To Give a Defense

What does Pope Francis think of conscience? Part 5 of a response to The Correctors.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • October 2, 2017 • Amoris Laetitia; Moral Theology

Here is the fifth heresy The Correctors say they find in Amoris Laetitia: “Conscience can truly and rightly judge that sexual acts between persons who have contracted a civil marriage with each other, although one or both of them is sacramentally married to another person, can sometimes be morally right or requested or even commanded by God.” So the text says that God sometimes can ask people in an irregular union to keep engaging in the sexual act. Really? Is that the necessary interpretation of Amoris Laetitia 303? I’m skeptical.

Does Pope Francis think it is a sin to obey God? Part 4 of a response to The Correctors.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • October 1, 2017 • Amoris Laetitia; Moral Theology

Here is the fourth heretical idea The Correctors falsely charge to Pope Francis: “A person is able, while he obeys a divine prohibition, to sin against God by that very act of obedience.” It just so happens in this case that I know which text they mean. It is in §298, where the pope speaks of those in a second union, “consolidated over time,” with “new children,” who have “great difficulty of going back without feeling in conscience that one would fall into new sins.” But the pope does not say going back would itself be a sin.

Does Pope Francis deny mortal sin? Part 3 of a response to The Correctors.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • September 27, 2017 • Amoris Laetitia; Moral Theology

Once again, the actual text of Amoris Laetitia does not say what The Correctors claim it does. Nowhere does the pope say that those who have “full knowledge” and “voluntarily choose” to commit adultery within an irregular marriage are not in mortal sin. At best, this notion is read into the text. At worst, it is simply made up. The Correctors do not say where, they find this heresy. They quote a number of passages, but they don’t say which supports their claims. I go in search of such a text and fail to find it, because The Correctors do very unimpressive work.

Does Pope Francis think sinners qualify for sanctifying grace? Part 2 of a response to The Correctors.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • September 27, 2017 • Amoris Laetitia; Moral Theology

The “filial correction” of Pope Francis—the work, of “a few dozen Catholics”; a “marginal fringe” of “mainly obscure figures” claims to find seven heresies in Amoris Laetitia. This time they charge the pope with the belief that people who sin gravely with full knowledge and consent of the will are not mortally culpable. But they leave out a great deal of §301 when they quote from it, but the missing part is very important, since it talks about “mitigating factors and situations.” Oops. The Correctors just don’t read very well, do they? Or perhaps they’re intentionally dishonest. I can’t say.

Does Pope Francis say that grace is insufficient? Part 1 of a response to The Correctors.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • September 24, 2017 • Amoris Laetitia; Moral Theology

Edward Pentin breathlessly says that this is the first “filial correction” since 1333! I mean, wow. Let us cry over Jerusalem. But what canonical standing do any of them have to be correcting Peter? Can anyone correct Peter, other than Christ? The highest-ranking soul among them is Bp. Fellay. But the SSPX is outside the Catholic Church. The rest are a bunch of “lay scholars” and a few clergy. Mainly, it reads like a who’s who of Who? Anyway, the Correctors claim to find seven heresies in Amoris Laetitia. The unbiased may find an infinite number of them, who knows?

Reports of the death of Humanae Vitae are greatly exaggerated.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • September 13, 2017 • False Report

Can we please take a look at what Pope Francis has actually said about Humanae Vitae? For in Amoris Laetitia we find him saying that marriage is ordered, “by its very nature,” toward procreation. “Openness to life is the condition of the sacrament of matrimony,” the pope says elsewhere. And yet I am supposed to believe the pope is on the verge of overthrowing Paul VI’s encyclical But it turns out Edward Pentin at the Register is bent on reviving these rumors, always with the melodrama, anonymous sources, pained expressions, and stage whispers.

About that Nashville Statement? Let me nitpick.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • September 1, 2017 • Moral Theology

So some Evangelical leaders gathered in Nashville and hammered out a statement on Christianity and human sexuality, and not even conservative Evangelicals are altogether happy with it. Part of the problem, according to the Washington Post, was the feeling that Evangelicals who voted for Donald Trump lost their standing to speak on sexual morality. Well, that’s a fair point. But I want to pick apart a few of the theological errors I find. For example, the NS has it wrong when it says that grace helps us to put away sinful desires. No. Grace enables us to resist.

