Cardinal Schönborn gives clarification on communion.

became aware of the video embed­ded at the bot­tom of this post by a read­er who post­ed it in the com­ments here. The video was uploaded to YouTube on April 20. My read­er post­ed it because he seemed to think that Schon­born’s dis­cus­sion of Amor­is Laeti­tia 305 sup­ports the view of Prof. Spae­mann and oth­ers: name­ly, that the pope per­mits com­mu­nion for Catholics in an irreg­u­lar mar­riage. That is to say, the pope per­mits adul­tery.

So always will­ing to check out the truth of what is claimed, I watched the video myself. I learned that Car­di­nal Schon­born says the very oppo­site. You can take a look at it your­self; the rel­e­vant sec­tion starts just past the 59 minute mark and runs for about ten min­utes.

Now, all this is impor­tant because for a very long and tedious April we have been told, on all the Chick­en Lit­tle blogs and across the social media Webosphere, that foot­note 351 is the “smok­ing gun” that per­mits com­mu­nion for those in an irreg­u­lar union with­out requir­ing them to aban­don their sin.

But Pope Fran­cis, in his lat­est inter­view while fly­ing back to Rome from Greece, was asked about that very point, and he referred the reporter to Car­di­nal Schon­born’s pre­sen­ta­tion on Amor­is Laeti­tia. Schon­born is a very good the­olo­gian, the pope said, he knows the doc­trine of the Church, and you will find your answer with him. So Pope Fran­cis gives a great deal of weight to what Schon­born has to say.

Let us then, turn to the video and see what Schon­born says. Turn there, and not to One Vad­er Five.

The inte­gra­tion of peo­ple in irreg­u­lar sit­u­a­tions is a pas­toral duty, because they are bap­tized and they are called to live as they can in the lim­its of what they can—their life of faith. You know, at the very end—the ques­tion of this lit­tle foot­note. Let me show you the text in Eng­lish.

By “this lit­tle foot­note,” Schon­born is refer­ring to foot­note 351, which is where some claim to find a license for priests to admit those in irreg­u­lar mar­riages to com­mu­nion. Schon­born begins by quot­ing from the text in AL 305 that comes right before:

Because of forms of con­di­tion­ing and mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors, it is pos­si­ble that in an objec­tive sit­u­a­tion of sin [Schon­born quotes this phrase twice, as if to empha­size the real­i­ty of what we are talk­ing about]—which may not be sub­jec­tive­ly cul­pa­ble, or ful­ly such—a per­son can be liv­ing in God’s grace, can love and can also grow in the life of grace and char­i­ty, while receiv­ing the Church’s help to this end.

And now he directs us to The Dread­ed Foot­note: “In cer­tain cas­es, this can include the help of the sacra­ments.”

There it is, the smok­ing gun! Pub­lic adul­ter­ers and all man­ner of filthy whores are going to line up to defile the Eucharist, all with the pope’s approval.

But now lis­ten care­ful­ly as Schon­born turns to atten­tion to what the pope real­ly had in mind:

What does he mean with that? Why isn’t he more explic­it about it? Why has he put it into the foot­note? I was asked this: Why a foot­note about such an impor­tant ques­tion? Why only a foot­note? Is it to hide? Is it to pre­vent cri­tique from those ner­vous about such words? I don’t know; I haven’t asked him why he has placed it in a foot­note.

Yes, these are the ques­tions every­one is ask­ing. My Face­book posts are full of cross-exam­i­na­tion and a demand for answers. But keep lis­ten­ing, because Schon­born is about to clar­i­fy:

There is one point, very clear already. John Paul II has known, in cer­tain cas­es, explic­it­ly. And this is impor­tant for the under­stand­ing. You all know the famous excep­tion John Paul has explic­it­ly said.

So, accord­ing to Schon­born, Famil­iaris Con­sor­tio 84 is where we must go to learn what Pope Fran­cis had in mind when he said that “in cer­tain cas­es” cou­ples in irreg­u­lar unions can receive “the help of the sacra­ments.” Schon­born quotes from John Paul II:

How­ev­er, the Church reaf­firms her prac­tice, which is based upon Sacred Scrip­ture, of not admit­ting to Eucharis­tic Com­mu­nion divorced per­sons who have remar­ried. They are unable to be admit­ted there­to from the fact that their state and con­di­tion of life objec­tive­ly con­tra­dict that union of love between Christ and the Church which is sig­ni­fied and effect­ed by the Eucharist. Besides this, there is anoth­er spe­cial pas­toral rea­son: if these peo­ple were admit­ted to the Eucharist, the faith­ful would be led into error and con­fu­sion regard­ing the Church’s teach­ing about the indis­sol­u­bil­i­ty of mar­riage.

… This means, in prac­tice, that when, for seri­ous rea­sons, such as for exam­ple the chil­dren’s upbring­ing, a man and a woman can­not sat­is­fy the oblig­a­tion to sep­a­rate, they “take on them­selves the duty to live in com­plete con­ti­nence, that is, by absti­nence from the acts prop­er to mar­ried cou­ples.

Now this is strange indeed. I thought, from read­ing Life Site News, that this sec­tion of FC is at odds with foot­note 351. Jon-Hen­ry West­en quotes it to object to 351. But accord­ing to Schon­born, far from FC being at odds with 351, it is the very sense in which 351 must be under­stood. Why, that’s the very thing I said, in my response to Mr. West­en’s arti­cle. Will we get a cor­rec­tion from Lyser­gic?

Schon­born goes on:

Of course being care­ful not to give scan­dal. But Pope Fran­cis has a lit­tle note on that, where he seems to observe that nonethe­less they live a mar­ried life—not with sex­u­al union, but they live togeth­er; they share their life; and pub­licly they are a cou­ple. So I see the care­ful dis­cern­ment requires, from the pas­tors and from the peo­ple con­cerned, a very del­i­cate con­science.

The note Schon­born seems to have in mind here is foot­note 329, which is in §298. I men­tion this because Steve Sko­jec at One Vad­er Five insists that 298 con­dones adul­tery. And yet to lis­ten to Schon­born tell it, Pope Fran­cis means the very thing I argued he did, in my rebut­tal to Mr. Sko­jec. For the good of the chil­dren, the cou­ple “live a mar­ried life” and “pub­licly they are a cou­ple,” but—Schonborn’s words—“not with sex­u­al union.” That’s what I said, and Mr. Sko­jec spent days on Twit­ter scoff­ing and dis­miss­ing it out of hand, with his accus­tomed storm of ad hominem.

Now some might ask: Why lis­ten to Schon­born? He’s not the pope! But remem­ber: Pope Fran­cis him­self said that we must lis­ten to Schon­born if we have ques­tions on this mat­ter.

Well, now we have lis­tened to Schon­born. I eager­ly await for One Vad­er Five and Life Site News and all the oth­ers to say, “Mea max­i­ma cul­pa. Guess I was wrong.”

Cough.

You can watch the video your­self here: