The Dispatch: More from CWR...

The refined, problematic casuistry of Abp. Fernández’s defense of chapter 8 of “Amoris Laetitia”

Archbishop Fernández’s essay on the controversial eighth chapter of Amoris Laetitia attempted to dispel doubts about that papal document’s orthodoxy, but has only raised more questions and created further confusion.

Archbishop Victor Fernandez, who has been archbishop of La Plata, Argentina since 2018, talks with Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro, editor of La Civilta Cattolica, as they leave a session of the Synod of Bishops on the family at the Vatican Oct. 14, 2015. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

Editor’s note: This essay was originally published on September 11, 2017, the second of two essays by Fr. Twomey on Amoris Laetitia. The first article, Amoris Laetitia and the chasm in modern moral theology,” was posted on September 1, 2017. This essay is being posted again because of Archbishop Fernández’s recent appointment, by Pope Francis, as Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (a post he will assume in mid-September 2023) and because of questions about Archbishop Fernández’s approach to various moral issues.

——————

Recently, Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernández published an article in Medelin, the theological periodical of the Latin-American Bishops’ Conference. It is entitled: “Chapter VIII of Amoris Laetitia: What is left after the storm” (translated into English by Andrew Guernsey) It is a long, rather diffuse commentary on the Pope Francis’s Letter to the Bishops of the Region of Buenos Aires approving their interpretation of the Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia. The letter itself was only recently put up on the Vatican website. The author is the titular Archbishop and Rector of the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina. He is known to be a confidant of Pope Francis, and may indeed have been the ghostwriter of the Exhortation or part of it. For this reason alone, his essay deserves serious attention.

What is most striking about the essay is its methodology. It is, on the one hand, an attempt to prove the orthodoxy of what Archbishop Fernández claims to be the “novelty” of Amoris Laetitia Chapter 8 by showing how it fits into the pattern of former changes in Church teaching and discipline, such as happened to St Cyprian’s soundbite, “no salvation outside the Church”, or to the right to religious freedom. Even more striking is the number of times Archbishop Fernández attempts to show different nuances in sayings of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, whose orthodoxy is above reproach, to bolster his cause. This would seem to be an implicit admission that the orthodoxy of Pope Francis is not evident.

The trouble with the Archbishop’s examples of earlier developments in Church teaching/discipline”—”novelties,” in the language of Archbishop Fernández— is that they are treated in an a-historical way; that is, no attention is paid to the changing social and cultural developments that lead, for example, to the changes regarding the teaching on religious freedom (condemned by the Papal Magisterium in the 19th century and embraced by the Second Vatican Council in the 20th century), or the centuries-long theological developments that lead to a new understanding at Vatican II of St Cyprian’s teaching about no salvation outside the Church.

Refined casuistry and questionable circumstances
By way of contrast, the profound moral and sacramental theological issues involved in the Church’s teaching (and corresponding discipline) have been singularly constant since the early Church, even allowing for disciplinary developments over time, such as separation (from bed and board), nullity procedures, etc., all of which were responses to complex pastoral situations while remaining faithful to the teaching of Christ thanks to a more profound theological grasp of the issues involved. None of this, it seems to me, applies to what Archbishop Fernández describes as the “novelty” of Pope Francis.

On the other hand, when the Archbishop comes to deal with the actual content of the Pope’s “novelty”, his methodology is that of the refined casuistry characteristic of the proportionalist school of moral theology. That casuistry can be reduced to the moral principle that hard cases should allow exceptions to the norm. Fernández is an exegete by training, not a moral theologian, but evidently was, as a seminarian, schooled in the post-Vatican II legalistic tradition that became known as proportionalism. The latter was developed in reaction to the legalism of the pre-Vatican II manualist tradition, which tended to rigorism. There is an irony in the fact that both moral-theological traditions echo the casuistic schools of the ancient scribes and Pharisees in their treatment of divorce; neither is rooted in the classical New Testament approach to morality in terms of virtue, developed especially by St Thomas Aquinas and those scholars who have recovered his approach, such as Servais Pinckaers, OP, the principal author of the fundamental theology section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Archbishop Fernández is, in effect, a casuist, the mindset of which is legalistic or rule-based. It is, I suggest, seriously inadequate to the task at hand.