I, Scott Eric Alt, forced Trump’s hand and saved The Little Sisters of the Poor.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 4, 2017 • Politics

It was I who said that if Mr. Trump wanted to, he could save the Little Sisters of the Poor from the Obamacare mandate by signing an executive order. Even Fake Site News, of all places, noted that the president was keeping the Obamacare requirement. Oh, I was contradicted for that one: It’s a bit more complicated than just an executive order. Surely some will say: “But Alt! You think Mr. Trump reads your blog?” Well, well. But I tweeted him the link. That was on April 25. On April 25, I said Mr. Trump could save the Little Sisters by an executive order. Then on May 2, he issued one. Shazaam.

Salvation history according to Donald Trump.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 3, 2017 • Humor

Let me tell you—people say I don’t read, that’s fake news—I read a book about Adam. Slowly. Cause this is a big job, people say you did a lot in business, but this is a big job—bigger than I thought it would be. So I don’t have as much time to read, but I read it. It took 100 days. But Adam—people don’t know this—Adam, he was a tough guy, had to be, the first man, but he had a big heart. May have been his one flaw, you know, too big a heart, and Eve tricked him. Sad. But you gotta give the guy his heart. But Melania would never do what Eve did, let me tell you.

A reader says 1 Cor. 11:28–29 does not bar grave sinners from the Eucharist.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 27, 2017 • Exegesis

Paul tells us why it is necessary to have a proper disposition before we receive the Eucharist. He begins by rebuking the Corinthians for their “divisions” and “factions.” He also condemns some abuses that crept into the common meal prior to the Eucharist. The rich, who could bring a large share of food and drink, ended up gorging themselves to the disadvantage of the poor, who were not able to bring much. As a result, “one [man] is hungry and another is drunk.” “Do you despise the Church of God,” he asks, “and humiliate those who have nothing?”

Mr. Trump contracepts promise to Little Sisters of the Poor.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 25, 2017 • Politics

Peradventure Mr. Trump is just plotting his next strong blow against Obamacare? But no. I know it runs counter to every impulse of the Trump apologist, but let us not delude ourselves here: Mr. Trump needs no permission from the HHS; he can order the rule change. But he hasn’t done so. Why? Oh, everyone expected a rule change. Mr. Trump is on the side of the nuns. He is on the side of religious freedom. He will crush abortion like the serpent’s head. Pinky swear. We’ll get no religious freedom under Mrs. Clinton; we must vote Trump; he’s on our side; you’ll see.

Dissenting Catholic Dick Durbin tells Dems not to dissent on abortion.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 24, 2017 • Politics; Pro-Life Issues

The hypocrisy of Sen. Dick Durbin knows no bounds. He is a Catholic who publicly dissents from his Church on abortion. And yet he has no difficulty in telling fellow Democrats that if they are pro-life, they have no place in the party. So as Durbin sees it, you have a higher obligation to your political party than you do to your Church. You should obey men rather than God. Fortunately, Durbin’s bishop has invoked Canon 915 and forbidden him Holy Communion. This should also be the case with Pelosi, Biden, Kerry, and Kaine. It won’t, but it should.

The incoherence of “Just clarify Amoris! Answer the dubia!”

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 24, 2017 • Amoris Laetitia

I have said myself: Pope Francis should answer the dubia. I have also said that AL is orthodox, is entirely consistent with Familiaris Consortio, and that anyone who reads it otherwise is in error. I just wish the pope would say that himself. That said, I find most of those who rally, circulate petitions, ventilate in the media, and otherwise make a spectacle of themselves, to be incoherent in their demand that the pope give clarity. On the one hand, they say, “The pope should answer the dubia. He should clarify.” On the other hand, they have already made up their minds that AL is heretical.

A poem for my stillborn daughter, Caitlyn.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 18, 2017 • Personal Narrative

Eleven years ago today, my daughter was stillborn. That day, in the hospital, a nurse who provided grief support to parents who’d experienced perinatal loss visited with me. (Kim, who had eclampsia and had had a seizure the prior morning, was still spending a large part of the day asleep and half-aware of what was going on.) During the conversation, the nurse suggested to me that I write something for my daughter and have it buried with her, in order to mitigate a sense I had that I wouldn’t be able to do or say all that I wanted to.