Integrating weakness: Chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia.

n Chap­ter 8 of Amor­is Laeti­tia, Pope Fran­cis speaks of the “law of grad­u­al­ness”; John Paul II was the first to write of such a law, in Famil­iaris Con­sor­tio 34. Here is what John Paul II says:

 

It is always very impor­tant to have a right notion of the moral order, its val­ues and its norms; and the impor­tance is all the greater when the dif­fi­cul­ties in the way of respect­ing them become more numer­ous and seri­ous.

Very much so. That is the very sit­u­a­tion in which we find our­selves, in an increas­ing­ly sec­u­lar, even pagan, cul­ture. We have lost the “right notion of the moral order”; and the obsta­cles to our know­ing and fol­low­ing it have become “more numer­ous and seri­ous.” Many of us have mal­formed con­sciences; many of us are walk­ing around wound­ed. This is a fact; and it does us no good to refuse to face it. If any­thing, the sit­u­a­tion is much more grave in 2016 than it was in 1981 when St. John Paul II wrote Famil­iaris. Here is more:

Since the moral order reveals and sets forth the plan of God the Cre­ator, for this very rea­son it can­not be some­thing that harms man, some­thing imper­son­al. On the con­trary, by respond­ing to the deep­est demands of the human being cre­at­ed by God, it places itself at the ser­vice of that per­son­’s full human­i­ty with the del­i­cate and bind­ing love where­by God Him­self inspires, sus­tains and guides every crea­ture towards its hap­pi­ness.

[The moral law is not our ene­my but our friend.]

But man, who has been called to live God’s wise and lov­ing design in a respon­si­ble man­ner, is an his­tor­i­cal being who day by day builds him­self up through his many free deci­sions; and so he knows, loves and accom­plish­es moral good by stages of growth.

Con­sciences form through time; those whose con­sciences are mal­formed need time to repair them. That does not hap­pen all at once. It was good for St. John Paul II to point this out; and it is why Pope Fran­cis, in §305 of Amor­is Laeti­tia, says that “[P]astor[s] can­not feel that it is enough sim­ply to apply moral laws to those liv­ing in ‘irreg­u­lar’ sit­u­a­tions, as if they were stones to throw at people’s lives.” The mere iter­a­tion of a moral law as a cud­gel against those who have not lived by it does no good; the Church must help sin­ners walk toward the true and the good; even when they are far away and get­ting there will take more than a few foot­steps. And so Pope Fran­cis says:

The way of the Church is not to con­demn any­one for ever; it is to pour out the balm of God’s mer­cy on all those who ask for it with a sin­cere heart. For true char­i­ty is always unmer­it­ed, uncon­di­tion­al and gra­tu­itous. Con­se­quent­ly, there is a need to avoid judge­ments which do not take into account the com­plex­i­ty of var­i­ous sit­u­a­tions” and “to be atten­tive, by neces­si­ty, to how peo­ple expe­ri­ence dis­tress because of their con­di­tion. (AL 296)

A phar­i­saical lot loves to ridicule “meet­ing peo­ple where they are”; but Pope Fran­cis does not sug­gest that the Church leave peo­ple where they are. St. John Paul II gives an impor­tant qual­i­fi­ca­tion about the law of grad­u­al­ness; one which Pope Fran­cis reit­er­ates. Here is John Paul II:

[W]hat is known as “the law of grad­u­al­ness” or step-by-step advance can­not be iden­ti­fied with “grad­u­al­ness of the law,” as if there were dif­fer­ent degrees or forms of pre­cept in God’s law for dif­fer­ent indi­vid­u­als and sit­u­a­tions. In God’s plan, all hus­bands and wives are called in mar­riage to holi­ness. (FC 36)

The law for one is the law for all, even if grad­u­al­ly approached. And so Pope Fran­cis, him­self quot­ing Famil­iaris Con­sor­tio 90, says:

This is not a “grad­u­al­ness of law” but rather a grad­u­al­ness in the pru­den­tial exer­cise of free acts on the part of sub­jects who are not [yet] in a posi­tion to under­stand, appre­ci­ate, or ful­ly car­ry out the objec­tive demands of the law. [Note that he says “objec­tive demands,” not sub­jec­tive options.] For the law is itself a gift of God which points out the way, a gift for every­one with­out excep­tion; it can be fol­lowed with the help of grace, even though each human being “advances grad­u­al­ly with the pro­gres­sive inte­gra­tion of the gifts of God and the demands of God’s defin­i­tive and absolute love in his or her entire per­son­al and social life. (AL 295)

I like the pope’s descrip­tion of the moral law as a “gift” rather than a set of rules. I think that this is key to ful­ly under­stand­ing Fran­cis’s the­ol­o­gy of joy. It is a gift for every­one, how­ev­er far away from it; even if we have to go out to them and bring them back.

