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PopeWatch: AMORIS LÆTITIA -The Orthodox Reading

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Sandro Magister at his blog Chiesa has an article by Dominican theologian Angelo Bellon as to the correct way of reading AMORIS LÆTITIA:

 

 

Instructions for reading the post-synodal exhortation “Amoris Lætitia”

by Angelo Bellon, O.P.

In the exhortatiton “Amoris Lætitia,” the most controversial question is the one concerning communion for the divorced and remarried, which however is never expressly mentioned.

It must be noted that above all in the eighth chapter the language is at times very indefinite and can lend itself to conclusions that are not only different but even conflicting.

So then, precisely with regard to this chapter I would like to present a few general reflections and then take into consideration the most controversial expressions.


GENERAL CRITERIA OF INTERPRETATION

1. The first criterion of interpretation is that of the context in which the exhortation must be read in order to avoid distorting it.

This context was provided by John Paul II in the encyclical “Veritatis Splendor,” in particular at footnote 100:

“The development of the Church’s moral doctrine is similar to that of the doctrine of the faith. The words spoken by John XXIII at the opening of the Second Vatican Council can also be applied to moral doctrine: ‘This certain and unchanging teaching (i.e., Christian doctrine in its completeness), to which the faithful owe obedience, needs to be more deeply understood and set forth in a way adapted to the needs of our time. Indeed, this deposit of the faith, the truths contained in our time-honored teaching, is one thing; the manner in which these truths are set forth (with their meaning preserved intact) is something else’.”

So the hermeneutical principle of interpretation is found here: the documents of the magisterium, including those on moral issues, must be interpreted according to the hermeneutic of continuity and development. And certainly not according to the hermeneutic of discontinuity, rupture, or transformation with respect to the perennial magisterium.

The progress of the moral doctrine of the Church takes place under the action of the Holy Spirit that gradually leads to the knowledge of the whole truth, without ever contradicting or denying the previous magisterium.

So this is a homogeneous and not a dialectical progress.

2. Having presented this fundamental premise, “Amoris Lætitia” must be read in the light of the previous magisterium, because it continues and explores this, as the exhortation itself says repeatedly, as for example when it says at no. 79:

“Therefore, while clearly stating the Church’s teaching, pastors are to avoid judgements that do not take into account the complexity of various situations, and they are to be attentive, by necessity, to how people experience and endure distress because of their condition.”

Since it is above all the eighth chapter of the exhortation that has been interpreted in the most disparate and contradictory ways, it is necessary to say that the exact interpretation, the one indicated by the magisterium, is the one given “in meliorem partem,” if it can be put this way, meaning in the line of continuity.

Moreover, it is only this interpretation that can make the text understood without ambiguities and without contradictions.

3. So while the interpretation “in meliorem partem” does not run up against objections that would block its way, the one given “in peiorem partem,” meaning according to the hermeneutic of rupture, instead leads nowhere, instead running up against a myriad of statements by the magisterium and showing itself to be inconclusive and mistaken.

THE CORRECT INTERPRETATION OF A FEW STATEMENTS OF “AMORIS LÆTITIA”

1. No. 302 of the exhortation recalls a great variety of reasons to be taken into account in the evaluation of individual cases:

“The Catechism of the Catholic Church clearly mentions these factors: ‘imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors’ (no. 1735). In another paragraph, the Catechism refers once again to circumstances which mitigate moral responsibility, and mentions at length ‘affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen or even extenuate moral culpability.’ (no. 2352) For this reason, a negative judgment about an objective situation does not imply a judgment about the imputability or culpability of the person involved (Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, Declaration Concerning the Admission to Holy Communion of Faithful Who are Divorced and Remarried (24 June 2000).”

So then, those listed are all reasons why an ecclesiastical tribunal can give and in fact already gives a sentence of nullity of the marriage contracted.