Opening the most controversial section of Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis affirms: “If we consider the immense variety of concrete situations such as those I have mentioned, it is understandable that neither the Synod nor this Exhortation could be expected to provide a new set of general rules, canonical in nature and applicable to all cases (#300).” However, when one reads Archbishop Fernández’s essay, one gets the impression that the Pope has in fact created a new general rule applicable in certain cases. This new rule could be so formulated “someone in an irregular marriage situation may in certain circumstances be admitted to the sacraments though they are living more uxorio in a second union.”

And this is the crux of the matter: under what circumstances?

The Archbishop speaks about the “novelty” of Pope Francis’s teaching, which, it is claimed, “does not imply a rupture, but rather a harmonious development and a creative continuity with regard to the teaching of previous Popes.” This demands a different way of thinking, Fernández claims, about the consequences of the [absolute] norm, namely “discernment with regard to its disciplinary derivations“. Those disciplinary derivations, he claims, hinge on the traditional distinction between objective sin and subjective guilt. Someone cohabiting in a second union who recognizes that this is gravely wrong but is unable to avoid living more uxorio due to his or her circumstances may, after due process of discernment with his or her confessor, be considered to be subjectively without guilt, or at least with diminished guilt, and so can be admitted to the sacraments.

Such would appear, prima facie, to be in fact a novelty in the strict sense of what in the early Church was termed a novum, namely a teaching that contradicts the thrust of traditional teaching. In other words, a heresy. This is because the traditional teaching on those factors that diminish subjective guilt apply to offenses committed in the past. They do not apply in anticipation of doing something in the future that one knows to be objectively wrong. The only way this supposed “novelty” of Pope Francis, if such it is, can be understood is in terms of persons living in an irregular situation having a firm purpose of amendment, as tradition teaches. This is a point I developed in my previous article, leaving aside the question as to where this possibility is realistic (many would say it is not).

And indeed, Fernández seems to affirm this very interpretation when he writes: “Francis recognizes the possibility of proposing perfect continence to the divorced in a new union, but admits that there may be difficulties in practicing it (cf. footnote 329). Footnote 364 gives a place to administering the sacrament of Reconciliation to them even when new falls are foreseeable. There, Francis calls into question priests who ‘demand of penitents a purpose of amendment so lacking in nuance that it causes mercy to be obscured by the pursuit of a supposedly pure justice’ (AL 312). And there he takes up an important statement of St. John Paul II, who held that even the anticipation of a new fall “should not prejudice the authenticity of the resolution” (Letter to Cardinal W. Baum, 03/22/1996, quoted in the footnote).”

A problematic thesis
If he left it at that, it would be fine, but Archbishop Fernández seems to imply more than that that, which makes his thesis problematic.

Fernández quotes Rocco Buttiglione with approval: “Pope Francis sets himself on the ground, not of the justification of the act, but of the subjective attenuating circumstances that diminish the agent’s responsibility. This is precisely the balance of Catholic ethics and distinguishes the realistic ethics of St. John Paul II from the objectivistic ethics of some of Pope Francis’s opponents. … Familiaris Consortio, moreover, when it formulates the rule, does not tell us that it does not tolerate exceptions for a proportionate reason.”

But Pope John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor #56 expressly rules out any such “exceptions for a proportionate reason”!

Without the firm purpose of amendment, the Pope’s new general rule—or novelty—could be seriously misunderstood. One respected blogger accuses Archbishop Fernández of defending adultery. I don’t think that such an accusation is justified. And here I find myself in agreement with the Archbishop that the terms “adultery” and “fornication” should not be used with the abandon practiced by some commentators critical of the Apostolic Exhortation. But both terms refer to gravely serious sins, both are offenses against against chastity and justice, and both are intrinsically evil. And both are trivialized today in our highly promiscuous culture, which culture itself is a factor in marriage breakdown and a mitigating factor at the subjective level. But, nonetheless, those terms cannot be entirely avoided.