The pope does not say: I am giv­ing you a gift by per­mit­ting you to ignore the moral law. By no means.

•••

To illus­trate his point about the Law of Grad­u­al­ness, Pope Fran­cis in §294 refers to Christ’s meet­ing with the Samar­i­tan woman at the well. We find the sto­ry in chap­ter 4 of John’s gospel.

7 There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.

8 (For his dis­ci­ples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.)

9 Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, ask­est drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no deal­ings with the Samar­i­tans.

10 Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have giv­en thee liv­ing water.

11 The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast noth­ing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that liv­ing water?

12 Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank there­of him­self, and his chil­dren, and his cat­tle?

13 Jesus answered and said unto her, Whoso­ev­er drin­keth of this water shall thirst again:

14 But whoso­ev­er drin­keth of the water that I shall give him shall nev­er thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water spring­ing up into ever­last­ing life.

15 The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, nei­ther come hith­er to draw.

16 Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy hus­band, and come hith­er.

17 The woman answered and said, I have no hus­band. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no hus­band:

18 For thou hast had five hus­bands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy hus­band: in that saidst thou tru­ly.

19 The woman saith unto him, Sir, I per­ceive that thou art a prophet.

20 Our fathers wor­shipped in this moun­tain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to wor­ship.

21 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall nei­ther in this moun­tain, nor yet at Jerusalem, wor­ship the Father.

22 Ye wor­ship ye know not what: we know what we wor­ship: for sal­va­tion is of the Jews.

23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true wor­ship­pers shall wor­ship the Father in spir­it and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to wor­ship him.

24 God is a Spir­it: and they that wor­ship him must wor­ship him in spir­it and in truth.

25 The woman saith unto him, I know that Mes­sias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.

26 Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.”

In “Jesus Christ the Bear­er of the Water of Life” (here), the Pon­tif­i­cal Coun­cil for Cul­ture says that John 4:7–26 is “a par­a­digm for our engage­ment with truth.” Christ, who knows full well about the Samar­i­tan wom­an’s ser­i­al remar­riages, does not throw a moral law at her like a stone but instead uncov­ers her true desire, her true long­ing, for the “spring of water welling up to eter­nal life.” As Pope Fran­cis puts it: “[H]e addressed her desire for true love, in order to free her from the dark­ness in her life and to bring her to the full joy of the Gospel.” (AL 294)

The Samar­i­tan wom­an’s ser­i­al mar­riages were a con­tin­u­al search for true love where it was not to be found. Each of those five hus­bands were water that only made her thirst again. What she was real­ly look­ing for was an encounter with Christ. And so, rather than telling her about a rule, Christ offered her a gift.

In this way, the Law of Grad­u­al­ness is a process of acquaint­ing wound­ed peo­ple, hurt by failed mar­riages, with where they will find true joy. It is a process of help­ing them reori­ent their lives toward God.

•••

None of this means com­pro­mis­ing on the moral law or the require­ments of the Church. The pope, time and again, says oth­er­wise.

The Church, says Pope Fran­cis, “con­stant­ly holds up the call to per­fec­tion and asks for a fuller response to God” (AL 291).

“Chris­t­ian mar­riage,” says Pope Fran­cis, “as a reflec­tion of the union between Christ and his Church, is ful­ly real­ized in the union between a man and a woman who give them­selves to each oth­er in a free, faith­ful, and exclu­sive love.” They belong to each oth­er until death and are open to the trans­mis­sion of life.” No change in the law against con­tra­cep­tion. They “are con­se­crat­ed by the sacra­ment [of mar­riage], which grants them the grace to become a domes­tic church and a leav­en of new life for soci­ety” (AL 292).

Priests, says Pope Fran­cis, “are respon­si­ble for pro­mot­ing Chris­t­ian mar­riage” (AL 293).

“If some­one,” says Pope Fran­cis (in one of his strongest state­ments),

flaunts an objec­tive sin as if it were part of the Chris­t­ian ide­al, or wants to impose some­thing oth­er than what the Church teach­es, he or she can in no way pre­sume to teach or preach to oth­ers; this is a case of some­thing which sep­a­rates from the com­mu­ni­ty (cf. Mt 18:17). Such a per­son needs to lis­ten once more to the Gospel mes­sage and its call to con­ver­sion.” The goal for those in irreg­u­lar mar­riages, says Pope Fran­cis, is “to reach the ful­ness of God’s plan (AL 297).

Priests, says Pope Fran­cis, have the respon­si­bil­i­ty of “help­ing [those in irreg­u­lar unions] to under­stand their sit­u­a­tion accord­ing to the teach­ing of the Church and the guide­lines of the bish­op.” “Use­ful in this process,” he says, “is an exam­i­na­tion of con­science through moments of reflec­tion and repen­tance” (AL 300). (Yes, the pope does call for repen­tance. Some­one tried to tell me he does not.)

