“Lived Experience” and Moral Tradition: Rivals or Partners?

One question facing Pope Leo XIV will be whether to advance the “new paradigm” for moral theology proposed by Pope Francis and some of his advisors in recent years.

In 2016, in Chapter 8 of his apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), Pope Francis proposed a new approach to people in “irregular” marital situations (e.g., second marriages after civil divorce). Interpretations of this chapter differed widely. Was he recommending situational exceptions to moral norms, or only a more sympathetic pastoral approach to people who find themselves in these situations?

In one striking passage, however, he implied that the former was his intent:

[C]onscience can do more than recognize that a given situation does not correspond objectively to the overall demands of the Gospel. It can also recognize with sincerity and honesty what for now is the most generous response which can be given to God, and come to see with a certain moral security that it is what God himself is asking amid the concrete complexity of one’s limits, while yet not fully the objective ideal. In any event, let us recall that this discernment is dynamic; it must remain ever open to new stages of growth and to new decisions which can enable the ideal to be more fully realized. (no. 303, emphasis added)

Earlier teaching documents of the Church described permanence, exclusivity, and openness to new life as characteristics of what authentic conjugal love “demands” (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1643). Earlier in Amoris Laetitia, Francis was already referring to them as an “ideal” (e.g., no. 292). Now he seemed to describe not living up to that ideal, and specifically to “the objective ideal,” as consistent with still doing what God himself is asking the person to do here and now. This suggested that more than a compassionate pastoral response was being proposed. How could anyone suggest to people in this situation that they are erring by obeying God?

Jesus seems to have had his own demanding message on the Christian ideal. Asked how one can gain eternal life, he first cited the commandments against adultery and other sins. When his questioner said he was following all these, Jesus said that to be perfect—to live up to the ideal—one should sell one’s possessions, give to the poor, and follow him (see Matthew 19:16–21; cf. Mark 10:17–21). When all we do is obey the commandments forbidding grave sins, we should see ourselves as “unprofitable servants” doing only what we are obliged to do (Luke 17:10).

To be sure, Pope St. John Paul II, in his 1981 apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio, had spoken of a “law of gradualness” in helping married couples live up to the demands of the Gospel. But he added:

Married people too are called upon to progress unceasingly in their moral life, with the support of a sincere and active desire to gain ever better knowledge of the values enshrined in and fostered by the law of God. They must also be supported by an upright and generous willingness to embody these values in their concrete decisions. They cannot however look on the law as merely an ideal to be achieved in the future: they must consider it as a command of Christ the Lord to overcome difficulties with constancy. “And so what is known as ‘the law of gradualness’ or step-by-step advance cannot be identified with ‘gradualness of the law,’ as if there were different degrees or forms of precept in God’s law for different individuals and situations.” (no. 34, emphasis added)

Pope Francis did repeat this distinction between the law of gradualness and gradualness of the law (see Amoris Laetitia, no. 295); but he—and especially theologians who then proceeded to take up his theme—seemed to approve what John Paul II warned against.

Those theologians broadened his approach to reconfigure Catholic morality generally. In 2022, the Pontifical Academy for Life published a volume that its president, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, said was “aimed at applying Pope Francis’ Magisterium to the field of moral theology.” It was titled Etica Teologica della Vita (Theological Ethics of Life). The volume was based on a symposium that included many non-members of the Academy, and it was convened by Academy leadership without involving most rank-and-file members.

To cite just two of its chapters: Professor Sigrid Müller of the University of Vienna observed that moral theology must place its preference either on the Church’s objective moral norms or on individual conscience—and after entertaining the idea that one might try to balance the two, she concluded that one must prefer the subject’s individual conscience, which after considering a moral norm may override it in light of that person’s current situation. And William Murphy of the Pontifical College Josephinum also emphasized “subjective” or situational factors in assessing moral actions, criticizing the emphasis of some bishops and theologians on the “intrinsically evil” acts that Pope St. John Paul II wrote about in his 1993 encyclical Veritatis Splendor (The Splendor of Truth). Catholic sexual ethics came under special scrutiny in this regard.

Both writers claimed that this paradigm shift in theology was based on the “personalism” of the Second Vatican Council—the documents of which, in this author’s view, they do not seem to have read or understood. For, in the council’s document on the Church in the modern world, Gaudium et Spes (Joy and Hope), the council made the following observation on matters such as birth control:

[W]hen there is question of harmonizing conjugal love with the responsible transmission of life, the moral aspect of any procedure does not depend solely on sincere intentions or on an evaluation of motives, but must be determined by objective standards. These, based on the nature of the human person and his acts, preserve the full sense of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love…. Relying on these principles, sons of the Church may not undertake methods of birth control which are found blameworthy by the teaching authority of the Church in its unfolding of the divine law. (no. 51, emphasis added)

To have the same nature as other humans means that one is bound by the same moral principles.

And no one who has read that document can forget its ringing condemnation of a series of “infamies” that “poison” human society and constitute a “supreme dishonor to the Creator” by their very nature, beginning with crimes against life itself such as genocide, murder, abortion, and euthanasia (no. 27). These were condemned without reference to particular circumstances.

As has often happened, the supposed “spirit” of Vatican II was being cited by authors of the Academy for Life volume while neglecting what the council documents actually said.

