Is Amoris Laetitia inconsistent in its treatment of conscience? Part 3 of a response to Dr. E. Christian Brugger.

Note: This is Part 3 of a five-part response to Dr. E. Chris­t­ian Brug­ger’s cri­tique of Amor­is Laeti­tia. Part 1 can be found here. Dr. Brug­ger’s arti­cle can be found at Catholic World Report here. Amor­is Laeti­tia can be found here.

f five “seri­ous prob­lems” Dr. E. Chris­t­ian Brug­ger claims to find in Chap­ter 8 of Amor­is Laeti­tia, the third is “its account of the role of con­science in acquit­ting per­sons in objec­tive­ly sin­ful sit­u­a­tions.” Specif­i­cal­ly, Dr. Brug­ger finds the pope’s account self-con­tra­dic­to­ry.

He begins by quot­ing the fol­low­ing pas­sage from AL 303:

We can add that indi­vid­ual con­science needs to be bet­ter incor­po­rat­ed into the Church’s prax­is in cer­tain sit­u­a­tions which do not objec­tive­ly embody our under­stand­ing of mar­riage. Nat­u­ral­ly, every effort should be made to encour­age the devel­op­ment of an enlight­ened con­science, formed and guid­ed by the respon­si­ble and seri­ous dis­cern­ment of one’s pas­tor, and to encour­age an ever greater trust in God’s grace. Yet con­science can do more than rec­og­nize that a giv­en sit­u­a­tion does not cor­re­spond objec­tive­ly to the over­all demands of the Gospel. It can also rec­og­nize with sin­cer­i­ty and hon­esty what for now is the most gen­er­ous response which can be giv­en to God, and come to see with a cer­tain moral secu­ri­ty that it is what God him­self is ask­ing amid the con­crete com­plex­i­ty of one’s lim­its, while yet not ful­ly the objec­tive ide­al.

Dr. Brug­ger finds the lat­ter part of this to be “in direct oppo­si­tion” to the first. “An indi­vid­u­al’s con­science,” he says, “may both: [1] judge that some action does not cor­re­spond to the over­all demands of the Gospel; and [2] judge that God is ask­ing them to per­form that action. In oth­er words, God can be “ask­ing” some­one to live in a life-state in which they are objec­tive­ly vio­lat­ing grave mat­ter.”

But the pope does not sug­gest that God is ask­ing any­one to per­form grave sin. Dr. Brug­ger reads that into the pas­sage, and does not explain why it is the nec­es­sary read­ing. At no point does he come across what he thinks to be an incon­sis­ten­cy and ask whether he has mis­read it. He does not seek any con­sis­tent sense in which one might read this pas­sage.

But the pope’s exact words are “what is for now the most gen­er­ous response that can be giv­en to God.” That is “what God is ask­ing.” Per­haps one may not, overnight, be able to aban­don a sin into which one has fall­en and com­mit­ted for a long peri­od of time. Things you do by habit you often need to aban­don in stages. Yes, I avail myself of the con­fes­sion­al; I make a firm pur­pose of amend­ment; but per­haps in three days I fall again. The “most gen­er­ous response” is to rec­og­nize the error, return to con­fes­sion, and try again. God does not say, “I want you to keep sin­ning.” He does say, “If you can’t aban­don your sin overnight, I want you to move in that direc­tion.”

This is why the pope uses words like “for now” and “yet not ful­ly.” He is telling us about a process; and he is ful­ly con­sis­tent with his ear­li­er dis­cus­sion of the Law of Grad­u­al­ness.

Dr. Brug­ger seems to under­stand this when he speaks about pen­i­tents who are “weak” and “strug­gling with a com­pul­sive con­di­tion.” Why he does not think this prin­ci­ple has appli­ca­tion to what the pope is speak­ing of in AL 303, I can not explain.

Nor does he quote the very last sen­tence of 303:

In any event, let us recall that this dis­cern­ment is dynam­ic; it must remain ever open to new stages of growth and to new deci­sions which can enable the ide­al to be more ful­ly real­ized.

The pope is speak­ing of peo­ple who are mov­ing toward the moral law, but not in one great leap. Where is the incon­sis­ten­cy?

The pope speaks of the devel­op­ment of con­science in light of the Law of Grad­u­al­ness else­where, such as §222. There he says:

The more the cou­ple tries to lis­ten in con­science to God and his com­mand­ments (cf. Rom 2:15), and is accom­pa­nied spir­i­tu­al­ly, the more their deci­sion will be pro­found­ly free of sub­jec­tive caprice and accom­mo­da­tion to pre­vail­ing social mores.

The pope under­stands how some peo­ple’s sin­ful behav­iors, par­tic­u­lar­ly in divorce and remar­riage, can have been the result of “sub­jec­tive caprice” and “pre­vail­ing social mores”; but he under­stands that the cor­rec­tive to that is more than justs the word “Stop.” It’s a process in growth of con­science; one moves grad­u­al­ly in the direc­tion of the moral law. God, in the pope’s view, does not ask us to sin; He asks us to aban­don our sin, even if it may take time and effort. The “most gen­er­ous response,” then, is to try—not nec­es­sar­i­ly to suc­ceed right away.

That’s what AL 303 is say­ing.