Priests, says Pope Fran­cis, must “guide the faith­ful to an aware­ness of their sit­u­a­tion before God. Con­ver­sa­tion with the priest, in the inter­nal forum, con­tributes to the for­ma­tion of a cor­rect judg­ment on what hin­ders the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a fuller par­tic­i­pa­tion in the life of the Church and on what steps can fos­ter it and make it grow.” “This dis­cern­ment,” he says, “can nev­er pre­scind from the Gospel demands of truth and char­i­ty.” Dis­cern­ment, he says, requires “love for the Church and her teach­ing, in a sin­cere search for God’s will and a desire to make a more per­fect response to it.” To that end, the pope dis­abus­es read­ers of the thought that priests can just go around mak­ing excep­tions to Church law. That, the pope says, would be a “grave mis­un­der­stand­ing” (AL 300).

Catholics and their pas­tors, says Pope Fran­cis, must “dis­cern and ensure full fideli­ty to God” (AL 304).

“In no way,” says Pope Fran­cis, “must the Church desist from propos­ing the full ide­al of mar­riage. … A luke­warm atti­tude, any kind of rel­a­tivism, or an undue ret­i­cence in propos­ing that ide­al, would be a lack of fideli­ty to the Gospel” (AL 307).

Time and again the pope says the oppo­site of what the bed­wet­ters insist that he said. No one points this out; that is why I am here to do so.

But with pas­toral char­i­ty, the pope does tell us that many, many peo­ple, in their mar­i­tal and sex­u­al lives, have fall­en short of the moral law. That has hap­pened for any num­ber of com­plex rea­sons; pas­tors must dis­cern care­ful­ly what those rea­sons are and what will best help bring wound­ed cou­ples back into the life of the Church and a com­plete embrace of the moral law. The pope does not con­demn sin­ners; nei­ther does he con­done sin. He is giv­ing pas­tors guide­lines on bring­ing sin­ners back home.

•••

But what about those pesky parts like foot­note 351? some­one will ask. Is it the “smok­ing foot­note” that Ray­mond Arroyo says it is? Does it allow com­mu­nion for the divorced and remar­ried who have no annul­ment?

Well, I would start by say­ing that I have addressed this in an op-ed I wrote for Aleteia.

The sec­ond thing I would point out is that foot­note 351 must be read in har­mo­ny with all the oth­er places where the pope is firm about obe­di­ence to the teach­ing of the Church. One can not inter­pret it in such a way as to put it in con­flict with what the pope says else­where. That is a false hermeneu­tic.

Fr. Dwight Lon­ge­neck­er is also of help here, in an excel­lent point he makes on his blog. (I had thought this very thing myself, but he beat me to say­ing it.)

Have we for­got­ten that there are sev­en sacra­ments? If we are wel­com­ing those who are wound­ed and seek­ing the Lord then the sacra­ments are exact­ly what we give them in cer­tain cas­es. In cer­tain cas­es they will need bap­tism. In cer­tain cas­es they will need con­fir­ma­tion. In cer­tain cas­es they will need con­fes­sion. In cer­tain cas­es they will need anoint­ing of the sick. In cer­tain cas­es they will need mar­riage. Will they also need the Eucharist? Of course. They need to come to Mass. They need to come to Eucharis­tic Ado­ra­tion. Do they need to receive com­mu­nion? Of course—once their mar­riage sit­u­a­tion has been reg­u­lar­ized through the annul­ment pro­ce­dure and prop­er Catholic mar­riage.

Fr. Dwight’s gloss of foot­note 351 has the advan­tage, unlike the pan­ick­ing ones, of being in har­mo­ny with what the pope says else­where. Just to imag­ine read­ing AL as a coher­ent text! What con­ti­nu­ity is this, and what hermeneu­tics?

If I have any dis­ap­point­ment at all with Chap­ter 8, it is that the pope does not say a word about the impor­tance of the annul­ments. These help to realign irreg­u­lar mar­riages with Church teach­ing and God’s law. Per­haps the pope thought that local priests will nat­u­ral­ly know to look into that first; and so he thought he did not need to men­tion it. But I still wish he had. An annul­ment can not only remove sec­ond mar­riages from their irreg­u­lar sta­tus, but it also is a pow­er­ful aid in heal­ing wounds.

In my own case, I pursued—and received—an annul­ment even though I did not tech­ni­cal­ly need one. (I have not remar­ried.) And I found that the process not only healed me from the hurt of divorce, but it forced me to con­front my own sins and fail­ings and thus helped to reorder my life toward God. Since that is the pope’s real sub­ject in Chap­ter 8, I wish he would have brought up the annul­ment process.

That was my only real quib­ble.