San Luis, Argentina, Aug 30, 2017 / 02:10 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A pastoral letter on Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia by Bishop Pedro Daniel Martinez Perea of San Luis, Argentina is being welcomed as “great news” for its clarity and directness.
Bishop Martinez’ letter, issued on June 29 and sent to the priests of his diocese, is titled “Marriage, new unions, and the Eucharist in chapter 8 of Amoris laetitia.” It addressed confusion generated by some readings of the document and emphasized the importance of “helping married couples to follow God’s plans in their lives.”
“The text is very straightforward,” reflected Dr. Kurt Martens, a professor of canon law at The Catholic University of America. “It’s a very well done pastoral letter with a lot of teaching opportunity; he does use Pope Francis to emphasize the teaching of the Church. I think it’s great news.”
In his pastoral letter, Bishop Martinez called Amoris laetitia “a great catechesis on love in the family, which is the cell of society” and said it is “a great message of hope during our sojourn in this secularized and earthly world.”
He added that marriage has a divinely ordered nature and purpose, and that sacramental marriage is “a public good in the Church, a common good.”
While calling Amoris laetitia “a profound catechesis,” Bishop Martinez noted that “some readings of the exhortation have aroused disquiet, perplexity, and even confusion among the faithful, especially with regard to the possibility of persons united by a previous, valid, sacramental bond and who are currently living, more uxorio, with another person in a new non-sacramental union, accessing the sacraments, in particular Holy Communion.”
To address confusion, the bishop referred to revelation and the Magisterium as “irreplaceable foundations for theological reflection in the Catholic Church,” and the essential context for understanding Amoris laetitia. To explain the exhortation, he referred to the recent Magisterium of John Paul II, and and the writings of St. Vincent of Lerins, St. Thomas Aquinas, the First Vatican Council, the Roman Curia of the early 20th century, and popes from Leo XIII to St. John XXIII.
Bishop Martinez gave criteria for a theological and ecclesial reading of the argument given in his letter, referring extensively to the text of Amoris laetitia. He wrote that “the Holy Father does not intend to manifest a new moral doctrine on Christian marriage.”
The bishop recalled that the bond of a ratified and consummated sacramental marriage “cannot be dissolved by any human power, neither civil nor ecclesiastical, neither by the passage of time after separation (culpable or not; brief or elongated), nor because love no longer exists between the spouses, nor by a personal conviction in conscience, even in good faith. Certainty of personal opinion regarding the invalidity of marriage is not a cause of nullity.”
He explained that the indissolubility of marriage is based the nature of “the union made by God in the spouses…In this is clearly manifested the priority of the existence of the Christian marriage over moral acts and their consequences.”
Bishop Martinez also wrote on the “mysterious grandeur of Christian marriage” and to encourage spouses to be faithful to their vocation in the face of difficulties. He then explained the conditions for receiving Holy Communion, and the Magisterium of Amoris laetitia on the Eucharist, new unions, and pastoral conversion.
Pope Francis encourages a “renewed apostolic zeal” in confronting challenges to married life, he wrote, adding that the complexity of situations must be taken into account so that each person can be accompanied according to God’s plan, without judgement of their subjective imputability.
Before detailing possible modes of accompaniment, Bishop Martinez noted that in every case, the faithful who are separated should be helped “to do everything possible before God to try to reconcile, with an attitude of forgiveness, thus being able to re-establish the interrupted marital life.”
If reconciliation is not possible, the primary canonical solution is to seek a declaration from the Church that the presumed marriage was, in fact, invalid.
If a declaration of nullity is granted, those who are in new unions and who have no impediments may approach the sacrament of confession, contract a marriage,and receive Communion, he taught.
Bishop Martinez laid out three possible points on a path of “accompaniment” in cases when a tribunal does not grant a declaration of nullity.
Until a judgement is found, those who are cohabiting with another person are invited to separate. If they continue to live together they “would be in an objective state of sin,” he said. This makes the reception of Communion impossible, he said, because the state of life contradicts Christ’s union with the Church which the Eucharist signifies and makes present.
If the divorced-and-remarried cannot separate but are willing to practice continence, abstaining from sexual relations, pastoral accompaniment will help them to come to the sacrament of confession and receive absolution, which will open the way to reception of Communion. “To persevere in Christian chastity it is particularly recommended that they approach frequently the sacrament of reconciliation to be fortified by that sacrament’s grace, trusting ‘in the mercy of God which is not denied anyone’ if they have failed in the commitment they have taken on,” he wrote, quoting from Amoris laetitia.
If responding to the Church’s call to continence is not possible, then “although they cannot receive Holy Communion, we must accompany them and exhort them to cultivate a style of Christian life, since they continue to belong to the Church.” Bishop Martinez explained that such persons are not to be abandoned, but to be prayed for and encouraged. He repeated the invitation of St. John Paul II that they listen to God’s word, pray, and attend Mass.
Bishop Martinez encouraged those unable to live according to the Church’s call to adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, noting that the Diocese of San Luis has 12 adoration chapels which they could frequent, where they should be “accompanied to commence a path of growth in prayer, in adoration of the Eucharistic Jesus. The Sacred Heart of Jesus will work wonders in them, because he waits for everyone, to say to them as the Good Shepherd: ‘Come to me, all you who are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest’.”
In each of these ways of pastoral accompaniment, Bishop Martinez recalled that Pope Francis “encourages us to a paternal, pastoral dedication.” He wanted his priests to remember that “our accompaniment consists, precisely, in knowing at all moments that we are loved by God, who is Love and who desires that everyone be saved and come to the knowledge of the whole Truth and to eternal happiness through the Holy Spirit.” He added that it is a “a great work of spiritual mercy” to help form consciences well and in conformity with truth.
Martens told CNA that Bishop Martinez “basically says that Amoris laetitia doesn’t change anything of the previous teaching; and he gets back to the teaching of John Paul II in Familiaris consortio … he does use Pope Francis to emphasize the teaching of the Church. I think it’s great news.”
By omitting a “conscience ‘solution’”, and clarifying that a personal conviction in conscience that one’s marriage was invalid does not render that marriage invalid, Bishop Martinez is “on the same page” as Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia and the bishops of western Canada, Martens said.
“There is nothing in there in the sense of what you see in the Malta guidelines, or in what the bishops of the Buenos Aires province have said … I think it’s pretty significant that also from Argentina we’re hearing this voice.”
Most of the bishops of Argentina who have written on Amoris laetitia, have interpreted it as allowing the divorced-and-remarried, in some circumstance, to receive Communion without observing continence. The bishops of the Buenos Aires province, as well as Bishop Angel José Macin of Reconquista and Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernández, rector of the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina, have all offered such interpretations.
Among Argentine bishops, Bishop Martinez is joined by one of his predecessors in the see of San Luis, Bishop Juan Rodolfo Laise, O.F.M. Cap. Bishop Laise was among the first signatories of a Declaration of Fidelity to the Church’s Unchangeable Teaching on Marriage and to Her Uninterrupted Discipline which was publicized Aug. 29, 2016.
Bishop Laise, who led the San Luis diocese from 1971 to 2001, signed the declaration, which reaffirms the Church’s teachings on marriage and morality. More than 879,000 persons have signed the document, among whom are eight cardinals.
In his pastoral letter, Bishop Martinez also reflected on the possible causes of the exhortation’s “distinct interpretations.” He suggested the theological reasons for an inadequate evaluation of the ordinary Magisterium; an erroneous understanding of divine, public Revelation which sees it as a continual unfolding in history,, in which the bishops can ‘constitute’ the deposit of faith, and not merely transmit, conserve, and defend it faithfully; and a dualistic conception of the Church, mistakenly perceiving a separation between dogma and morality, or between a visible institution and a “charismatic call.”
Martens commented to CNA that understanding the nature of Amoris laetitia’s teaching authority and intended purpose is critical to its interpretation.
