Vatican City, Dec 5, 2017 / 05:19 pm (CNA).- Despite the recent inclusion of Pope Francis’ 2016 letter to the Buenos Aires bishops on Amoris laetitia in the Holy See’s official text of record, neither the Church’s discipline nor its doctrine have changed.
The move is the latest in the debate over the admission of the divorced-and-remarried to Communion. The Second Vatican Council, St. John Paul II, and Benedict XVI – as well as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts under them – all firmly opposed proposals to admit to eucharistic communion the divorced-and-remarried who do not observe continence.
The debate has received renewed impetus under Pope Francis. His 2016 apostolic exhortation on love in the family, Amoris laetitia, has been met with varied reception and interpretation within the Church. Its eighth chapter, entitled “Accompanying, Discerning, and Integrating Weakness,” deals with, among other things, the pastoral care of the divorced-and-remarried, those who may not be admitted to Communion unless they have committed to living in continence, eschewing the acts proper to married couples.
Yet, for many Church leaders and theologians, ambiguous language in that chapter has led to uncertainties about this practice, and about the nature and status of the apostolic exhortation itself. Some have maintained that it is incompatible with Church teaching, and others that it has not changed the Church’s discipline. Still others read Amoris laetitia as opening the way to a new pastoral practice, or even as a development in continuity with St. John Paul II.
Some Church leaders have noted that Amoris laetitia has led to the disorientation and great confusion of many of the faithful, and at least one respected theologian has argued that Francis’ pontificate has fostered confusion, diminished the importance of doctrine in the Church’s life, and cause faithful Catholics to lose confidence in the papacy.
Pope Francis has been understood to encourage those who interpret Amoris laetitia as opening the way to a new pastoral practice – as he seemed to do in a letter to the bishops of the Buenos Aires region, which is the subject of the latest furor.
His letter approves those bishops’ pastoral response to the divorced-and-remarried, based on Amoris laetitia. The response had said that ministry to the divorced-and-remarried must never create confusion about Church teaching and the indissolubility of marriage, but may also allow access to the sacraments under specific limits. These might include specific situations when a penitent in an irregular union is under attenuated culpability, as when leaving such a union could cause harm to his children, although the circumstances envisioned are not precisely delineated, which, some theologians say, has contributed to the confusion.
The Pope’s Sept. 5, 2016 letter addressed to Bishop Sergio Alfredo Fenoy of San Miguel said, “The text is very good and makes fully explicit the meaning of the eighth chapter of ‘Amoris Laetitia’. There are no other interpretations. And I am sure it will do a lot of good. May the Lord reward you for this effort of pastoral charity.”
It was reported this weekend that Pope Francis’ letter, as well as the pastoral response of the Buenos Aires bishops, were promulgated in the October 2016 issue of the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, a Vatican publication in which official documents of the Pope and the Roman Curia are published, and through which universal ecclesiastical laws are promulgated.
Dr. Edward Peters, a professor of canon law at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, wrote Dec. 4 that the Buenos Aires document contains assertions “running the gamut from obviously true, through true-but-oddly-or-incompletely phrased, to a few that, while capable of being understood in an orthodox sense, are formulated in ways that lend themselves to heterodox understandings.”
He noted that what prevents the admission of the divorced-and-remarried to eucharistic communion is canon 915 “and the universal, unanimous interpretation which that legislative text, rooted as it is in divine law, has always received.” The canon states that those “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion.”
In an August 2017 post anticipating the possible publication in AAS of the Buenos Aires letter or the Pope’s commendation of it, Peters had written that “many, nay most, papal documents appearing in the Acta carry no canonical or disciplinary force.”
He wrote that “Unless canon 915 itself is directly revoked, gutted, or neutered, it binds ministers of holy Communion to withhold that most august sacrament from, among others, divorced-and-remarried Catholics except where such couples live as brother-sister and without scandal to the community.”
“Nothing I have seen to date, including the appearance of the pope’s and Argentine bishops’ letters in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, makes me think that Canon 915 has suffered such a fate.”
He added: “Neither the pope’s letter to the Argentines, nor the Argentine bishops’ document, nor even Amoris laetitia so much as mentions Canon 915, let alone do these documents abrogate, obrogate, or authentically interpret this norm out of the Code of Canon Law.”