(As an aside, it is worth mentioning that one indispensable antidote to this profoundly negative, post-1960s culture is a serious study of Amoris Laetitia, chapters 4 and 5, and the Pope’s rich teaching on love and fertility, the core of the Exhortation; which indeed is, it seems to me, a synthesis and an enrichment of the previous Papal Magisterium.)

From the above, one can see how the ambiguity of Archbishop Fernández’s interpretation of Chapter 8 could be understood to justify the worst fears of the renowned philosopher, Josef Seifert, who claimed recently that Pope Francis in AL #303 in effect teaches that “we can know with ‘a certain moral security’ that God himself asks us to continue to commit intrinsically immoral acts such as adultery or homosexuality” (Aemaet, 2017). I don’t think that this is what Pope Francis is teaching, but the ambiguity of the text does allow for such an interpretation. That possibility alone makes it imperative that the dubia of the Four Cardinals are addressed by the CDF, since the implications for the whole or moral theology are indeed enormous, if such were the case. It was precisely to counter characteristic thesis of the Proportionalist school of moral theology that Pope John Paul II wrote the encyclical, Veritatis Splendor, the first ever on fundamental moral theology.

The question of authority and binding force
Which brings us to the question of the nature of the authority (and so the binding force) of Amoris Laetitia as well as that of the Letter of Pope Francis to the Bishops of the Region of Buenos Aires. Archbishop Fernández is under the impression that Amoris Laetitia is an encyclical; that is the term he himself uses to describe it. But it is not an encyclical. It is a post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, and so does not carry the same weight.

Fernández compares the Pope’s Letter endorsing the interpretation given to Amoris Laetitia by the Argentinean Bishops with Pope Pius IX’s Letter approving the German Bishops’ interpretation of the teaching of Vatican I on Papal Jurisdiction in response to Bismark’s misunderstanding of same. The comparison limps. The latter letter dealt with a misunderstanding of a clear dogmatic definition by an Oecumenical Council and was addressed to those outside the Church (the German Chancellor). The Argentinean Bishops give their interpretation of an ambiguous chapter of a hotly contested post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation to the faithful within the Church.

Be that as it may, the essential question is: To what extent is Amoris Laetitia an expression of the Papal Magisterium and so binding on conscience?

My own studies into the nature of the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome led me to recognize that the Petrine authority is based on conscience, the Pope’s own conscientious judgment before God, which makes it binding on the conscience of the faithful. Cor ad cor loquitur, as Newman put it.  This was exemplified, for example, in the way Humanae Vitae was written. After Blessed Pope Paul VI had received the conflicting reports of the Birth Control  Commission,  he retired to Castel Gandolfo to study them, together with other opinions, before he made his own conscientious judgment fully aware of his own unique responsibility as Bishop of Rome. This the Pope himself expressly affirmed in HV #6. He had rejected the opinion of the Majority Report submitted to him by the Birth Control Commission: a clear example of judgment made in obedience only to God’s truth after he had sifted the various opinions.

Humanae Vitae is an encyclical. So too is Veritatis Splendor.  As already mentioned, Amoris Laetitia is but an Apostolic Exhortation. Granted that Veritatis Splendor was not entirely from the pen of St Pope John Paul II, it can be assumed that not one word was published that he did not examine and personally approve, given the gravity of the issue: the very nature of morality. He was, after all, a moral philosopher who was sure of his ground, and he was acutely aware of the threat of Proportionalism.  For this reason, Veritatis Splendor is binding in a way that AL cannot be.

