God willed Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome Vol. XXII.

here are two sens­es in which one may speak of “God’s will.” One may speak of God’s per­fect will—that is, what God specif­i­cal­ly ordains. For exam­ple, the fact that the pope has supreme teach­ing author­i­ty in the Church is God’s per­fect will. But one may also speak of God’s per­mis­sive will—that is, what God does not ordain but per­mits. The fact that some peo­ple would resist the pope’s teach­ing author­i­ty and there would be Pope Fran­cis Derange­ment Syn­drome is part of God’s will in this lat­ter sense. What­ev­er hap­pens is, there­fore, God’s will. God willed this blog post, if only because he did not stop me from writ­ing it. He may have struck me down with a heart attack today in order to pre­vent me from speak­ing out against his cho­sen mouth­piece Fake Site News, but free will mat­ters to him, so I go on writ­ing. God willed the Abu Dhabi text, and God willed the Faith­ful­Catholic™ freak­out about it. God willed the pope to be accused of heresy. What­ev­er hap­pens, God wills. And this is not Calvin­ism if you under­stand the dis­tinc­tion between God’s per­fect will and God’s per­mis­sive will.

Here is the full text of the Abu Dhabi state­ment, and here is the part that has caused such sweat­storms and couch-faint­ing among Faith­ful­Catholics™:

Free­dom is a right of every per­son: each indi­vid­ual enjoys the free­dom of belief, thought, expres­sion and action. The plu­ral­ism and the diver­si­ty of reli­gions, colour, sex, race and lan­guage are willed by God in His wis­dom, through which He cre­at­ed human beings. This divine wis­dom is the source from which the right to free­dom of belief and the free­dom to be dif­fer­ent derives. There­fore, the fact that peo­ple are forced to adhere to a cer­tain reli­gion or cul­ture must be reject­ed, as too the impo­si­tion of a cul­tur­al way of life that oth­ers do not accept.

Free­dom is a right of every per­son. In oth­er words, the very con­text of the dis­cus­sion is about free will. We must read the sur­round­ing text, dear reader—not just the parts Faith­ful­Catholics™ cher­ry pick in order to jus­ti­fy their sweats. God wills (pas­sive­ly) a diver­si­ty of reli­gions because he wills (per­fect­ly) human free will first. Thus one may not impose reli­gious belief on oth­ers. That’s the sense of what the man said.

No Catholic ought be trou­bled by this. Even Fr. Z says that we must read the Abu Dhabi state­ment in light of the dis­tinc­tion I made in my lead:

When we speak of God’s will we make dis­tinc­tions. God has an ‘active or pos­i­tive will’ and a “per­mis­sive will”. God’s ‘active will’ con­cerns that which is good, true and beau­ti­ful. On the oth­er hand, God has a ‘per­mis­sive will’ by which He allows that things will take place that are not in accord with the order He estab­lished.

That’s Fr. Z, dear read­er. And back on March 8, Bish­op Athana­sius Schnei­der, beloved of Faith­ful­Catholics™, said that Pope Fran­cis had clar­i­fied. Let’s lis­ten to what the man said. The man said that the ref­er­ence was to God’s per­mis­sive will. “The bish­op told Life­Site­News that he had a direct exchange with Pope Fran­cis.”

(Oh, he said this to Fake Site, did he? Indeed he did. Fake Site trum­pet­ed it as a “win.”)

“You can say,” the pope said, “that the phrase in ques­tion on the diver­si­ty of reli­gions means the per­mis­sive will of God.”

That’s what the man said.

But no mat­ter what the man said then, Bish­op Schnei­der tells Fake Site News now that Pope Fran­cis needs to clar­i­fy. (Well, he’s not say­ing “clar­i­fy” this time; he’s say­ing “cor­rect.”) The pope needs to cor­rect the state­ment, because it rep­re­sents “anoth­er gospel.” And if any­one preach­es to you anoth­er gospel, let him be accursed! Schnei­der says this about the pope.

But wait. I thought Pope Fran­cis had clar­i­fied. If the pope has clar­i­fied, if he has said the ref­er­ence is to God’s per­mis­sive will, what does he need to cor­rect? Can some­one explain? Can some­one clar­i­fy this? Any­one? Buehler?

And Fake Site, in this arti­cle by heresy accuser Pao­lo Pasqualuc­ci, says that the bish­op’s new words “lend weight to heresy accu­sa­tions.” Accord­ing to this arti­cle, the pope’s clar­i­fi­ca­tion actu­al­ly con­tra­dicts the Abu Dhabi state­ment.

So let me see if I under­stand all this. Schnei­der asks Fran­cis to clar­i­fy the words at Abu Dhabi about God’s will. The pope says: Sure thing, Athana­sius. I’m always here to clar­i­fy. This doc­u­ment means God’s per­mis­sive will. Athana­sius says this to Fake Site, and they in turn char­ac­ter­ize it as a “win.” But now, the clar­i­fi­ca­tion is not enough, because it some­how con­tra­dicts Abu Dhabi, and we’re back to Pope Fran­cis preach­ing anoth­er gospel. We need a cor­rec­tion now!

So what we have here—do I under­stand this right?—is a case where no clar­i­fi­ca­tion could pos­si­bly be enough because Schnei­der has already decid­ed before any of it that the doc­u­ment is hereti­cal. If Pope Fran­cis says, “No, I meant this,” Schnei­der just says, “Oh, then it’s a con­tra­dic­tion.” [Edit­ed to add: A read­er points out that Pope Fran­cis has already clar­i­fied all this pub­licly.]

This is why, dear read­er, I insist that the dubia are a ruse. If Pope Fran­cis were to answer the dubia, if he were to clar­i­fy, Burke and com­pa­ny could just say, “Oh, then you’re con­tra­dict­ing your­self.” Because they’ve already decid­ed Amor­is Laeti­tia is heresy, and no clar­i­fi­ca­tion, not even from the pope him­self, could pos­si­bly change their mind on that.

So when it comes to schism, peo­ple will find a way to go, no mat­ter what the man says.