Category: Amoris Laetitia

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

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 4, 2016 • Amoris Laetitia; Moral Theology

 

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.” That’s why the pope uses words like “for now.”

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Now, if Life Site News could correct the record. (Again.)

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 2, 2016 • Amoris Laetitia; False Report

 

Wouldn’t it be prop­er to explain that, accord­ing to Schon­born — the man Pope Fran­cis says has the right under­stand­ing about com­mu­nion for the divorced and remar­ried — AL is actu­al­ly to be read in har­mo­ny with FC 84,? Wouldn’t it clear up a lot of poten­tial con­fu­sion to say, Now, Schon­born spec­i­fies that the “cer­tain cas­es” in are those which the cou­ple has agreed to prac­tice celiba­cy? The very sec­tion of FC 84 that Mr. West­en quot­ed to show that Amor­is is a depar­ture, was Schon­born quot­ed to explain how Amor­is is con­sis­tent.

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Cardinal Schönborn gives clarification on communion.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 1, 2016 • Amoris Laetitia

 

I 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.

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Interacting with Robert Spaemann on Amoris Laetitia.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 30, 2016 • Amoris Laetitia

 

Dr. Robert Spae­mann, a retired Ger­man phi­los­o­phy pro­fes­sor — why is it always the Ger­mans? — who was an advis­er to St. John Paul II and is a friend of Bene­dict XVI, gave an inter­view in the Ger­man press, crit­i­cal of Amor­is Laeti­tia, warn­ing of schism; and it has been picked up by all the sus­pect media. One Vad­er Five car­ried the sto­ry; as did Lyser­gic Acid News. One can­not wave a blithe hand and dis­miss Spae­mann, how­ev­er pleas­ant that would be. And so we must sort out and weigh what he says in this inter­view with CNA’s Ger­man edi­tion.

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Does Amoris Laetitia tell us “Do not judge”? Part 2 of a response to Dr. E. Christian Brugger.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 25, 2016 • Amoris Laetitia; Moral Theology

 

But I am con­fused. Dr. Brug­ger tells us that the pope is right to say we must not judge, he tells us that we can’t judge, and yet the pope is wrong because he tells us we should be judg­ing. The pope tells us not to judge, and he is right; but he asks us to judge, and he is wrong. If this makes sense to you, dear read­er, let me know. Dr. Brug­ger goes on to explain why priests can not ren­der a judg­ment on a person’s soul, but that was nev­er what Pope Fran­cis had asked us to do in the first place. This is a dis­cus­sion of pas­toral care, not sote­ri­ol­o­gy.

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Is Amoris Laetitia’s discussion of culpability a “serious problem”? Part 1 of a response to Dr. E. Christian Brugger.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 25, 2016 • Amoris Laetitia; Moral Theology

 

At Catholic World Report, Dr. E. Chris­t­ian Brug­ger has post­ed an arti­cle enti­tled “Five Seri­ous Prob­lems With Chap­ter 8 of Amor­is Laeti­tia.” It is a long arti­cle, which my own nev­er are; a full five thou­sand four hun­dred twelve words; longer than Chap­ter 8 itself. So this will take some time to work through. Dr. Brugger’s arti­cle — unlike so many wail­ing pan­ic attacks about Amor­is Laeti­tia that can be briefly scoffed at, and refut­ed, and left to dry up like a raisin in the sun — is, or aims to be, ana­lyt­i­cal and schol­ar­ly. It requires care. I don’t dis­agree with every­thing Dr. Brug­ger says.

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Life Site News gets a pope story wrong. (Again.)

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 19, 2016 • Amoris Laetitia; False Report

 

In this lat­est exam­ple of errant reportage, Life Site News pro­claims: “Pope Says Schon­born Inter­pre­ta­tion on Com­mu­nion is the Final Word”! (That’s the title.) Now, I looked at the pope’s inter­view; can’t recall the pope say­ing any­thing that can fair­ly be sum­ma­rized as defer­ring to Schon­born the “final word.” Nor was Schonborn’s pre­sen­ta­tion of Amor­is Laeti­tia, quite exact­ly, an “inter­pre­ta­tion” of any sort. It was, rather, a sum­ma­ry of the pope’s exhor­ta­tion; I find it to be very pro­fuse with direct quo­ta­tions. So we shall have to dis­cern very care­ful­ly to see whether West­ern or I has it right.