While the Pope’s letter and the Buenos Aires bishops’ pastoral response do contain ambiguous “disciplinary assertions”, they are insufficient “to revoke, modify, or otherwise obviate” canon 915, Peters wrote.
Aside from the canonical problems with the admission of the divorced-and-remarried to eucharistic communion is the question of what it means that the Buenos Aires document and the Pope’s letter in support of it are intended to be a part of the Church’s Magisterium.
A rescript from Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, in the AAS notes that their promulgation was intended “as authentic Magisterium.”
The Magisterium is a part of teaching office of bishops, by which they are charged with interpreting and preserving the deposit of faith. In its 1990 declaration Donum veritatis, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith noted that the Magisterium “has the task of discerning, by means of judgments normative for the consciences of believers, those acts which in themselves conform to the demands of faith and foster their expression in life and those which, on the contrary, because intrinsically evil, are incompatible with such demands.”
Catholics are bound to assent to divinely revealed teachings with faith; to firmly embrace and retain those things which are required to safeguard reverently and to expound faithfully the deposit of faith; and to give religious submission of intellect and will to doctrines on faith or morals given through the authentic Magisterium.
The critical question regarding Amoris laetitia is what, precisely, it teaches with regard to faith and morals, and what it doesn’t, or even, can’t, teach. On the latter question, especially, the Church’s existent doctrine is helpful.
Even while some bishops, such as those of the Buenos Aires region and those of Malta, have interpreted the apostolic exhortation as allowing a new pastoral practice, many others have maintained that it changes nothing of doctrine or discipline.
For example, while prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Müller said that Amoris laetitia has not eliminated Church discipline on marriage, nor has it has permitted in some cases the divorced-and-remarried “to receive the Eucharist without the need to change their way of life.”
“This is a matter of a consolidated magisterial teaching, supported by scripture and founded on a doctrinal reason: the salvific harmony of the sacrament, the heart of the ‘culture of the bond’ that the Church lives.”
The prefect of the CDF said that if Pope Francis’ exhortation “had wanted to eliminate such a deeply rooted and significant discipline, it would have said so clearly and presented supporting reasons.”
“There is however no affirmation in this sense; nor does the Pope bring into question, at any time, the arguments presented by his predecessors, which are not based on the subjective culpability of our brothers, but rather on their visible, objective way of life, contrary to the words of Christ,” Cardinal Müller stated.
It has been the constant teaching of the Church that marriage is indissoluble, that people not married to each other may not legitimately engage in acts of sexual intimacy, that the Eucharist may not be received by those conscious of grave sin, and that absolution requires the purpose of amending one’s life, even with a diminished or limited capacity to exercise the will.
And the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “If the divorced are remarried civilly, they find themselves in a situation that objectively contravenes God’s law. Consequently, they cannot receive Eucharistic communion as long as this situation persists … Reconciliation through the sacrament of Penance can be granted only to those who have repented for having violated the sign of the covenant and of fidelity to Christ, and who are committed to living in complete continence.”
St. John Paul II promulgated the Catechism in 1992 by the apostolic constitution Fidei depositum, in which he wrote that it “is a statement of the Church’s faith and of Catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, Apostolic Tradition and the Church’s Magisterium. I declare it to be a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion and a sure norm for teaching the faith.”
“The approval and publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church represents a service which the Successor of Peter wishes to offer to the Holy Catholic Church … of supporting and confirming the faith of all the Lord Jesus’ disciples, as well as of strengthening the bonds of unity in the same apostolic faith. Therefore, I ask the Church’s Pastors and the Christian faithful to receive this catechism in a spirit of communion and to use it assiduously in fulfilling their mission of proclaiming the faith and calling people to the Gospel life. This catechism is given to them that it may be a sure and authentic reference text for teaching Catholic doctrine.”
Critical to understanding the character of the Church’s teaching on these issues is a declaration the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts wrote in 2000 that canon 915’s prohibition on admitting to Holy Communion those who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin is applicable to the divorced-and-remarried.
“Any interpretation of can. 915 that would set itself against the canon’s substantial content, as declared uninterruptedly by the Magisterium and by the discipline of the Church throughout the centuries, is clearly misleading,” it said.
