Interacting with Robert Spaemann on Amoris Laetitia.

r. 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 (AL), warn­ing of schism; and it has been picked up by all the sus­pect media. One Vad­er Five car­ried the sto­ry; as did LSD 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 Anian Christoph Wim­mer, the edi­tor of CNA’s Ger­man-lan­guage edi­tion.)

Mr. Wim­mer begins by ask­ing Dr. Spae­mann whether AL “should be read in con­ti­nu­ity with the teach­ings of the Church.”

(Of course it should. This is how one reads Church doc­u­ments. Hermeneu­tic of con­ti­nu­ity, etc., etc. Dr. Spae­mann is a friend of Bene­dict, you know. He should know this. Next ques­tion?)

Now, I note here that Car­di­nal Burke has tak­en up this ques­tion him­self; and his answer is the same as mine: Of course it “should be read in con­ti­nu­ity”; what are you talk­ing about? He has strong words for those who say oth­er­wise:

Such a view of the doc­u­ment [i.e., as a “rad­i­cal depar­ture”] is both a source of won­der and con­fu­sion to the faith­ful and poten­tial­ly a source of scan­dal, not only for the faith­ful but for oth­ers of good­will who look to Christ and his Church to teach and reflect in prac­tice the truth regard­ing mar­riage and its fruit, fam­i­ly life, the first cell of the life of the Church and of every soci­ety.

Now mark that. Get out your red pens and under­score it well. Burke says that those who cry “Rup­ture! Rup­ture!” are the ones caus­ing scan­dal and con­fu­sion. These do not come from the pope, nor his defend­ers, but from his detrac­tors. Mark.

It is also a dis­ser­vice to the nature of the doc­u­ment as the fruit of the Syn­od of Bish­ops, a meet­ing of bish­ops rep­re­sent­ing the uni­ver­sal Church “to assist the Roman pon­tiff with their coun­sel in the preser­va­tion and growth of faith and morals and in the obser­vance and strength­en­ing of eccle­si­as­ti­cal dis­ci­pline and to con­sid­er ques­tions per­tain­ing to the activ­i­ty of the Church in the world” (Canon 342). In oth­er words, it would be a con­tra­dic­tion of the work of the Syn­od of Bish­ops to set in motion con­fu­sion regard­ing what the Church teach­es, safe­guards and fos­ters by her dis­ci­pline.

The only key to the cor­rect inter­pre­ta­tion of Amor­is Laeti­tia is the con­stant teach­ing of the Church and her dis­ci­pline that safe­guards and fos­ters this teach­ing.

I agree with Burke. Burke holds to the her­menu­tic of con­ti­nu­ity. Burke is firm about it. Spae­mann, by con­trast, hedges in his answer to the ques­tion:

For the most part, it is pos­si­ble, although the direc­tion allows for con­se­quences which can­not be made com­pat­i­ble with the teach­ing of the Church. Arti­cle 305 togeth­er with foot­note 351—in which it is stat­ed that believ­ers can be allowed to the sacra­ments “in an objec­tive sit­u­a­tion of sin” “because of mit­i­gat­ing factors”—directly con­tra­dicts arti­cle 84 of Pope John Paul II’s exhor­ta­tion Famil­iaris con­sor­tio.

So it is pos­si­ble to read it in con­ti­nu­ity “for the most part”; but AL some­how allows “con­se­quences” out of step with Church teach­ing, and thus it “direct­ly con­tra­dicts” Famil­iaris Con­sor­tio.

This is odd. How is it “pos­si­ble” to read AL “in con­ti­nu­ity” if it “direct­ly con­tra­dicts” Famil­iaris? In FC 84, Pope St. John Paul II express­ly reit­er­ates the prac­tice (cf. Canon 915) of with­hold­ing the Eucharist from Catholics in an irreg­u­lar mar­riage, except when they agree to live in con­ti­nence.

But it is just not true that AL 305 (and foot­note 351) “direct­ly con­tra­dict” that restric­tion. In 305, Pope Fran­cis reit­er­ates a com­mon­place of Catholic moral thought: that not every­one who is in a state of objec­tive sin is mor­tal­ly cul­pa­ble. There may be grave mat­ter but none of the oth­er cri­te­ria to call it mor­tal sin (cf. CCC 1857–1860). The pope says that the Church must be ready to help such peo­ple “grow in the life of grace and char­i­ty”; then adds this foot­note: “In cer­tain cas­es this can include the help of the sacra­ments.”

