ive The Correctors credit for consistency. Thus far, as I have examined their seven charges of heresy (which they style a “filial correction”) aimed at Amoris Laetitia, they have been batting a consistent .000. My review of this hitless streak begins here. But perhaps they can achieve a bunt single with their sixth effort? Maybe ye olde Texas leaguer, or Baltimore chop? Let us check.
Here is the sixth heresy The Correctors claim to find in the text:
Moral principles and moral truths contained in divine revelation and in the natural law do not include negative prohibitions that absolutely forbid particular kinds of action, inasmuch as these are always gravely unlawful on account of their object.
Hmm. Now, as I noted earlier in this series, it is a continual problem to try to figure out where, specifically, in the text of Amoris Laetitia The Correctors think we are to find any one particular heresy. They do quote a series of passages, as a man hungry to find heresy might pick cherries, but they never draw a connection between, say, section x and heresy y. It’s very sloppy work they do, I am here to tell you. So one must scroll back and read the entire set of excerpts and ask: Where in God’s green earth are they getting this? It’s all guesswork.
For example, do they find this denial of negative prohibitions, which are always gravely sinful, in §300? There, the pope simply says that subjective culpability is not always the same from case to case. This is a commonplace of Catholic moral thinking, and has nothing to do with whether or not some actions are always gravely sinful, or whether the moral law contains negative prohibitions.
Or do they find it in §304, where the pope quotes St. Thomas Aquinas to the effect that “defects” are found in all “general principles” when we “descend to matters of detail.” “It is true,” the pope says, “that general rules set forth a good which can never be disregarded or neglected, but in their formulation they cannot provide absolutely for all particular situations.”
Well, let’s look at this. In the first part of that sentence, the pope in fact affirms that “general rules … can never be disregarded or neglected.” So assuming that by “general rules,” the pope means “the moral law,” and assuming further that he means “negative prohibitions,” he says that they can “never” be neglected. So that would immediately preclude The Correctors’ charge that the pope denies such proscriptions to always be gravely sinful.
But in the larger context, the pope observes (and this part of §304 is left out by The Correctors): “It is reductive simply to consider whether or not an individual’s actions correspond to a general law or rule.”
“To simply consider”: This part means that, if we know no more than that Person X has remarried Person Y without an annulment, we don’t know everything we need to know. We can’t simply say, on that one fact alone, “mortal sin.” It is not discernment to turn the moral law into a mere checklist of rules. There is more to it than that.
But to observe this does not imply the pope thinks negative prohibitions don’t exist, or that he thinks there’s no such thing as actions that always constitute grave matter. In §297 he speaks of the existence of “objective sin.” In §303 he says that irregular unions are “objectively” contrary to Catholic teaching on marriage. In §305 he speaks of the existence of “an objective situation of sin.”
So the pope certainly believes some things—perhaps even many things—constitute “objective” sin. But his objective here is to get us to reflect on subjective degrees of culpability that mitigate guilt.
So I can’t find this supposed heresy in the passages The Correctors quote; but I did a little due diligence and searched the whole text of Amoris Laetitia for the words “negative” and “prohibition.” And what I found—well, let me tell you what I didn’t find. Far from the pope denying that “negative prohibitions” exist, I found that the pope does not discuss the subject one way or the other, unless you count the phrase “objective sin”; and if you count that phrase, you run smack into numerous passages in which the pope says that objective sin most certainly exists.
What I did find in my search, however, was that in §302, in a passage not quoted by The Correctors, the pope says: “[A] negative judgment about an objective situation does not imply a judgment about the imputability or culpability of the person involved.”
And this is most inconvenient to The Correctors, since we find two things here. First, we find that the pope once again states that “objective situation[s of sin]” do exist, and that we can render a judgment on that much. And second, we find that the context in which the pope brings up these observations, in this section of Amoris Laetitia is to reflect upon the question of subjective culpability, nor the question of objectively grave acts that are always wrong.
It is certainly true that the moral law is not a mere list of negative prohibitions, and that if you think that way, your moral understanding is gravely impaired. The moral law, in its essence, is a positive good to which everyone is called, not just a series of “don’ts.” If the pope is found to have said something like that, he speaks truly.
But that is not the same thing as saying that negative prohibitions do not exist. And I don’t find, anywhere in the text, where the pope said anything approaching this.
The Correctors are 0 for 6.
And then there was one.
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