This prohibition, the pontifical council continued, is “by its nature derived from divine law and transcends the domain of positive ecclesiastical laws: the latter cannot introduce legislative changes which would oppose the doctrine of the Church.”
This declaration defines a kind of a limit on how the Magisterium can develop; by invoking divine law, the council says that no pastoral approach can transgress the norms of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. While considering questions of subjective culpability do not exceed those norms, the council’s directive explains that the Church can not, and will not, redefine the deposit of faith.
The deposit of faith has not been changed, and nor has canon law. Despite a great deal of anxiety and media attention, truth remains unchanged, and unchanging.
While some find the Pope’s writing to be ambiguous, truth is not. Amoris laetitia must be interpreted in a way that does not contravene truth.
Even when such an interpretation is not readily apparent.
[…]
Right after allowing Anglican ‘Mass’ in Catholic basilica. The Church is in the hands of demons.
Yeah, uh, demons are insisting people stop messing with and thus preventing the bestowal of grace specific to … the Sacraments. That makes sense.
Personally Robert I will not be convinced that the Pachamama Vatican lawn worship, the Pachamama St Peter’s Basilica enshrinement ceremony, cardinals dancing and chanting carrying the idolatrous effigy into the sanctuary has not had dire daemonic repercussions.
Although it is a perfectly clear and required document on the validity of the sacraments in respect to some, who ‘create’ their own meaning of both the words of consecration during the Mass and the conferring of other sacraments, after 11 years of dilution of the power of the sacraments by suggestion and duplicity the DDF is apparently following the exact pattern of following some scandalous statement with pristine orthodoxy. Sort of like following being beaten with soothing music and a favorite dish. The mind’s apprehensive faculty eventually becomes numbed and incapable of moral discernment.
That is certainly the pattern.
Sick, those who cannot accept he is upholding the Faith as he is required. Stop playing teams and be faithful disciples. Uou should be rejoicing!
Reconciliation after an injury, doesn’t come because the person gives evidence that they aren’t completely depraved, but because they repent of and work to reform the specific sinfulness that caused the injury.
One might rejoice over finding that a Protestant isn’t completely wrong about the Faith. Finding out that a *Cardinal* has managed to say something that about the Faith that is neither wrong, nor misleading, (with help from an entire Dicastery available) nor hyper-sexualized, seems like it should be expected. The fact that it cannot be, is no reason to rejoice.
A covering gesture that merely states a few obvious points that should not be necessary were the Church not hemorrhaging from the same sources that refuses to acknowledge their critical wounding, which has wounded the whole of humanity, not a mere idiosyncratic internal error. Given the history of duplicity of these two men, one can rationally expect an upcoming assault on sacramental orthodoxy and shameful indifference from their acolytes.
Yes, it is a typical pattern of emotional abuse: abuse – normality – abuse – normality etc. The more people will recognize that pattern the better is for them and for the Church.
I see another thing here: in effect, there are two Churches now, one is true and another is fake (a shadow). The fake one endorses all those “blessings”, Synodality, perverse mysticism and so on. The true one is trying to stick to the revealed truth. The fake Church cannot exist without the true one (because it needs a credibility of the true Church, it needs her very Body to parasitize on it) though so it is in her interest to keep the true Church around. Those two Churches will continue to exist under the same roof.
Hence Fernandez, after throwing the necessary food (‘FS’) into the fake Church to grow her, now throws something suitable into the true Church. It is very much akin to a narcissistic abuser who occasionally interrupts his abuse with “love bombing” to the victim would perk up a bit and continue providing to an abuser with emotional resources.
When speaking above of an emotional abuse in a toxic family I forgot to mention a crucial role (for perpetuating a circle of abuse) of “good-willing explainers” i.e. those who keep telling the victim “He is not bad, look, he gave you such a nice present, don’t cause unpleasantries in your family” and so on. (Note that they blame a victim for “unpleasantness” and not an abuser). In a case with the Church, the words are usually “You are bad Catholics, you only see bad things, you create disunity” thus attacking those who point the wrong instead of engaging in a rational discussion about that wrong.
