Does Amoris Laetitia treat the moral law as a mere “ideal”? Part 4 of a response to Dr. E. Christian Brugger.

Note: This is Part 4 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.

wish Pope Fran­cis had not used the word “ide­al” at all in ref­er­ence to the moral law; if for no oth­er rea­son than its poten­tial to mis­lead. I can be frank about that. The word can sug­gest that a moral life is no more than a goal; God prefers that you achieve it, but strict­ly speak­ing you can do with­out it if you fall short.

But that is not what Pope Fran­cis meant to imply. And to know he did­n’t, we need look no fur­ther than AL 295, where he speaks of the Law of Grad­u­al­ness:

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 in a posi­tion to under­stand, appre­ci­ate, or ful­ly car­ry out the objec­tive demands of the law. 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.

The moral law is “objec­tive”; it is “for every­one with­out excep­tion”; and it “can be fol­lowed.” Thus says Pope Fran­cis, in a pas­sage Dr. Brug­ger does not quote even once. (That is remark­able in an arti­cle of more than five thou­sand words.) He dis­cuss­es three pas­sages from Chap­ter 8—in sec­tions 304, 305, and 307–308—but at no time does he refer to 295 to try to shed light on the pope’s mean­ing.

•••

In AL 304, Pope Fran­cis cites St. Thomas Aquinas regard­ing how, the fur­ther one “descend[s] to mat­ters of detail,” one may “encounter defects” in “gen­er­al prin­ci­ples”:

Although there is neces­si­ty in the gen­er­al prin­ci­ples, the more we descend to mat­ters of detail, the more fre­quent­ly we encounter defects. … In mat­ters of action, truth or prac­ti­cal rec­ti­tude is not the same for all, as to mat­ters of detail, but only as to the gen­er­al prin­ci­ples; and where there is the same rec­ti­tude in mat­ters of detail, it is not equal­ly known to all. … The prin­ci­ple will be found to fail, accord­ing as we descend fur­ther into detail” (ST, I‑II, q. 94, a. 4).

Pope Fran­cis cites this pas­sage in order to point out that “It is reduc­tive sim­ply to con­sid­er whether or not an individual’s actions cor­re­spond to a gen­er­al law or rule, because that is not enough to dis­cern and ensure full fideli­ty to God in the con­crete life of a human being.”

Dr. Brug­ger rais­es the fol­low­ing objec­tion to the pope’s use of Aquinas in this con­text:

Aquinas cer­tain­ly does not have the norm against adul­tery in mind when he speaks about the “fail­ure” of gen­er­al prin­ci­ples (“encoun­ter­ing defects”). We know this because we know he does not con­sid­er the norm against adul­tery a gen­er­al prin­ci­ple, but rather a con­crete moral absolute. Aquinas’ def­i­n­i­tion of adul­tery (II-II, q. 154, a. 8c) is very spe­cif­ic: “adul­tery is access to another’s mar­riage-bed”, i.e., engag­ing in sex­u­al inter­course despite the fact that at least one of the act­ing per­sons is mar­ried to some­one else. This is not a gen­er­al norm, such as “love your neigh­bor as your­self.” It is spe­cif­ic and con­crete and Aquinas express­ly teach­es that it is bind­ing even when by adul­tery one could save the coun­try from tyran­ny.

And while all that is strict­ly true, as applied to Amor­is Laeti­tia it is an exer­cise in ques­tion-beg­ging. Dr. Brug­ger sim­ply assumes that by “gen­er­al rule,” the pope has in mind: “Adul­tery is moral­ly wrong”; or: “A sec­ond mar­riage with­out annul­ment of the first is adul­tery.” If he had paid atten­tion to the over­all con­text in which §304 comes up, he might have avoid­ed this assump­tion.

Go back a mere two para­graphs ear­li­er, to §302, and you will find the pope dis­cussing fac­tors that mit­i­gate cul­pa­bil­i­ty where there is grave mat­ter. Dr. Brug­ger him­self has admit­ted that mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors are an impor­tant aspect of moral the­ol­o­gy. In that con­text, the “gen­er­al rule” the pope has in mind might be: “Those who con­tract an irreg­u­lar mar­riage are guilty of the mor­tal sin of adul­tery.” In oth­er words, the pope is address­ing sit­u­a­tions where there might be adul­tery (grave mat­ter) with­out guilt for adul­tery (mor­tal sin). The “gen­er­al prin­ci­ple” is not: “Adul­tery is grave mat­ter,” but: “Where there is grave mat­ter there is mor­tal sin.”

“What’s missed through­out chap­ter 8,” Dr. Brug­ger claims, “is any discussion—or even any mention—of the truth that adul­tery is intrin­si­cal­ly evil.”