This is important since Cardinal Christopher Schönborn, OP is on record as claiming that all previous teaching of the Magisterium must be interpreted in the light of Amoris Laetita. In an interview with Father Spadaro, he said: “AL is an act of the magisterium that makes the teaching of the church present and relevant today. Just as we read the Council of Nicaea in the light of the Council of Constantinople, and Vatican I in the light of Vatican II, so now we must read the previous statements of the magisterium about the family in the light of the contribution made by AL.” Here I should beg to differ from my colleague and old friend—or rather I beg to distinguish. It might be possible to make such a comparison (which nonetheless seems exaggerated to me) with regard to Chapters 4 & 5 (which is a synthesis of previous teaching on conjugal love and fertility that yet goes beyond the former teaching), but not with regard to the controversial Chapter 8 (as compared with the previous teaching of Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI).

Perhaps Cardinal Schönborn was simply referring to the teaching of Familiaris Consortio. Like Amoris Laetitia, Familiaris Consortio is also a post-Synodal, Apostolic Exhortation dealing with the family. But even here, Familiaris Consortio is the teaching of a Pope who had written extensively on the philosophy and theology of marriage and conjugal love. It expresses with great clarity his own conscientious judgment. And so it carries a binding force, I suggest, which is stronger than Amoris Laetitia, the crucial chapter of which does not have the hallmarks of coming from the pen of Pope Francis (unlike Chapters 4 and 5) and is anything but clear. Evidently Pope Francis approved the text of Chapter 8, for which reason it does have a magisterial weight. But since Amoris Laetitia differs in some important aspects from Familiaris Consortio (mostly by way of omission), then the weight to be given to the one or the other depends on the extent to which either document is in harmony with the encyclical Veritatis Splendor. The reason for this hermeneutical rule is that Veritatis Splendor is an encyclical that addressed those issues in fundamental moral theology which are at the core of the present controversy about the interpretation of Amoris Laetitia, Chapter 8.

I have my own reservations as to the modus operandi of the Four Cardinals. For example, I don’t think they should have published their letter to His Holiness, Pope Francis (and to the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith). But now it is public, and the issues they raise are legitimate concerns, and so their letter cannot be ignored.

Equally serious are the implications for the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome and his authority, should the orthodoxy of the Pope himself be left in doubt. Archbishop Fernández’s essay attempted to dispel that doubt but, in my opinion at least, has only exacerbated it.


If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!

Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.


About Fr. D. Vincent Twomey, SVD 13 Articles
Fr. D. Vincent Twomey, S.V.D. holds a Ph.D. in Theology and is Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology at the Pontifical University of St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, Ireland. A former doctoral student under Joseph Ratzinger, Twomey is the author of several books, including The End of Irish Catholicism?, Pope Benedict XVI: The Conscience of Our Age (A Theological Portrait), and Moral Theology after Humanae Vitae. His most recent book is The Dynamics of Liturgy—Joseph Ratzinger's Theology of Liturgy: An Interpretation (Ignatius Press, 2022). In 2011, Benedict XVI awarded the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice medal to Fr. Twomey for outstanding services rendered to the Church and to the Holy Father.

24 Comments

  1. With all due respect to Archbishop Fernandez, there are some people who are good at this stuff and some who are not. Some write clearly and persuasively, even if you don’t agree with what they are saying. Fernandez is not one of them. His arguments seem flighty. His citations to older documents of JP II and Benedict often take them for principles they do not stand for. He seems to be a minor league ball player who somehow made it into the Big Leagues. But he does not belong there.

  2. Archbishop Fernandez is the perfect emblem of the farce of the “current pontificate.” Author of “Heal Me with Your Mouth – The Art of Kissing.”

    It proves that God is the ultimate comedian that he allows the such a man to represent such a pontiff.

  3. Ultimately, Abp. Fernández appears to be advocating a theological utilitarianism that reinforces a disavowal, or at least deliberate ignoring, of the fact that certain acts, as such, may be determined to be inherently disordered or evil.