“You can have infallible teaching proclaimed in a less solemn document,” Martens explained,” and in solemn documents you can have teaching of several levels. An example of this is Evangelium vitae, the encyclical of John Paul II: some of the teaching in there is put at a higher level, and it’s clear from the wording of the text.”
He noted that in Amoris laetitia‘s third paragraph, Pope Francis “says he doesn’t intend to exercise his authentic Magisterium.”
“So what is he doing there? Is he giving a road map to help people, rather than to teach and confirm what the Church has always taught? That’s an important and interesting question.”
Bishop Martinez concluded by exhorting his priests to preach Church teaching faithfully and to help married persons to follow God’s will for their lives. “Let us remember that the Church, in her mission to announce the Gospel, both today and yesterday, does not resort to adaptation to the ‘spirit of the world’ or to the ‘voice’ of a certain ‘majority’, nor to purely human consensuses.”
“Do not yield to the temptation to give a ‘pastoral pseudo-solution without truth’, so that the faithful may feel understood. Nor should you give a kind of ‘poor, rigorous, and merciless recipe’, as though though the faithful were only a number and not a dear son of God whom, as ministers of grace, we must help by demonstrating the way to eternal Beatitude,” he exhorted them.
“Let us announce God’s Message of Love … with sincere fidelity to Revelation and the words of Jesus Christ. What we are asked to do is be faithful to the ministry which God, through the Church, has entrusted to us,” he stated.
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“ The archbishop said that “there is a philosophy of the simple daily life of the people that we have to take up again.””
This, like everything else the archbishop said on the subject, is utter and unmitigated drivel.
If he has such a poor view of the priesthood, he must be a lousy priest himself and is judging based on himself. Perhaps he should have the decency to resign and go run a parish.
Excellent comment, Lesie. I enjoy reading all your comments in the CWR. May God bless you and keep you and grant you his peace.
A man with no religious faith believes he can recreate the innate faculties of creation. When I argue with numbskull pro-aborts who call themselves “pro-choice,” I point out that they can not be “for” that which is already an innate quality of human existence. One can not be pro-choice anymore than they can be pro-eyeball or pro-earlobe. Similarly, this numbskull of a bishop can not figure out that he can not make people “more egalitarian.” We already are all equal before God, despite having different responsibilities and obligations in life. Only a non-believer can not figure out something so self-evident.
Another Commie Rat Hippie Bishop trying to “update” his flock to the seventies, whether they want to or not.
This so-called bishop is a servant of the spirit of anti-Christ, who falsely pursued ordination as priest and bishop, and lives now only to destroy the Holy Eucharist.
Men like this Bishop are counterfeit men, living double lives as parasites eating the Church alive from the inside. This Bishop and others like him should be stripped of office and laicized, opposed with fasting and prayer, and confronted as commanded by Jesus in Matthew 18, and if he refuses to admit his apostasy, he should be publicly excommunicated.
A Church that believes in the death and resurrection of Jesus would never allow such a man to speak like this from a Bishop’s chair.
He might just be a lunatic! What credibility would these “LayPastors” have and what would happen to the credibility of our Church?
The Church in Lima would be Protestant if that ever happened.
If you keep changing your country’s constitution, you’re going to run into problems.
I agree that priests have a tremendous amount of responsibility and need more priests in the parishes. But aren’t parishes shrinking? And isn’t the reason for celibacy so that bishops/priests can focus on feeding the sheep? Maybe if there were more bishops/priests being true pastors representing Christ instead of being focused on personal, political, or far left “equality” agendas, the parishes would flourish again – the Church would flourish again.
We saw what has happened to mainline Protestant churches when laity take over…they’re the churches with gay pride flags hanging next to their Christian flags…they’re the churches that support abortion and question the fundamental dogmas of the historic Church…they’re the churches that push far left ideologies. Of course I’m not sure our current bishops/priests (in general) are doing a better job at leading.
Should this man be an archbishop? I sounds like to me he wants layman to act in the person of priests which are “in persona Christi”. Am I readying this correctly.
His whole article is ridiculous and should NOT be said, especially by an archbishop!
