Pontiff to which the faithful owe religious submission of intellect and will.
More…
I’m still not sure if this is the teaching. The content of this teaching, whether magisterial or not, is far from clear to me. I seem to recall reading that doctrine has not changed.My husband lives in an “irregular” union and can now receive communion. This change implies I no longer have life on earth. Did the Church get it wrong before this exhortation that adultery is a sin?
Paragraph 298 of the exhortation excuses adultery on the grounds that the children would suffer if the couple didn’t continue with their adultery.I’m still not sure if this is the teaching. The content of this teaching, whether magisterial or not, is far from clear to me. I seem to recall reading that doctrine has not changed.
I don’t think that was meant to be a blanket statement saying that you can commit adultery ad infinitum without consequence for the sake of the children. It was simply listing it as a possibility that could mitigate culpability (which IMO doesn’t make sense, but that’s all I can get out of it).Paragraph 298 of the exhortation excuses adultery on the grounds that the children would suffer if the couple didn’t continue with their adultery.
Exactly. It is very confusing and the press release doesn’t clear up matters at all. We have seen senior clerics interpret this document in different ways. The Pope himself has offered no additional clarifications. At least one Cardinal told the world it was a NON-magisterial document. Now the Vatican says it always was a magisterial document. Many even here on this forum tell us the document changed nothing and has nothing controversial at all- why then the need to remind us that it’s magisterial?I don’t think that was meant to be a blanket statement saying that you can commit adultery ad infinitum without consequence for the sake of the children. It was simply listing it as a possibility that could mitigate culpability (which IMO doesn’t make sense, but that’s all I can get out of it).
Granted, even the highest ranking clergy in the Church can’t agree on the meaning of the passages about communion in the document, so I think it’s understandable that us regular Joe Catholics are a little confused about the meaning of these sections…
I don’t know why so many on this forum (and elsewhere) take this view. Apostolic exhortations are clearly papal teaching. The Pope calls it “doctrine.” Cardinal Schonborn calls it an “act of the magisterium.” While the document doesn’t present a list of new black and white rules, it clearly evolves the existing teaching. In fact, one of its main points is to move a bit away from using lists of black and white rules. I don’t see it as so mysterious or confusing. Actually, tor such a new teaching, there is actually a lot of material about it available. The Pope has spoken quite a bit about his exhortation, as has Cardinal Schonborn, who has been the Pope’s lead on the document.Exactly. It is very confusing and the press release doesn’t clear up matters at all. We have seen senior clerics interpret this document in different ways. The Pope himself has offered no additional clarifications. At least one Cardinal told the world it was a NON-magisterial document. Now the Vatican says it always was a magisterial document. Many even here on this forum tell us the document changed nothing and has nothing controversial at all- why then the need to remind us that it’s magisterial?
It is a post synodal apostolic exhortation. Theologically, apostolic exhortations of the Pope are magisterial documents.Exactly. It is very confusing and the press release doesn’t clear up matters at all. We have seen senior clerics interpret this document in different ways. The Pope himself has offered no additional clarifications. At least one Cardinal told the world it was a NON-magisterial document. Now the Vatican says it always was a magisterial document. Many even here on this forum tell us the document changed nothing and has nothing controversial at all- why then the need to remind us that it’s magisterial?