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

he “fil­ial cor­rec­tion” of Pope Francis—the work, says the Nation­al Catholic Reporter, of “a few dozen Catholics”; a “mar­gin­al fringe” of “main­ly obscure fig­ures” (like Dr. Cristi­na Sic­car­di, a “his­to­ri­an of the Church”)—claims to find sev­en here­sies in Amor­is Laeti­tia. I refut­ed the first sup­posed heresy here, and now move on to the sec­ond:

Chris­tians who have obtained a civ­il divorce from the spouse to whom they are valid­ly mar­ried and have con­tract­ed a civ­il mar­riage with some oth­er per­son dur­ing the life­time of their spouse, who live more uxo­rio [i.e., engag­ing in sex­u­al rela­tions] with their civ­il part­ner, and who choose to remain in this state with full knowl­edge of the nature of their act and full con­sent of the will to that act, are not nec­es­sar­i­ly in a state of mor­tal sin, and can receive sanc­ti­fy­ing grace and grow in char­i­ty.

The pas­sage in Amor­is Laeti­tia in which The Cor­rec­tors seem to dis­cov­er this heresy is §301. (They don’t say, specif­i­cal­ly, where they find it, so I am left to guess.)

It … can no longer sim­ply be said that all those in any “irreg­u­lar” sit­u­a­tion are liv­ing in a state of mor­tal sin and are deprived of sanc­ti­fy­ing grace. More is involved here than mere igno­rance of the rule. A sub­ject may know full well the rule, yet have great dif­fi­cul­ty in under­stand­ing “its inher­ent val­ues, or be in a con­crete sit­u­a­tion which does not allow him or her to act dif­fer­ent­ly and decide oth­er­wise with­out fur­ther sin.”

Now, the first thing to notice here is that §301 does not say any­thing about cou­ples who choose to remain an irreg­u­lar union “with full knowl­edge of the nature of their act and full con­sent of the will to that act.” It does not say that those peo­ple are not in mor­tal sin; it does not say that those peo­ple have sanc­ti­fy­ing grace. The text Does. Not. Say. That. That is an addi­tion from The Cor­rec­tors. That is a sup­po­si­tion they read into the text, but which the text itself does not sup­port.

Sec­ond point. The Cor­rec­tors leave out a great deal of §301 when they quote from it. Take, for exam­ple, the sen­tence which comes imme­di­ate­ly before what I quot­ed above. “The Church,” says Pope Fran­cis, “pos­sess­es a sol­id body of reflec­tion con­cern­ing mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors and sit­u­a­tions.” This sen­tence does not appear in the “fil­ial cor­rec­tion.” How very odd that is.

So the whole con­text of §301 is direct­ed toward sit­u­a­tions where “full knowl­edge” or “full con­sent of the will” are not present. In those sit­u­a­tions, there is no mor­tal sin. In those sit­u­a­tions, there is sanc­ti­fy­ing grace.

Well, this is noth­ing more shock­ing than what the Church has been telling us lo these many cen­turies.

A par­tic­u­lar indi­vid­ual, says the pope, may “be in a con­crete sit­u­a­tion which does not allow him or her to act dif­fer­ent­ly and decide oth­er­wise with­out fur­ther sin.” That’s not “full con­sent of the will.” Or, “fac­tors may exist which lim­it the abil­i­ty to make a deci­sion.” That’s not “full con­sent of the will.”

The Cor­rec­tors are being dis­hon­est when they claim that Amor­is Laeti­tia sup­pos­es an absence of mor­tal sin and pres­ence of sanc­ti­fy­ing grace in sit­u­a­tions where there is full knowl­edge and full con­sent of the will. The text actu­al­ly says the oppo­site. Mor­tal sin is absent and sanc­ti­fy­ing grace present when there are fac­tors that impair “full con­sent of the will.”

The point Pope Fran­cis is mak­ing in §301 is sim­ply this: One can­not pre­sume that mor­tal sin is present in all irreg­u­lar unions. Per­haps it is in some, but per­haps it is not in oth­ers; and if it is not, then, in those cas­es, there is sanc­ti­fy­ing grace. The pope, how­ev­er, does not say that, even if there be full knowl­edge and full con­sent of the will, there is sanc­ti­fy­ing grace. That’s just not in the text.

Or, do The Cor­rec­tors find this heresy in §305?

Because of forms of con­di­tion­ing and mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors, it is pos­si­ble that in an objec­tive sit­u­a­tion of sin—which may not be sub­jec­tive­ly cul­pa­ble, or ful­ly such—a per­son can be liv­ing in God’s grace, can love and can also grow in the life of grace and char­i­ty, while receiv­ing the Church’s help to this end.

Oh, no. The pope men­tions “mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors,” so he can’t mean “full knowl­edge” or “full con­sent of the will” here either. He’s talk­ing about objec­tive sin but not sub­jec­tive cul­pa­bil­i­ty.

The Cor­rec­tors just don’t read very well, do they?