In “cer­tain cas­es”; but the pope does not say which cas­es. Nor does he say which sacra­ments. Did you know there are sev­en of them? The Eucharist is not the only one. Fr. Dwight Lon­ge­neck­er made note of that him­self.

One must not for­get what kind of doc­u­ment AL is, and more impor­tant­ly the kind of doc­u­ment it is not. It is an apos­tolic exhor­ta­tion; which means it is about pas­toral care. It is not a teach­ing doc­u­ment. It is not a leg­isla­tive doc­u­ment. Canon lawyer Dr. Edward N. Peters makes this point well in his arti­cle “The Law Before Amor­is is the Law After.” Not only, Dr. Peters says, does Pope Fran­cis not alter Canon 915, he does not even dis­cuss Canon 915.

Dr. Spae­mann is wrong, then, when he claims that AL “direct­ly con­tra­dicts” FC. “A change in the prac­tice of the admin­is­tra­tion of the sacra­ments,” he says, “would there­fore be … a breach in [Church] teach­ing on mar­riage and human sex­u­al­i­ty.” No doubt it would, but popes can not change the dis­ci­pline of the sacra­ments in an exhor­ta­tion. Foot­note 351 is not the “deci­sive sen­tence” Dr. Spae­mann thinks it is, that “change[s] the teach­ing of the Church.” (As though the pope has the author­i­ty to do, or could do, such a thing to begin with. Am I to believe the pope has cho­sen a foot­note in an exhor­ta­tion as the place to change Church teach­ing and sacra­men­tal dis­ci­pline? Come on!)

•••

Fur­ther on in the inter­view, we read this exchange:

Wim­mer. The Holy Father empha­sizes in his exhor­ta­tion that nobody may be allowed to be con­demned for­ev­er.

Spae­mann. I find it dif­fi­cult to under­stand what he means there. … I would like to know from the Pope, after what time and under which cir­cum­stances is objec­tive­ly sin­ful con­duct changed into con­duct pleas­ing to God.

To be hon­est, I find it dif­fi­cult to know what Spae­mann is talk­ing about here. I have not read the pas­sage where the pope says that “objec­tive­ly sin­ful con­duct” may at some point become “con­duct pleas­ing to God.” Where is that to be found?

The pope speaks of some­thing quite dif­fer­ent, “the law of grad­u­al­ness,” a con­cept first described by John Paul II FC 34. (To hear some peo­ple talk, you would think §84 was the entire text of FC.) Pope Fran­cis explains:

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.”

The quo­ta­tion comes from FC. Pope Fran­cis tells us that the moral law is objec­tive; “every­one with­out excep­tion” is oblig­ed to fol­low it; which they can “with the help of grace,” even if they must pro­ceed grad­u­al­ly. So the pope says the oppo­site of what Dr. Spae­mann claims to read in AL: not that sin­ful con­duct grad­u­al­ly becomes pleas­ing to God, but that sin­ners grad­u­al­ly learn to do what is pleas­ing to God.

Next Mr. Wim­mer asks whether AL real­ly does con­sti­tute a “breach.” Note well Dr. Spae­man­n’s response:

That it is an issue of a breach emerges doubtless­ly for every think­ing per­son, who knows the respec­tive texts.

I find these words remark­able for their lack of char­i­ty, their out-of-hand dis­missal of any dif­fer­ent view than Dr. Spae­man­n’s own. Car­di­nal Burke does not think of AL as a “breach.” Does that mean Burke does not “know the respec­tive texts”? Does that mean Burke is not a “think­ing per­son”? If you dis­agree with Dr. Spae­mann, it can only mean that you don’t think, or you can’t think? That’s an inter­est­ing way for Spae­mann to avoid dis­cussing the mer­its of any argu­ment opposed to his own. Am I to think this is how renowned philoso­phers treat the dis­cus­sion of ideas?

If I am wrong, then I am open to dis­cus­sion about where and how I am wrong; just as I in my turn try to show where argu­ments I dis­agree with are wrong. I don’t accuse Spae­mann of being any­thing oth­er than a think­ing per­son.