In order to prevent it being said in a Christian community that one divorced and remarried person has been given absolution and another has not, the best thing is to proceed methodically, which means asking for a sentence of nullity of the marriage and possibly healing at its root the union contracted civilly.

This is the first way suggested by Pope Francis with the reform of the procedure in marriage cases. Even more, he himself has asked that the sentence be given within a year, without bureaucratic delays. This is the most orderly and sure way.

On the contrary, leaving everything to the not always enlightened evaluation of the parish priest or confessor can lead to uncertainty and can cause confusion and discontent in the communities. It could easily be argued: why one yes and another no?

2. At no. 299 it says:

“The baptized who are divorced and civilly remarried need to be more fully integrated into Christian communities in the variety of ways possible, while avoiding any occasion of scandal.”

This too must always be taken into account. In the event that the priest should give absolution to a divorced and remarried person or to a cohabiting person, it is necessary to recall that one can receive holy communion only where one is not known as remarried or cohabiting. Otherwise it would generate scandal among the faithful.

The declaration of the pontifical council for legislative texts of July 7, 2000 on the admissibility of the divorced and remarried to holy communion in fact says:

“Those faithful who are divorced and remarried would not be considered to be within the situation of serious habitual sin who would not be able, for serious motives – such as, for example, the upbringing of the children – ‘to satisfy the obligation of separation, assuming the task of living in full continence, that is, abstaining from the acts proper to spouses’ (Familiaris Consortio, n. 84), and who on the basis of that intention have received the sacrament of Penance. Given that the fact that these faithful are not living ‘more uxorio’ is per se occult, while their condition as persons who are divorced and remarried is per se manifest, they will be able to receive Eucharistic Communion only ‘remoto scandalo’.”

“Remoto scandalo” means that communion can be received privately or where one is not known as divorced and remarried or cohabiting, to keep from causing judgment, confusion, distress, and scandal among the faithful.

3. This is also the perspective for understanding what is written at no. 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. Discernment must help to find possible ways of responding to God and growing in the midst of limits.”

Here the exhortation implicitly reiterates that in order to receive holy communion it is necessary to be in the grace of God.

This is not a human but a divine norm, as Sacred Scripture recalls: “Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let each one therefore examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment upon himself. That is why there are many sick among you, and a good number have died” (1 Cor 11:27-30).

4. Then there is what is written in footnote 351, regarding the “help of the Church” for those living in grace in spite of being “in an objective situation of sin”:

“In certain cases, this can include the help of the sacraments. Hence, ‘I want to remind priests that the confessional must not be a torture chamber, but rather an encounter with the Lord’s mercy’ (Evangelii Gaudium, 44). I would also point out that the Eucharist ‘is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak’ (EG 47).”

Here the pope does not say “tout court” that holy communion should be given to the divorced and remarried.

He provides that those who have repented and are living in grace, meaning without adulterous relations or fornication, may receive absolution and may participate in the Eucharist, even receiving holy communion, always ‘remoto scandalo.’

5. Also when the pope says that the Eucharist “is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak,” he is affirming something profoundly true. Precisely because we are all weak, even if we are living in the grace of God we need to strengthen ourselves with this Bread in order to sustain ourselves in the journey toward Heaven.

But it is still true that one who is spiritually dead, because he is in mortal sin, before nourishing himself in a salutary manner with this food needs to be resuscitated and regain the supernatural life through confession, which the holy Fathers of the Church define as a second baptism.

Therefore the proper sacrament for one who is spiritually dead is confession. Otherwise what Sacred Scripture has said comes true: “Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord” (1 Cor 11:27).