Not so; and that is why I began by quot­ing from AL 295. In the para­graphs lead­ing up to 295, the pope’s dis­cus­sion is about the moral law in gen­er­al terms, not mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors that dimin­ish cul­pa­bil­i­ty. When the pope speaks of the moral law gen­er­al­ly, he says that it is an “objec­tive demand” for “every­one.” When he speaks of fac­tors that mit­i­gate cul­pa­bil­i­ty, he speaks of “gen­er­al prin­ci­ples.” Dr. Brug­ger treats a dis­cus­sion of the one as though it is a dis­cus­sion of the oth­er.

•••

AL 305 begins:

Because of forms of con­di­tion­ing and mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors [See how I told you this was the con­text, not the moral law of itself?] it is pos­si­ble that in an objec­tive sit­u­a­tion of sin [I thought Dr. Brug­ger told us the pope does not believe adul­tery is objec­tive­ly sin­ful!] which may not be sub­jec­tive­ly cul­pa­ble, or ful­ly such [See the impor­tance of con­text?] a per­son can be liv­ing in God’s grace.

The pope goes on to dis­cuss how pas­toral dis­cern­ment can help such cou­ples to dis­cov­er “paths of sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion.” Dr. Brug­ger imme­di­ate­ly declares: “In this pas­sage the Ger­man bish­ops get all they want.” He is dis­tressed enough by the thought to put it in ital­ics and under­line it.

If only he had print­ed it in bold-face and all caps too.

But I am not entire­ly clear how he reach­es any such con­clu­sion. He seems to read it into the text. “It is true,” he says, “that because of invin­ci­ble igno­rance, peo­ple can be liv­ing in grace while choos­ing objec­tive­ly grave­ly immoral objects. But even if a pas­tor could know they are in such igno­rance, he would have a duty in char­i­ty to help them get out of their objec­tive­ly sin­ful sit­u­a­tion.”

Well, what does Mr. Brug­ger think the pope has just been describ­ing? In which sen­tence does the pope say, “Allow them to remain as they are”? Is remain­ing as you are a “path of sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion”?

More­over, in which sen­tence does the say, “Allow them to line up for com­mu­nion”? Mr. Brug­ger claims to find this in the phrase “the Church’s help.” By “the Church’s help” the pope must mean “receive com­mu­nion,” and Dr. Brug­ger cites foot­note 351. Car­di­nal Schon­born him­self, how­ev­er, in a pre­sen­ta­tion long avail­able by the date Catholic World Report pub­lished Dr. Brug­ger’s arti­cle, spec­i­fied that the “cer­tain cas­es” in which com­mu­nion could be giv­en were those in which the cou­ple agreed to live in con­ti­nence. Might not con­ti­nence be a “path of sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion”?

“More than this,” Dr. Brug­ger con­tin­ues,

all those who dis­sent­ed against the Church’s teach­ings of moral absolutes get what they want­ed. For those so-called absolutes are now non-bind­ing ideals, and peo­ple who think that con­tra­cept­ing, etc., are okay for them here and now are doing what God is ask­ing of them in their com­plex sit­u­a­tions.

Wait, how did con­tra­cep­tion come into this? And ear­li­er in the arti­cle, Dr. Brug­ger said that one of the strengths of Amor­is Laeti­tia was its reit­er­a­tion of the evil of con­tra­cep­tion. But now I am sup­posed to believe the pope approves of it in a pas­sage where it’s not even the sub­ject? How does that work?

Nowhere in this sec­tion does Dr. Brug­ger explain how the Ger­man bish­ops are being giv­en an impri­matur to dis­trib­ute com­mu­nion to any­one at all, still less how Humanae Vitae just got over­turned. He just claims it, with­out doing suf­fi­cient work to show where he finds it in the text.

•••

Dr. Brug­ger last goes on to quote from AL 307–308, giv­ing empha­sis to all the times Pope Fran­cis describes Chris­t­ian mar­riage as an “ide­al.” Since I con­cede this is a weak­ness of the exhortation—in terms of word choice—I would only point out that is care­ful not to read into the poor word choice a mean­ing that is not there. It is poor word choice, and that is all it is.

It is per­fect­ly true to say that this word choice could be mis­lead­ing. But it is not true to say, as Dr. Brug­ger does, that behind it stands some belief on the pope’s part that “the com­mand of Christ is mere­ly an ide­al.” For the pope has already described it as an “objec­tive demand.” (AL 295 is impor­tant.)

Again, we must not be so eager to cri­tique this para­graph that we dis­re­gard that pas­sage.