•••

Not long after this, Dr. Spae­mann claims that the pope believes in “sit­u­a­tion­al ethics”; mean­ing that the pope thinks that “sex­u­al­ly dis­or­dered con­duct” may not be “objec­tive­ly sin­ful.” He con­trasts this with the view of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Now, what’s odd about that is that the para­graph he cites to make this claim is 305; and in that para­graph the pope describes irreg­u­lar mar­riages as “an objec­tive sit­u­a­tion of sin.” How very incon­ve­nient for Dr. Spae­mann. (N.B., I have read a num­ber of peo­ple who say the pope nev­er speaks about sin at all in AL. They have no clue at all what they are talk­ing about.)

Cul­pa­bil­i­ty dif­fers from case to case; but that’s not “sit­u­a­tion­al ethics,” that’s Catholic moral the­ol­o­gy; that’s the Cat­e­chism. So where is this “sit­u­a­tion­al ethics” that Spae­mann insists you can find in AL?

At the end of the inter­view, Mr. Wim­mer asks about the con­se­quences of Amor­is.

The con­se­quences are already fore­see­able: uncer­tain­ty and con­fu­sion, from the bish­ops’ con­fer­ences to the small parish­es in the mid­dle of nowhere.

[There is no one a priest or bish­op can write to? They are in the wilds? There’s been an EMP attack? This is so very odd.]

A few days ago, a priest from the Con­go expressed to me his per­plex­i­ty in light of this new papal doc­u­ment and the lack of clear prece­dents. [He can’t query his bish­op? The Con­go does have a bish­op.] Accord­ing to the respec­tive pas­sages from Amor­is laeti­tia, not only remar­ried divor­cés but also every­one liv­ing in some cer­tain “irreg­u­lar sit­u­a­tion” could, by fur­ther non­de­script “mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances”, be allowed to con­fess oth­er sins and receive Com­mu­nion even with­out try­ing to aban­don their sex­u­al conduct—that means with­out con­fes­sion and con­ver­sion. [That is not in the doc­u­ment. Is Dr. Spae­mann mak­ing this up?.] Each priest who adheres to the until-now valid dis­ci­pline of the sacra­ments, could be mobbed by the faith­ful and be put under pres­sure from his bish­op.

[So what is Dr. Spae­man­n’s evi­dence that mobs are on hori­zon? The poor man is hav­ing a fret­ful fan­ta­sia. Exhor­ta­tions do not change the dis­ci­pline of the sacra­ments.]

Rome can now make the stip­u­la­tion that only “mer­ci­ful” bish­ops will be named, who are ready to soft­en the exist­ing dis­ci­pline. [Spae­mann is hav­ing the sweats.] Chaos was raised to a prin­ci­ple by the stroke of a pen. The Pope must have known that he would split the Church with such a step and lead toward a schism—a schism that would not be set­tled on the periph­eries, but rather in the heart of the Church. May God for­bid that from hap­pen­ing.

So now Dr. Spae­mann is unchar­i­ta­bly accus­ing the pope of delib­er­ate­ly try­ing to cause a schism. And whose schism? Are all those so-called “faith­ful” Catholics going to pack it up and head toward the Sede­va­can­tist Hills? In what sense would that make them “faith­ful”? Or will the schism come when the Ger­man bish­ops and car­di­nals aban­don the dis­ci­pline of the sacra­ments and do what they may please? But to hear Dr. Spae­mann tell it, AL per­mits this. So I’m not sure where Dr. Spae­mann fears this schism is going to come from.

Dr. Spae­mann con­tin­ues.

One thing, how­ev­er, seems clear to me: the con­cern of this Pope—that the Church should over­come her own self-ref­er­enc­ing in order to be able to free-heart­ed­ly approach per­sons – has been destroyed by this papal doc­u­ment for an unfore­see­able amount of time. A sec­u­lar­iz­ing push and the fur­ther decrease in the num­ber of priests in many parts of the world are also to be expect­ed. [All because of AL? How does Spae­mann know this? Where’s the data?

Well, okay, I can see that much. The valid crit­i­cism of AL, in my view, has to do with the fact that, in some sec­tions (not all but some), the pope is broad and vague enough that mis­chie­vous priests and bish­ops can read their own desires into it. The pope will need to clar­i­fy and dis­ci­pline. To avoid con­fu­sion, com­men­ta­tors must empha­size the hermeneu­tic of con­ti­nu­ity; but Spae­mann does not help in that regard. Would that he were the only such com­men­ta­tor.