Steve Skojec says Amoris Laetitia 298 condones adultery. Steve Skojec is wrong.

eople send me links many a time and oft. “Did you see this?? they cry. I don’t seek out these things any­more. But Steve Sko­jec at 1 Vad­er 5, who has now resort­ed to post­ing screen­shots from Face­book for the gen­er­al ridicule, makes the claim (you can find it here if you are free from GERD) that Pope Fran­cis con­dones adul­tery in Amor­is Laeti­tia. “He does!” Mr. Sko­jec says with the incor­rectible con­fi­dence he alone pos­sess­es. “Para­graph 298!” (Okay, the excla­ma­tion points are my own.)

Let us check, then. Here is what AL 298 says:

The divorced who have entered a new union, for exam­ple, can find them­selves in a vari­ety of sit­u­a­tions, which should not be pigeon­holed or fit into over­ly rigid clas­si­fi­ca­tions leav­ing no room for a suit­able per­son­al and pas­toral dis­cern­ment. One thing is a sec­ond union con­sol­i­dat­ed over time, with new chil­dren, proven fideli­ty, gen­er­ous self giv­ing, Chris­t­ian com­mit­ment, a con­scious­ness of its irreg­u­lar­i­ty and of the great dif­fi­cul­ty of going back with­out feel­ing in con­science that one would fall into new sins.

[And what are these “new sins”?]

The Church acknowl­edges sit­u­a­tions “where, for seri­ous rea­sons, such as the children’s upbring­ing, a man and woman can­not sat­is­fy the oblig­a­tion to sep­a­rate.”

[Yes. Aban­don­ing your chil­dren would count as a “new sin”.]

There are also the cas­es of those who made every effort to save their first mar­riage and were unjust­ly aban­doned, or of “those who have entered into a sec­ond union for the sake of the children’s upbring­ing, and are some­times sub­jec­tive­ly cer­tain in con­science that their pre­vi­ous and irrepara­bly bro­ken mar­riage had nev­er been valid”. Anoth­er thing is a new union aris­ing from a recent divorce, with all the suf­fer­ing and con­fu­sion which this entails for chil­dren and entire fam­i­lies, or the case of some­one who has con­sis­tent­ly failed in his oblig­a­tions to the fam­i­ly. It must remain clear that this is not the ide­al which the Gospel pro­pos­es for mar­riage and the fam­i­ly. The Syn­od Fathers stat­ed that the dis­cern­ment of pas­tors must always take place “by ade­quate­ly dis­tin­guish­ing,” with an approach which “care­ful­ly dis­cerns sit­u­a­tions”. We know that no “easy recipes” exist.

That is the full text; I did not leave any­thing out. Now, the first pas­sage I set out in bold­face is the one from which (I think) Mr. Sko­jec gets the idea that Pope Fran­cis con­dones adul­tery. At least, I can’t think of any oth­er place. The pope says there are sit­u­a­tions in which a cou­ple in a sec­ond, “irreg­u­lar” mar­riage are not able to sep­a­rate. They show “Chris­t­ian com­mit­ment” and “fideli­ty.” This must be the part of §298 Mr. Sko­jec has in mind; for the rest of the para­graph does noth­ing more than set out a few exam­ples of why a sec­ond mar­riage may have occurred, affirm that it is not “what the Gospel pro­pos­es,” and insist that pas­tors must dis­cern cas­es.

And what is inter­est­ing, at least to me—I make no claim as to how inter­est­ing it will be to those who get all their infor­ma­tion about Amor­is Laeti­tia sec­ond­hand on social media; or from Fox and CNN; or the New York Times—is that Pope Fran­cis includes a foot­note to the text I put in bold­face. Mr. Sko­jec does not men­tion this. The foot­note (it is #329) directs us to Famil­iaris Con­sor­tio 84. FC was, like Amor­is, a post-syn­odal apos­tolic exhor­ta­tion on the fam­i­ly. (Find it here.) Pope St. John Paul II called togeth­er a syn­od on the fam­i­ly too. Famil­iaris Con­sor­tio is also a long doc­u­ment. Inter­est­ing. I thought only Pope Fran­cis called togeth­er these crazy syn­ods to exam­ine set­tled teach­ing. Only Pope Fran­cis writes long doc­u­ments and baf­fles us with an ocean of words.