There is a way to verify whether an abuser is “good” so the victim should “trust him”. If an abuser repented his actions and did reparation then yes, he is moving towards good and a victim may cautiously trust him (if she so desires). But if an abuser did none of the sort but bought her flowers then no – because there is no reason to believe that he changed. Analogically, if ‘FS’ was cancelled/condemned, those responsible for it and other scandalous things repented and did reparations then the faithful would have a reason to rejoice and to begin trusting again. As long as nothing of that has been done = the past abuse is not addressed and its consequences have not been repaired then the faithful would be very unwise “to trust” and to rejoice.
Fernandez is the very last person on the face of the earth to be chiding others for an “unbridled imagination.” Pot and kettle going on here, a la “mystical orgasms.”
I suspect this is put out there to build some sort of credibility following the FS fiasco.
Go home, Your Eminence.
I meant to reply this person, regarding those who cannot stop their partisan behavior long enough to recognize the DDF, Fernandez, and/or Francis doing their job and celebrating it. But I guess it applies to almost every comment here.
This is a papacy that has played foot-loose with the Sacrament of Marriage and now it wants to shore up the entire sacramental system because some ministers are coming up with personal interpretations of the various rites. Ironic, indeed.
“Shore up? Foot lose”? Explain.
The sacrement of matrimony was “shored up” with annulments, regaining your Catholc faith after a divorce. A marriage that has absorbed too much pain of mental and physical abuse and suffering will cease to exist.
My new wife suffered 30 years of torture from a criminal gambler who took the family into bankruptsy. Thank God she and her four chidren survived.
US Conference of Catholic Bishops: “declaration of nullity when there is no longer any hope of reconciliation of the spouses”. The only relief is when a couple divorces, they must remarry in the Church. We could not because they were not divorced since he refused. The children from such a seemingly, impossible to get divorce will have lingering issues. Dad is still admired.
Thank God for Gail. She is not only my wife, she is my life.
Sorry, Fernandez. Not listening anymore.
Throw the dogs a bone after creating a global scandal with “Fiducia Supplicans”?
They have no credence. I would not take the advice of Bergoglio or Fernandez on how to exit a paper bag. I’ll abide by the orthodox teaching provided over two thousand years in the perennial magisterium. No one requires any counsel from manipulative deceivers toying with the minds of the faithful.
We witness the collapse of the two voices for freedom in Western Civilization. The Catholic Church is in retreat from authentic faith and the United States — with the grotesque leadership of many post-conciliar Catholics — abandons its role in insuring the liberty of the globe.
Its far beyond time to wake up. Church and State are in the hands of atheist Fascists.
It used to be trendy to baptize “In the Name of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sanctifier” to replace those offensive terms “Father” and “Son.” After a non-Catholic friend witnessed such a ceremony in the ’80s, I suggested that she might baptize the infant herself with the correct form, if she could get the child alone by a faucet. I don’t know if she ever did. But there must be quite a number of Catholics in that area who were never properly baptized–and don’t know that.
This “note” from the DDF is nothing more than what the military calls a DIVERSIONARY TACTIC. A transparent move to distract our attention from “Fiducia Supplicans” and their continuing and resolute defense of same!
This is a bone for faithful Catholics – stating nothing more than obvious Church teachings which Pope Francis’s Vatican will studiously continue to sidestep or ingore, as has been their modus operandi from the start. All while they continue with their chief military objective – the wreckovation of the Catholic Church!
This might be a side issue, but I’m throwing it out here: Unsurprisingly, the document just HAD to make that remark about “keeping at a distance…from rigid rubricism.” There’s those two dirty “R” words, again! The same snark from the current Vatican leadership, repeating this hackneyed canard– a “rigidity” which by and large doesn’t even really exist in the post-Conciliar liturgy. (Remember why “Read the black, do the red” has been such a big deal for the last half-century?) Ironic…the very thing they are complaining about as far as being “creative” with celebrating the sacraments (whatever that means) is, in fact, kept in check by being OBSERVANT (= rigid) yet being within the bounds entails a certain degree of real standardization (= rigidity), doesn’t it?
It’s frankly scandalous when faithful Catholics are reduced to placing the Vatican in the same category as the US Federal government i.e. you can’t trust a word they say.