  4. I thank Fr Twomey for an exacting assessment of AL and Cardinal Fernandez’ Essay. The crux of the issue is conscience. “On his part, man perceives and acknowledges the imperatives of the divine law through the mediation of conscience. It follows that he is not to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his conscience” (Dignitatis Humanae 3). True. Within the limitations of conscience. Conscience [to act with knowledge] requires reason. Reason however is not the rule of truth, but it’s measure (Aquinas ST 1a2ae 91 3 Ad 2). God’s revelation of truth requires assent, “And the Catholic Church teaches that this faith, which is the beginning of man’s salvation, is a supernatural virtue, whereby, inspired and assisted by the grace of God, we believe that the things which He has revealed are true; not because of the intrinsic truth of the things, viewed by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God Himself who reveals them, and Who can neither be deceived nor deceive” (Vat I Ch III). Fr Courtney Murray authored Dignitatis Humanae and believed God himself could not demand we deny our conscience. “Dignitatis Humanae did not address the coercive authority of the Church. In 1965 there was simply no theological consensus about the Church’s own coercive authority. Opinion ranged from Murray, who did not really understand the Church as a coercive authority at all, to Charles Journet, faithful to formal teaching and canonical tradition” Thomas Pink First Things). Ethical judgment requires permanent premises the very first the Deposit of Faith, Christ’s words. Otherwise as Fr Twomey so well shows we lapse like Cardinal Fernandez into casuistry based on false premises. Whereas Aquinas’ virtue ethics requires we deliberate the conditions of the act to determine its morality. Consequently morality is determined by the Object of the Act. What it does. And the object of all human acts must be ordered to God. “The reason why a good intention is not itself sufficient, but a correct choice of actions is also needed, is that the human act depends on its object, whether that object is capable or not of being ordered to God, to the One who ‘alone is good'” (Veritatis Splendor 78).

    • I find Professor Pink’s terminology confusing. Even though Aristotle spoke (at the moment I do not have the exact citation) of being ‘coerced’ by truth, this is metaphorical.

      And if ‘auctoritas’, as its root in ‘augere’ indicates, implies to aid, complete or give plenitude, such in regard to truth cannot imply a strong sense of ‘coercion’, which connotes power, ‘potes’. Based on this, one distinguishes ‘ius’ and ‘lex’.

      I mention these considerations because Fr. Murray’s reflections, arguably, do not necessarily imply a contradiction of, but rather a shift of emphasis in regard to understanding the interrelation of these two constants.

      On the other hand, I tend to find Abp. Fernandez and those who glibly support his rationales to be imbued with empiricist-nominalist assumptions that undermine one’s coherence in distinguishing the inherent nature of certain acts.

      Of course, the Church has pedagogical or disciplinary means of promoting truth (catechesis; penalties for heterodoxy or immorality), but this discretionary power is subservient to Her authority.

      • Aside from proposed nuances of interpretation Aquinas [here I refer to Aquinas not Aristotle] holds that there are acts that are intrinsically evil of which there are no virtuous mean. Murder, false witness, Adultery as defined by Christ are not acts subject to excess or defect. If the view is accepted regarding nuance then we must accept precisely what Cardinal Fernandez says regarding exceptions based on value judgments and which the Pontiff implies in AL. This shift of meaning regarding authority of coercion by the Church incorporates not simply intrinsically evil acts, or positive acts of charity, forgiveness that must be done but also disciplinary matters. Attendance of Mass on Sunday remains a serious obligation and not a matter of personal preferences. Any shift in meaning becomes a paradigm shift that in effect removes obligation.

    • Thank you Father Peter, your post highlights crucial points. The great theologian Romano Guardini wrote that authority is needed not only by the childish but also in the life of every man, even the most mature.Integral to the full grandeur of human dignity, authority is not merely a refuge of the weak; its destruction always breeds its burlesque _force. If we are Christians we must submit to the authority of Christ, our Savior, the High Priest. This is true for all of us, lay and clergy, n’est ce pas? 🙂

  5. Thank you Fr Twomey for 2 thoughtful articles which provide valuable food for thought.
    As an aside has anyone come across a discussion of Blaise Pascal’s Provincial Diaries were he critiques the casuistry of the Jesuit fathers of his time, albeit from a viewpoint sympathetic to the Jansenists?

