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

nd it’s by Jon-Hen­ry West­en again; won­ders! Been there, done that. Does he not learn? In this lat­est exam­ple of errant reportage, which you can read here, Life Site News pro­claims: “Pope Says Schon­born Inter­pre­ta­tion on Com­mu­nion is the Final Word”! (That’s the title.)

Hmm. Don’t recall read­ing that. I looked at the pope’s inter­view; Zen­it has the tran­script here; 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. You can find it here and take a look at it; I find it to be very pro­fuse with direct quo­ta­tions.

So we shall have to dis­cern very care­ful­ly to fig­ure out whether West­en has it right and I have it wrong.

Now, the con­text of all this is an exchange between Pope Fran­cis and a reporter from the Wall Street Jour­nal, which took place dur­ing the pope’s flight from Greece to Rome. The reporter, Fran­cis Roc­ca, asked the pope whether, after the pub­li­ca­tion of Amor­is Laeti­tia, there are “new con­crete pos­si­bil­i­ties” for Catholics in an irreg­u­lar mar­riage to have “access to the sacra­ments.” (Mr. Roc­ca does not spec­i­fy which sacra­ments; there are, you may recall, sev­en of them.) The pope respond­ed this way, in the trans­la­tion pro­vid­ed by Zen­it:

I could say “yes,” and that’s it, but it would be too small an answer. I rec­om­mend to you all that you read the pre­sen­ta­tion made by Car­di­nal Shoen­born [sic], who is a great the­olo­gian. He is a mem­ber of the Con­gre­ga­tion for the Doc­trine of the Faith and knows well the Doc­trine of the Church. Your ques­tion will have an answer in that pre­sen­ta­tion.

Life Site News uses a dif­fer­ent trans­la­tion, but the sub­stance of the pope’s response is the same. Fun­ny thing is, I do not see, in that response, where the pope says that Car­di­nal Schon­born’s inter­pre­ta­tion is the final word. Do you see it? I don’t see it. Where is it? The pope says Schon­born’s pre­sen­ta­tion “will have an answer” for the reporter’s ques­tion; it says noth­ing about Schon­born hav­ing “the final word” on the dis­ci­pline of the sacra­ments.

Per­haps this is a quib­ble, but if Schon­born’s pre­sen­ta­tion was no more than a sum­ma­ry of the con­tents of Amor­is Laeti­tia, then would­n’t it be Pope Fran­cis who had the final word? Was any­one dis­put­ing that he did? Where’s the sto­ry here? Why does Life Site News both­er? Per­haps this is a quib­ble.

More con­cern­ing to me is the fol­low­ing pas­sage from Mr. West­en’s arti­cle:

Schonborn’s pre­sen­ta­tion boiled down Pope Fran­cis’ more than 60,000 words in the exhor­ta­tion to 3000, but in that short space made sure to include the “smok­ing foot­note” being seen as”—[Oh, so this is just an inter­pre­ta­tion? And whose? There’s a pas­sive voice con­struc­tion going on here. Is this a gen­er­al con­sen­sus, or the fears of a few cranks?]—“the open­ing of the door to Holy Com­mu­nion to Catholics liv­ing in sec­ond unions where annul­ment from the first union was not pos­si­ble. The posi­tion con­tra­dicts Pope St. John Paul II’s Famil­iaris Con­sor­tio as well as the Cat­e­chism of the Catholic Church.

Wait, now. Schon­born’s pre­sen­ta­tion “con­tra­dicts” Famil­iaris Con­sor­tio? Oh, I have to see this. For­tu­nate­ly, Mr. West­en pro­vides a quo­ta­tion from Schon­born’s pre­sen­ta­tion, where we all may plain­ly see the con­tra­dic­tion of FC. For your con­ve­nience, dear read­er, I will put that part in bold. Here it is (as quot­ed by Mr. West­en):

Nat­u­ral­ly this pos­es the ques­tion: what does the Pope say in rela­tion to access to the sacra­ments for peo­ple who live in “irreg­u­lar” sit­u­a­tions? Pope Bene­dict had already said that “easy recipes” do not exist (AL 298, note 333). Pope Fran­cis reit­er­ates the need to dis­cern care­ful­ly the sit­u­a­tion, in keep­ing with St. John Paul II’s Famil­iaris con­sor­tio. (84) (AL 298).

Wait, now. Mr. West­en tells us that Schon­born’s pre­sen­ta­tion “con­tra­dicts Pope St. John Paul II’s Famil­iaris Con­sor­tio,” then imme­di­ate­ly quotes Schon­born as say­ing that dis­cern­ment of sit­u­a­tions must be “in keep­ing with St. John Paul II’s Famil­iaris con­sor­tio”? How does this work, exact­ly? Did an edi­tor not catch this? Did some­one not sidle up to Mr. West­en and say, “You know, sir, there seems to be a con­flict here”? What is going on at Life Site News? (Don’t answer that.)

If Car­di­nal Schon­born meant to “con­tra­dict” Famil­iaris Con­sor­tio, it seems a fun­ny way to do it, for him to go out and say, “Hey, dis­cern sit­u­a­tions, but remain faith­ful to St. John Paul II, you know.”

Mr. West­en goes on to quote Famil­iaris Con­sor­tio—you know, the doc­u­ment that Car­di­nal Schon­born just told us that pas­toral prac­tice must be “in keep­ing with”:

[T]he Church reaf­firms her prac­tice, which is based upon Sacred Scrip­ture, of not admit­ting to Eucharis­tic Com­mu­nion divorced per­sons who have remar­ried.

And Car­di­nal Schon­born says, “Stay in keep­ing with this”; and that, accord­ing to Mr. West­en, adds up to to “con­tra­dic­tion” and a license for pro­fan­ing the body and blood of Christ. I am at a loss, I do con­fess.

I would only sug­gest that, if Car­di­nal Schon­born says, “Remain in keep­ing with Famil­iaris,” and Famil­iaris says that those in irreg­u­lar unions (bar­ring a com­mit­ment to con­ti­nence) are not to be admit­ted to Com­mu­nion, then per­haps the idea that Amor­is Laeti­tia per­mits Com­mu­nion for such indi­vid­u­als needs to be re-exam­ined.