This is why John Paul II said in the encyclical “Ecclesia de Eucharistia,” at no. 36:

“The Apostle Paul appeals to this duty when he warns: ‘Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup’ (1 Cor 11:28). Saint John Chrysostom, with his stirring eloquence, exhorted the faithful: ‘I too raise my voice, I beseech, beg and implore that no one draw near to this sacred table with a sullied and corrupt conscience. Such an act, in fact, can never be called communion, not even were we to touch the Lord’s body a thousand times over, but condemnation, torment and increase of punishment.’ Along these same lines, the Catechism of the Catholic Church rightly stipulates that ‘anyone conscious of a grave sin must receive the sacrament of Reconciliation before coming to communion.’ I therefore desire to reaffirm that in the Church there remains in force, now and in the future, the rule by which the Council of Trent gave concrete expression to the Apostle Paul’s stern warning when it affirmed that, in order to receive the Eucharist in a worthy manner, ‘one must first confess one’s sins, when one is aware of mortal sin’.”

Go here to read the rest.  PopeWatch appreciates this strenuous attempt to give an orthodox interpretation to the Pope’s manifestly unorthodox Exhortation.  However, simple intellectual honesty should cause us to reject attempts to argue that what is written in AMORIS LÆTITIA does not mean precisely what it says.  When we begin saying that an interpretation can override the clear meaning of words, we bid farewell not only to honesty but rationality.

 

 

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bill bannon
bill bannon
Friday, May 6, AD 2016 6:17am

Exactly to your last comment. I’d add that Fr. Bellon would need to do a similar intricate tango to get Pius XII and predecessors on the death penalty as being continuous with ccc 2267 ( prisons are inescapable now in Europe only …so execution is rarely necessary all over the globe…lol ). And once he did, Fr. Bellon would have to face the pastoral result….three Popes asking for death penalty abolishment in the media outlets …which contradicts their own faulty ccc 2267 which allows for rare necessity of execution. So Fr. would have three contradictions to mold in order to get them to look continuous. Has Catholic apologetics become salesmanship whenever continuity is the a priori goal of a peace making explanation. It sounds like sales. Cardinal Newman saw an actual regression in the 4th century…not an illusory misunderstanding. Does Fr. Bellon accept that regressions can happen in non infallible venues? Or does he think all documents are furtively infallible…so he must harmonize them?

Murray
Murray
Friday, May 6, AD 2016 8:25am

Taken together with Mueller, Burke, Schneider, and Brandmuller, this is beginning to look like a concerted effort to smoke out the Holy Father, Vatican-style. The more clerics come forward to insist on an orthodox reading of AL that dispels its ambiguities, the greater the pressure for the pope to come forward to either affirm or deny their interpretation. Will it work? Given that at lest two or three of these men are betes noir of the current leadership claque, the odds are pretty good. Let’s see how this plays out.

Guy McClung
Admin
Saturday, May 7, AD 2016 7:28am

There is another “most controversial” question. No 297 of AL says “Here I am not speaking only of the divorced and remarried, but of everyone in whatever situation they find themselves.” Jorge Bergoglio has proclaimed as a new universal teaching – a la calling Arius’s proclamations Arianism – Bergogliansm – that “The way of the Church is not to condemn anyone for ever” (No. 296) and the words are there in AL , crystal clear, that he, and those supporting him, mean for this to apply to anything and everything. AL is the nose, or rear end, of the Bergoglian camel under the tent. Guy McClung, San Antonio, Texas

Mary De Voe
Saturday, May 7, AD 2016 9:38am

It appears that Jorge Bergoglio is throwing the saints in heaven under the bus.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Saturday, May 7, AD 2016 12:21pm

Or maybe Guy it just means that because God created us with the freedom to love Him or to reject Him by loving our sins more, it’s not the Church that condemns us forever but ourselves.

Mary
Mary
Sunday, May 8, AD 2016 2:27am

A statement by the Congregation of the Faith was just released that said in a strong affirmative manner that any divorced-remarried Catholic cannot go to communion. End of story.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_14091994_rec-holy-comm-by-divorced_en.html

This dovument gives full theological statment.

Barbara Gordon
Barbara Gordon
Sunday, May 8, AD 2016 6:20pm

“It appears that Jorge Bergoglio is throwing the saints in heaven under the bus.”

Along with the would be saints here on Earth. *tears*

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