Let us remember, Christ did NOT give the keys of heaven and the power to loose and bind on earth which will be loosed and bound in heaven, to a ““synodality”. He gave it to Peter and only Peter!
Next thing you know he will be having lay persons hearing confessions and saying Mass.
The word for this protestantism. The «poor» must be getting quite sick of being invoked for every initiative proposed by ageing prelates who remember Che Guevara.
That those who offer the Holy Sacrifice, indeed the Holy Sacrifice itself are secondary to this Great Religious Reset is evident.
Leslie I think you miss the broader issue here. The question is what is a priest and what is his main duties. A priest for sure is ordained for the Sacramental life of the Church. Many a spiritual Godly priest has been destroyed because they had no administrative skills. There are plenty of people in a parish who have expertise to worry about leaking roofs , heating and cooling problems etc. The bills that need to be paid and plenty of good capable people who can run the secretarial issues of a parish. Many parishes already have Business Managers to run the business side of a parish.
To me this upgrading the priesthood not lowering it.Just my two cents.
But…who’s gonna control the money? That seems to be paramount in the Church these days.
Or maybe “the broader point” is that a fill-in groundskeeper should not be called a “pastor.”
I agree with you, but many of us can already see where this will be heading. We are already at the mercy of our “pastoral assistant administrators” who just don’t have the parish’s best interests at heart. They wind up controlling everything to their own advantage and then we can never appeal to the “real” pastor, because he abdicates most of his decision-making powers to some ignorant wannabe priest.
Slight correction: “Wannabe priestess”
Haha! Yes, Dave, I stand corrected!
Great idea! NOT. Soon you’ll be able to name your diocesan church Congregationalist. Why stop at lay pastors on the parish level? Why not do away with bishops altogether and have laymen and women running the diocesan church? In fact, why not have a layman or woman be Pope since Francis has dispensed with his title as Vicar of Christ. I think it’s time to rename the Catholic Church and call it the Church of LCD…the Church of the Least Common Denominator.
Unfortunately. The Peruvian bishop has socialist ideas and is supportive of the new “president” (a communist linked to shinning path a el know terrorist group) whose election was questionable and surrounded by fraud.
Disconcerting is a woman presenting herself at the podium prior to Mass who announces that she’s the Leader, then after lengthy quoting of what’s already in the bulletin announces the Gospel passage, paraphrases it, then gives a brief but detailed homily. Asks for silence. Then begins reading the entrance psalm. Finally the priest enters as if a mere matter of consequence. Now it gets worse. At least in Lima. Either a priest is by ordination a pastor of the faithful or he’s not. By Christ’s transference of authority to the Apostles he alone has the authority to shepherd. Archbishop Castillo suffers the false magnanimity that priestly authority is pompous. That the Church instead of reaching toward the starry heavens should be flat and obsequious. Canon law allows bishops to entrust the pastoral care of a parish to a deacon, a person, or community of persons”. Added however is the admonition that the bishop “is to appoint some priest provided with the powers and faculties of a pastor to direct pastoral care.” This latter is too often ignored by bishops. Bishops seem more concerned with financial management and meeting more basic pastoral needs like manpower, rather than the canonical attachments that provide for better pastoral management. It downgrades the office of presbyter disheartening to many and likewise reduces laity appreciation of his role.
Fr. Peter Morello, I, for a time, was attending Mass at a parish where a nun read the Gospel at Mass and gave lengthy sermons. The parish priest was very Traditional. That really confused me. Later I learned this nun was known to be feisty and demanding. On a different but similar note, I attended a Tridentine Mass at San Juan Capistrano. I was upset that a Tridentine Mass would have female lectors. Standing for Communion only. The Old Mass and the New Mass were intermingled. I have experienced these incidents at just about every Novus Ordo Mass. These are the ones Francis should write a Motu Proprio similar to the one for the TLM. These cases cause confusion and division and are very anti-Vatican ll. The crux of the problem is that Bishops give blanket permission for such things to take place. Perhaps better, a Motu Proprio on the illicit activities of Bishops.