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Pope gives another interview; false reporting begins at 1 Vader 5 forthwith.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 16, 2016 • Amoris Laetitia; False Report

 

Mr. Steve Sko­jec, of 1 Vad­er 5 infamy, was quick to pounce, claws unsheathed, on the lat­est papal inter­view. He did so in order to make the self-affirm­ing claim that Pope Fran­cis gave an unam­bigu­ous, full-throat­ed “Yes!” to com­mu­nion for the divorced and remar­ried. Shaz­a­am. The pope, says Mr. Sko­jec, gave “a very straight­for­ward affir­ma­tion” in response to a “very direct ques­tion” from a reporter. “Straight­for­ward,” you say? “Very direct,” you say? Then let us hie our­selves to the text of that inter­view and take a look.

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Integrating weakness: Chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 14, 2016 • Amoris Laetitia; Moral Theology

 

In 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.”

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Steve Skojec says Amoris Laetitia 298 condones adultery. Steve Skojec is wrong.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 11, 2016 • Amoris Laetitia; False Report; Moral Theology

 

Peo­ple send me links (“Did you see this??”); I don’t seek out these things any­more. But Steve Sko­jec at 1 Vad­er 5, who has now resort­ed to post­ing screen­shots from Face­book for the gen­er­al ridicule, makes the claim that Pope Fran­cis con­dones adul­tery in Amor­is Laeti­tia. “He does!” Mr. Sko­jec cries with the incor­rectible con­fi­dence he alone pos­sess­es. “Para­graph 298!” Right. Well, okay, I mean, let’s check. Let’s quote the full text and not leave any­thing out. And what I find is that it does noth­ing more than quote Famil­iaris Con­sor­tio. Imag­ine that.

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Things Pope Francis says in Amoris Laetitia that few will mention.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 11, 2016 • Amoris Laetitia

 

Among oth­er things, that mar­riage is between one man and one woman and same-sex unions are not mar­riage. That mar­riage requires open­ness to life. That mar­riage is indis­sol­u­ble. That peo­ple rebel against God when they do not accept the gen­der they were born with. That the Church must sup­port dis­cern­ment and give its mem­bers rea­sons to choose mar­riage over a sin­gle life. That the Church must assist those dis­cern­ing mar­riage learn how to love so that few­er divorces occur. There’s much more too. It can’t all be cov­ered in a sin­gle arti­cle.

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Amoris Laetitia 7: The most important section of the exhortation.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 8, 2016 • Amoris Laetitia

 

I do not rec­om­mend a rushed read­ing of the text,” the pope says. That is exact­ly right. I feel no spe­cial urge to join the instant com­men­tary that will, inevitably, miss a great deal and get the rest wrong. The most impor­tant thing you can do is read the doc­u­ment your­self, slow­ly, delib­er­ate­ly, and ignore the head­lines and believe none of them. Read them lat­er. Take the pope’s advice. I will have a great deal to say about Amor­is Laeti­tia, but I am going to read all of it first. That is why, dear read­er, you can trust the com­men­tary this blog offers. I will report back next week.

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New York Times attempts to read the tea leaves ahead of Amoris Laetitia.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 7, 2016 • Amoris Laetitia

 

At the New York Times, there is an arti­cle today opti­misti­cal­ly titled “How Pope Fran­cis’ ‘Amor­is Laeti­tia’ Could Affect Fam­i­lies and the Church.” From the arti­cle: “In the doc­u­ment, known as an apos­tolic exhor­ta­tion, the pope could change church prac­tice on thorny sub­jects like whether divorced Catholics who remar­ry with­out hav­ing obtained annul­ments can receive holy com­mu­nion.” I think not. Did the New York Times not read the pope’s inter­view in-flight from Mex­i­co to Rome? He was asked about this wery thing. I quote it where the Times does not.

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