  6. Thank you, Father, but it does not matter that AL is logically indefensible. Even THEY know that. This is about POWER. And THEY are the ones that have it.

    • You got it.

      The theology is mere secondary rationalizing of the changes in practice they are making in the Roman Catholic Church. So it doesn’t matter if it’s slap-dash.

      What matters is the Pontifex’s agenda as it slouches towed Bethlehem …

      • Sadly – this is all that matters to them. They are the ultimate clericalists- treating our Church as if it is their property.

    • “We believe in the Lord, the GIVER OF LIFE” . . . you’re drastically mistaken. What you assume to be a problem, “over-population”, like “global warming” is merely a ruse to entrap the simple-minded, the gullible, the Godless. Spin yourself 180 degrees, turn yourself inside-out, then flop yourself upside-down, so that you are on your feet again and you’ll be much closer to the Truth.

  7. Excellent essay and I thank Fr. Twomey for writing it. I believe others have contributed with good comments and I may not have anything else to add. But I would like to comment on this statement by F. Twomey : “My own studies into the nature of the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome led me to recognize that the Petrine authority is based on conscience, the Pope’s own conscientious judgement before God, which makes it binding on the conscience of the faithful. “. Excellent point. I am reading the diary of St. Pope John Paul II, on which in the entry of November2, 1962 he quoted Gaudium Spes :”we can break the tablets of the decalogue but we cannot break conscience. The voice of conscience echos God. Divine pedagogy,conscience is united to the Law, to Grace and to Glory.In his conscience man discovers the Law, non autonoma sed theonoma. Conscience must be educated by the Church. The greatest tragedy of man is the impossibility of recognizing sin for what it is…The priestly conscience is a particular sanctuary where God speaks words that He does not speak anywhere else, which implies an exceptional responsibility. And Gerhard Cardinal Müller wrote that “it is precisely why it is so necessary, too, for a priest to have a well-grounded theological education and an ongoing relation to scholarly theology”( The Catholic Priesthood ).

  8. I have a problem with the whole matter of a Magisterial statement which according to almost all the commentators is ambiguous. What purpose does this ambiguity serve? It seems to be that it is intentionally ambiguous so that different interpretations can be derived from it. The Magisterium should act somewhat like a referee. Theologians may discuss matters, but when there is a controversy on an important matter is clarity, which should come from the Magisterium as it did with Humanae Vitae. Besides c. 8 AL has some other problems also. If it clearly contradicts what has always and everywhere been taught, then I don’t see how those parts of it can be considered to be authentic Magisterium. As for the Cardinals publishing the letters to the Pope, the fact is that even having done so, they have received no response, which means that if they had kept the matter private, they would have much less possibility of receiving a response. Cardinal Burke has stated that he has been consulted by many priests and faithful who are in a quandary regarding the matter, so I would presume that in conscience that the matter was so urgent and important, and that it is causing grave damage to the Church, that they had to go public. The Pope seems to think that pastoral practice can be changed without changing the doctrine.

  9. Could someone answer this for me? How can AL be limited to adultery? Would the very same logic not apply to any sin that, if I refuse to engage in it, would result in my partner leaving me?

    1. If I do not continue to have sex with my second “husband” he will leave me and the kids.
    2. If I do not continue to steal for my second “husband” he will leave me and the kids.
    3. If I do not continue to go to my second “husband’s Klan rallies, he will leave me and the kids.
    4. If I do not continue to sacrifice animals to Satan, as my second “husband” insists, he will leave me and the kids.
    I could go on….
    3. If I do not have this abo

  10. Bringing things up to date since this excellent critique in 2017:

    FIRST, we might ask, is Archbishop Fernandez channeling that great lay theologian, Frank Sinatra, who recorded “My Way” on December 30, 1968? If so, then welcome to the “new” Vatican theology of the Woodstock Era. https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2023/07/06/archbishop-fernandez-on-new-role-as-vaticans-doctrinal-chief-i-will-do-it-my-way/

    But this might be the Holy Spirit working! In the secular world such gaffs are nearly fatal and the stink never washes off. Something like, who am I to judge?