Any­way, if you go to §84, this is what you will read:

Pas­tors must know that, for the sake of truth, they are oblig­ed to exer­cise care­ful dis­cern­ment of sit­u­a­tions. There is in fact a dif­fer­ence between those who have sin­cere­ly tried to save their first mar­riage and have been unjust­ly aban­doned, and those who through their own grave fault have destroyed a canon­i­cal­ly valid mar­riage. Final­ly, there are those who have entered into a sec­ond union for the sake of the chil­dren’s upbring­ing, and who are some­times sub­jec­tive­ly cer­tain in con­science that their pre­vi­ous and irrepara­bly destroyed mar­riage had nev­er been valid.

It is John Paul II who said this. Did you know that? And here, for two years, the Rads and the Trads have told us that these are Bergoglian and Kasperite nov­el­ties. They will sure­ly bring on the Rem­nant Church!

Back to Famil­iaris:

Togeth­er with the Syn­od, I earnest­ly call upon pas­tors and the whole com­mu­ni­ty of the faith­ful to help the divorced, and with solic­i­tous care to make sure that they do not con­sid­er them­selves as sep­a­rat­ed from the Church [“They are not excom­mu­ni­cat­ed,” said Pope Fran­cis in anoth­er dan­ger­ous nov­el­ty of his], for as bap­tized per­sons they can, and indeed must, share in her life. They should be encour­aged to lis­ten to the word of God, to attend the Sac­ri­fice of the Mass, to per­se­vere in prayer, to con­tribute to works of char­i­ty and to com­mu­ni­ty efforts in favor of jus­tice, to bring up their chil­dren in the Chris­t­ian faith, to cul­ti­vate the spir­it and prac­tice of penance and thus implore, day by day, God’s grace. Let the Church pray for them, encour­age them and show her­self a mer­ci­ful moth­er, and thus sus­tain them in faith and hope.

[…]

Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion in the sacra­ment of Penance which would open the way to the Eucharist, can only be grant­ed to those who, repent­ing of hav­ing bro­ken the sign of the Covenant and of fideli­ty to Christ, are sin­cere­ly ready to under­take a way of life that is no longer in con­tra­dic­tion to the indis­sol­u­bil­i­ty of mar­riage. This means, in prac­tice, that when, for seri­ous rea­sons, such as for exam­ple the chil­dren’s upbring­ing, a man and a woman can­not sat­is­fy the oblig­a­tion to sep­a­rate, they “take on them­selves the duty to live in com­plete con­ti­nence, that is, by absti­nence from the acts prop­er to mar­ried cou­ples.

So Amor­is Laeti­tia 298 is doing noth­ing more than quot­ing Famil­iaris Con­sor­tio 84. If Mr. Sko­jec wants to tell us that Pope Fran­cis con­dones adul­tery, then he will have to tell us that Pope St. John Paul II con­doned it as well.

But! some­one will say to me, John Paul II express­ly said that such cou­ples must prac­tice celiba­cy!

Oh? So does Pope Fran­cis. Here is the pope in foot­note 329, which Mr. Sko­jec does not men­tion:

In such sit­u­a­tions [i.e., irreg­u­lar mar­riages], many peo­ple, know­ing and accept­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of liv­ing “as broth­ers and sis­ters” which the Church offers them, point out that if cer­tain expres­sions of inti­ma­cy are lack­ing, “it often hap­pens that faith­ful­ness is endan­gered and the good of the chil­dren suf­fers.

Yes, Mr. Sko­jec. Pope Fran­cis says that those in an irreg­u­lar mar­riage must live togeth­er celi­bate­ly if, for the sake of their chil­dren, they can­not sep­a­rate.

It is a mat­ter of won­der to me that those who put a great deal of weight on foot­note 351 some­how miss foot­note 329.