Much of this comes down to the same old problem. Church hierarchy and local priests afraid to assert their authority for fear of creating conflict. The church is NOT a secular institution and libbers and others of a socialist bent need to be told that loud and clear. It has never pretended to be secular, nor formally backing secular values.Recent pronouncements by the hierarchy on secular matters like immigration law add to this confusion, and has been a huge mistake.. That is not the job entrusted to them. Render to Caesar, remember? If the priest at the parish you reference was really traditional, he should NEVER have allowed a nun, no matter how feisty, to preach and read the gospel.Too bad if she didnt like it. It isnt true that having pews filled with people who are dismantling the church are better than fewer people in the pews. The hierarchy needs to grasp that and remain true to the mission, not true to secularism.
He may be an archbishop and a theology professor, but this guy knows nothing. He ought to be busted back down to a priest and be hidden away in a monastery where he can’t do any more damage with his ludicrous and anti-Catholic ideas. As Bugs Bunny used to say: “What a maroon!”
Our priests have been demoralized since Vatican ll. They no longer seem to have a ministry. It all has to be handed to the laity (woman only of course). Why would a young man who has a calling to the priesthood enter a Seminary for a lifetime of the laity being over them. I’ve seen this since the ’70s. It was done in the name of Vatican ll, yet Vatican ll never called for this demoralization of priests.
What in the world’s been going on in Latin America? It seems like things never moved past the 1970’s there. I remember getting frustrated with my Maryknoll Missionary magazine decades ago & cancelling because of the same sort of nonsense. There must be a special time warp for the Church down there. Goodness.
How come this man has not been made yet a cardinal by the Pope?
I know dozens of priests who would happily give up all their finance meetings, deferred maintenance walkthroughs, and administrative phonecalls.
I know at least one that said “if I ever lose my vocation it will be because of the endless meetings.”
I know most old folk here are fuming and blaming everything unhappy in their lives with socialism like usual, but it’s worth thinking about what exactly we ask priests to do as they manage these old, falling-apart buildings when there aren’t many of them to begin with.
Thank you for a little more perspective. While in Los Angeles I was preparing to be a Parish Life Leader, but I am now in Lima, Peru. There are communities in the Lima area, and more in the mountain regions, and “selva,” that do not have priests. I read the statement of the archbishop and I infer that he is referring to the programs similar to what Los Angeles has. I am not Liberal, progressive and much less leftist. I recommend that people making harsh statements about the archbishop read what he has stated or preached in Spanish. I do not listen to Spanish commentators interpret what is happening in the United States. I am trying to be open and forgiving of most the “news” networks in the U.S., while devouring everything stated by Dennis Prager, Mark Levin and Larry Elder.
I read the heading and went straight to the comments. Good decision.
This man was made archbishop in order to humiliate his predecessor, Cardinal Ciprani whom Francis pretended to befriend for years. ASAP Francis accepted Ciprani’s retirement letter at 75 and nominated Castillo immediately. Cardinal Ciprani had many run-ins with Castillo’s university. Hagan lo!
“Then there’s a priest who celebrates Mass for them once a week or twice on Sunday, whatever it may be; but we have to think of more egalitarian ways, closer to the people,” he said.
Please don’t resurrect this kind of thinking again. I lived this terrible scene in my parish. It’s a horrible experience and destructive. When this first started the newly ordained pastor suggested (1980) that the laity should do everything and the priest should only come and celebrate Mass. Now, forty year hence, we have three priests and they all take the same day off, while women do the Communion service and give a so called homily. Let me tell you—–this is certainly not what I would call being closer to the people—it’s just the opposite. I’m going back to my rocking chair and pray. I know God is still in the Blessed Sacrament behind locked church doors, however, my mind cannot be locked out.
Caritas in veritate when we comment. Otherwise, our Christian witness is destroyed. In Acts 6:1-15, we read that the apostles themselves chose and appointed helpers. They delegated the logistics of the charitable work of the Church to others so that they could continue to devote themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. As an exercise of and in affirmation of their leadership, our pastors and parish priests should be able to do the same, whether their helpers be deacons or laity.