    SECOND, but very much to his credit, Fernandez says he will study history—but then that “I will do it my way” (above)—can we see here that, yes, all things are equally “backward,” but that some things backward are more equal than others?

    THIRD, wondering, here, if in his rapid endorsement for the “exhortation,” he called Amoris Laetitia an “encyclical” because he, as the likely ghostwriter (?), scripted it to be so—and then in the release was upstaged? You just can’t find good editors these days!

    FOURTH, so, moving forward, Fernandez could well endorse the solid Chapters 4 and 5 of Amoris Laetitia as more than bubble-wrap for Chapter 8. AND then actually reject Chapter 8—as a partial response to the dubia and as acknowledgment of the higher-ranking Veritatis Splendor. This, rather than seeking ratification and rebranding through any synodal plebiscite…

    As Archbishop Fernandez discerns the challenging moral judgments of office ahead—more than mere “decisions”—he should be assured of all of our prayers across the board.

  11. Sophists love their power and control. They enjoy the attention of people wondering. They want people to draw conclusions for themselves; but, continue to wonder if their conclusions can be “conclusive”. It gives them a real thrill. However, those that serve Christ, i.e. TRUTH, should strive for clarity, not accommodation. When Moses came down from the mountain, he had with him the TRUTH about the ancient Hebrews (and “modern” man). He bore with him the clarity/Truth that would set the people free from a life of servitude to sin. Was it easy to hear? No. Was it necessary? Yes. Proportional ethical “sliding scales” are inherently unreliable and lead necessarily to relativism. We deserve better. Our souls deserve better. Again, I look for the Truth by a return to the past. There, I am confronted with clarity – a much needed, even sought after, grace that many have come to dispense to their own peril.

  12. I don’t feel embarrassed anymore with what is coming out of the Vatican. I feel more shame for PF and what he has allowed and who he surrounds himself with. Im disgusted with the latest. The latest wrote a porn erotic book for teens on open mouth kissing. How do you make sure that not one penny of mine goes to the Vatican or even maybe bishop ? Do I have to reguest in writing. ?

  13. Amoris is an “apostolic exhortation” document but the issue of exceptional cases (such as they might be) could (and should) have been dealt with compactly in an address to the Rota. This would have been in keeping with good practice and was the prudent way for it. Also, “exceptionality” got handled badly adding ambiguity not lessening it.

    As it went, Amoris therefore offends the stated ideal that the whole is greater than the part. This self-suspending self-distorting phenomenon can be recognized in other areas, a few instances bear it out as real.

    Upending JPII maagisterium goes against unity and inserts a supposed conflict that needed to be resolved where there was none.

    Legalizing homosexual civil union has nothing to do with time or space, it is just all wrong on all counts and flagrant coming from a Pope.

    The BVM Redemptrix is reality expressible reverently in ideas according to Tradition and contemplation but Pope Francis trying to appear not to be competing with Benedict, said it is discardable. What he should have done is regain for Benedict in a filial manner the ideas that went missing for him (Benedict) or that had gotten dis-composed; and thereby magnify the reality.

    That would have been so pleasing to the Blessed Mother.

    ‘ The problem is that there was an extended period during which, in their non-ex cathedra (and thus non-infallible) statements and actions, they persistently failed to do their duty. ‘

    https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2023/07/15/cardinal-newman-archbishop-fernandez-and-the-suspended-magisterium-thesis/

2 Trackbacks / Pingbacks

  1. The refined, problematic casuistry of Abp. Fernández’s defense of chapter 8 of “Amoris Laetitia” - Catholic Crossing
  2. The refined, problematic casuistry of Abp. Fernández’s defense of chapter 8 of “Amoris Laetitia” -

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

All comments posted at Catholic World Report are moderated. While vigorous debate is welcome and encouraged, please note that in the interest of maintaining a civilized and helpful level of discussion, comments containing obscene language or personal attacks—or those that are deemed by the editors to be needlessly combative or inflammatory—will not be published. Thank you.


*