“It’s frankly scandalous when faithful Catholics are reduced to placing the Vatican in the same category as the US Federal government i.e. you can’t trust a word they say.”
Yes it is scandalous and you must consider the fact that those Baptized Catholics in the U.S. government calling for “ the new catholic springtime” are the same group of catholics who deny that God, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, Through The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, Is The Author Of Love, Of Life, And Of Marriage and thus The Author Of our unalienable Right to Life, to Liberty, and, to The Pursuit of Happiness, the purpose of which can only be, what God intended, because they desire to change both The Letter And Spirit Of The Law, and thus The Letter And Spirit Of The Constitution , by rendering onto Caesar or themselves, what Has Always, and Will Always belong to God, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity.
When you render onto Caesar, what belongs to God, anything can become permissible, including the destruction of an innocent beloved son or daughter, residing in their mother’s womb.
Woe to us!
As The Veil is being lifted, the atheist materialist overpopulation alarmist globalist are being exposed, including those who are attempting to make it appear as though they are part of The One Body of Christ, which is not possible, due to The Unity Of The Holy Ghost.
I missed this. Being put together, it is quite remarkable:
#1 “Both matter and form, summarized in the Code of Canon Law, are established in the liturgical books promulgated by the competent authority, which must therefore be faithfully observed, without ‘adding, removing or changing anything,’”
and
#2 “It seems increasingly urgent to mature an art of celebrating that, keeping at a distance as much from rigid rubricism as from unbridled imagination, leads to a discipline to be respected, precisely in order to be authentic disciples,”
Well, the person cannot help two express two contrary spirits in one message:
#1 – he states what is correct and expected of him: do that “without ‘adding, removing or changing anything”
#2 – he creates a room for his own rules urging the faithful to keep “at a distance as much from rigid rubricism as from unbridled imagination”. Note how the masterfully added “unbridled imagination” softens the absurdity of condemning “rigid rubricism” after advising to embrace that very “rigid rubricism” = “without ‘adding, removing or changing anything”.
It is the same duplicity that ‘FS’ has “we do not change the Church’s teaching” – “we order to bless homosexual couples”. One cancels another. I will also add that there is a sense of emptiness behind the latter document, as if it was crafted automatically.
Pulling it down to where it belongs i.e. a toxic family’s constellation: a narcissistic parent as a rule has his own set of rules, often contradictory which he exercised as it suits him. He creates chaos without which he cannot live. Instead of upholding the moral law as something above him, such a person uses it as a mere tool of his to control others and never obeys it himself. He is the only law-giver there.
Those in the Vatican and in local churches who preach anti-rigidity do this only for one reason: to obtain a license to rule as they wish, without obeying the objective rules created by the Church. It is like a bad parent who corrupts their own children with all-permissiveness so they could be “loved” and manipulate children as it suits them.
PS When I first saw the title “Vatican doctrine office releases note on discerning the validity of the sacraments” I thought that the Vatican is reassuring the faithful that Eucharist is still the Body and Blood, even after ‘FS”. Probably because it was what I have been thinking about since ‘FS’.
I used to go to Mass every second day. I cannot live without Holy Communion. Since ‘FS’ I have been just a few times, overcoming myself. Last time I did not want to go, forced myself and felt totally numb. I cannot help but wonder if it is good to receive Holy Communion while being very aware of the covert heresy hanging over the Church, so to speak. If I was worshiping with a congregation which publicly rejected ‘FS’ I would not have such a dilemma.
My problem then is of an inner conflict, of my desire to receive Our Lord and of my emotional inability to do so. To shut down my correct emotions is wrong; to stay without Christ is also bad. By the way, I perceive ‘FS’ to be a double bind for a believer’s psyche because it creates a dilemma that breaks that psyche: “come to the Church which accepts a heresy and receive Christ”; Christ thus is used as a tool. This is the fruit of ‘FS’ and of similar things. “By their fruits…”
We, the faithful, should have the minimal rights: to be able to come to Mass and worship and receive the Lord without lies, twists and convert heresies making it a torture if not impossible. Those covert lies are a form of emotional abuse and emotional abuse is not compatible with Christ. In fact they do something to the Eucharist, via a violation of the psyche of the faithful.