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

efore I take up the fourth charge of heresy against Amor­is Laeti­tia, as fan­ta­sized by the so-called “fil­ial cor­rec­tion,” you may be say­ing: “But Alt! Is there any­where in Amor­is Laeti­tia in which Pope Fran­cis does address the sit­u­a­tion of cou­ples, in an irreg­u­lar mar­riage, who do have “full knowl­edge” and do “vol­un­tar­i­ly choose” to break the Church’s moral teach­ing? I’m so glad you asked; for, in fact, there is. It is in §297:

Nat­u­ral­ly, if some­one flaunts an objec­tive sin as if it were part of the Chris­t­ian ide­al, or wants to impose some­thing oth­er than what the Church teach­es, he or she can in no way pre­sume to teach or preach to oth­ers; this is a case of some­thing which sep­a­rates from the com­mu­ni­ty (cf. Mt 18:17). Such a per­son needs to lis­ten once more to the Gospel mes­sage and its call to con­ver­sion.

Now, these are strong words. Far from say­ing that those who “vol­un­tar­ly choose” to break the moral law are not in mor­tal sin and may even grow in sanc­ti­fy­ing grace (which The Cor­rec­tors false­ly claim), Pope Fran­cis says that such peo­ple are “separate[d] from the com­mu­ni­ty,” and that they are oblig­at­ed to “lis­ten … to the Gospel mes­sage.” They are “call[ed] to con­ver­sion.”

Now, when The Cor­rec­tors quote from §297, do they men­tion any of this? They don’t. Instead, they quote a sin­gle sen­tence, about how the “log­ic of the Gospel” is that no one can be “con­demned for­ev­er.” But they neglect to men­tion the very sen­tence that refutes at least two of their charges of heresy. The Cor­rec­tors cher­ry-pick from the text, and read into the text, but do not deal hon­est­ly with what the text actu­al­ly says.

I am most unim­pressed.

“But Alt!” you will say. “Pope Fran­cis goes on to say that even such peo­ple who do “vol­un­tar­i­ly choose” may still ‘take part in the life of the com­mu­ni­ty.’ If you’re going to charge The Cor­rec­tors with leav­ing impor­tant things out, don’t you leave impor­tant things out!”

I’m glad you men­tioned it. The pope does say this. But let us be care­ful to spec­i­fy the ways in which he pro­pos­es they may “take part.” They can engage in “social ser­vice.” They can go to “prayer meet­ings.” The pope says noth­ing about them receiv­ing Holy Com­mu­nion.

I’m glad you men­tioned it.

And now I move on to the fourth charge of heresy: “A per­son is able, while he obeys a divine pro­hi­bi­tion, to sin against God by that very act of obe­di­ence.

The part in bold is impor­tant. The Cor­rec­tors are say­ing that, accord­ing to Amor­is Laeti­tia, it is the act of obe­di­ence to the divine pro­hi­bi­tion itself that is a sin against God.

Now, it so hap­pens that in this case I know exact­ly what part of AL The Cor­rec­tors are refer­ring to. In §298 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.”

Now, what this does not say is that the “going back” itself would be a sin. (N.B., I under­stand “going back” to mean leav­ing the mar­riage, not specif­i­cal­ly ceas­ing sex­u­al rela­tions.) In this case, one could be guilty of the sin of aban­don­ing one’s chil­dren. By doing the one, you must do the oth­er. It is not the one that is the sin, but the oth­er.

So §298 sim­ply does not say that one sins by the very act of obey­ing a divine pro­hi­bi­tion. It is not aban­don­ing an irreg­u­lar mar­riage that is the sin, but aban­don­ing one’s chil­dren.

St. John Paul II had already rec­og­nized that as a legit­i­mate rea­son to not aban­don an irreg­u­lar mar­riage. That’s in Famil­iaris Con­sor­tio 84.

Now, in foot­note 329, Pope Fran­cis also adds that some cou­ples, who are aware of the pos­si­bil­i­ty of liv­ing togeth­er con­ti­nent­ly, object that “if cer­tain expres­sions of inti­ma­cy are lack­ing it often hap­pens that faith­ful­ness is endan­gered and the good of the chil­dren suf­fers.”

I sup­pose it’s open to inter­pre­ta­tion what the pope means by “cer­tain expres­sions of inti­ma­cy” which are “lack­ing.” But let us assume he means con­ti­nence. It does­n’t take much of an imag­i­na­tion to sup­pose that, cut off from sex­u­al rela­tions with one’s spouse, one may engage in some mas­tur­ba­tion, or sex­u­al rela­tions with anoth­er per­son. Both of those things are sins. In these cas­es, it is not the con­ti­nence with­in the irreg­u­lar mar­riage that is itself sin­ful, but the mas­tur­ba­tion, or the for­ni­ca­tion.

Now, this does not mean that con­ti­nence ought not to be an option. Here I mean only to point out that the pope does not say, as The Cor­rec­tors allege, that obe­di­ence to a pro­hi­bi­tion is itself sin­ful.

The Cor­rec­tors have much work to do if they want to dis­cov­er a heresy that Amor­is Laeti­tia real­ly does teach. So far they are 0 for 4.