Francis himself, perhaps encouraged by such support, advanced this trend in his November 2023 motu proprio Ad theologiam promovendam (for promoting theology), presenting revised statutes for the Pontifical Academy of Theology. “Promoting theology in the future cannot be limited to abstractly reproducing formulas and models from the past,” he declared (no. 1). He called for a “paradigm shift,” a “courageous cultural revolution” committing theology to be “fundamentally contextual,” “capable of reading and interpreting the Gospel in the conditions in which men and women daily live” (no. 4). He urged theological reflection using an “inductive method,” starting from “the different contexts and concrete situations in which people exist, allowing itself to be seriously challenged by reality” (no. 8). He rejected what he saw as a deductive approach, “extrinsically adapting now-crystallized content to new situations, as if they were mere particular cases of an immutable and universal law” (no. 3).

The Academy of Theology statutes have been revised before. Francis’s revision made changes in those approved earlier by John Paul II. Remarkably, however, Francis ordered that his own directives be given “stable and lasting force, notwithstanding anything to the contrary,” and that the accompanying statutes remain in force “in perpetuity” (no. 10). In this one instance, it seemed that future popes were told to reaffirm formulas from their past.*

Finally, a synodal working group on doctrinal, pastoral, and ethical issues, established by Pope Francis, reported in October 2024 that in this field

it is not a matter of proclaiming and applying abstract doctrinal principles, but of vitally inhabiting the experience of faith in its personal and social relevance so that we will be open to the ever new promptings of the Holy Spirit…. Only a vital, fruitful, and reciprocal tension between doctrine and practice embodies the living Tradition and is able to counteract the temptation to rely on the barren scleroticism of verbal pronouncements. (I §2, emphasis added)

While the word “scleroticism” is rare in English, an online thesaurus describes “sclerosis” as “any pathological hardening or thickening of tissue.”

The working group continued: “Ethically speaking, it is not a matter of applying a pre-packaged objective truth to different subjective situations, as if they were mere particular cases of an immutable and universal law. The criteria of discernment arise from listening to the live self-gift of Revelation in Jesus in the today of the Spirit” (II §1). The group offered to develop these themes further and offer guidelines on “sexuality, marriage, the generation of children, and the promotion and care of life” (II §3).

The trend here is from the objective to the subjective, from moral norms to each individual’s judgment of conscience, from intrinsically evil acts to the discernment of circumstances that can mitigate or set aside moral norms in practice. Taken to its logical conclusion, this approach would seem to tend toward the “situation ethics” promoted decades ago by the lapsed Episcopalian Joseph Fletcher.

In response to this trend, a group of theologians and others, including this author, contributed to a 2024 volume edited by Professors Deborah Savage of the Franciscan University of Steubenville and Robert Fastiggi of Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit, titled Lived Experience and the Search for Truth: Revisiting Catholic Sexual Morality. Based on this publication, three considerations may assist us in judging the new paradigm valuing “lived experience” over tradition.

First, as Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II, wrote in The Acting Person, and as Professor Savage observes in her own contribution to this volume, moral issues do indeed emerge from lived experience. But it is through reasoned reflection that one comes to recognize one’s past or proposed actions as promoting or obstructing the flourishing of oneself and others as whole human persons—that is, as being right or wrong. The situations encountered in one’s lived experience raise important moral questions—but arriving at answers requires stepping back from the immediate experience to reflect on what kind of person my action will make me and others into.

Second, tradition itself is a repository of the lived experience of believers encountering moral issues over many ages and many cultures—freeing each of us from what G.K. Chesterton called “the degrading slavery” of being a child of one’s age. This “democracy of the dead” liberates us from the self-absorption (and yes, the self-deceptions) that tempt us to justify our own departures from moral norms. As Chesterton said, it “refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.” That oligarchy can become small and arrogant indeed when “reality” is restricted to what I am willing, here and now, to see for myself.

Third, the experience of the fruits of the Sexual Revolution provides ample evidence for what does and does not contribute to human flourishing. The revolution has had many casualties, especially among women. This has been documented in great detail by authors such as Mary Harrington, Louise Perry, and Helen Alvaré, as well as Mary Eberstadt, who contributed to this volume. Another contributor, Anne Maloney, recounted what she learned from over 30 years of teaching at a Catholic women’s college: the growing incidence of anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and even self-cutting and suicidal feelings among young women trying to get with the supposed “liberation” offered by hook-up culture. Other contributors, including this author, described how striving to follow the somewhat unpopular moral teachings of the Church on issues like family planning has led them to a stronger marriage and a more fulfilled life.

In short, lived experience, while open to all animals, is uniquely human only when it is subjected to reasoned reflection. In a community like the Church, the fruits of such reflection are shared by its members across time and space, not trapped within the limited perspective of each individual, and are embodied in the Church’s moral tradition. Moreover, to a great extent, that tradition’s wisdom is confirmed by contemporary experience among those who have lived by its guidance and those who have departed from it. In light of these considerations, tradition and experience can be seen not as rivals, but as partners in building up a truly living tradition.

For his part, Pope Leo has already spoken more critically of using one’s own subjective experience as a determining factor in moral decisions. Citing St. Augustine, he has said in an interview that human experience should be a door leading us to God, and hence to a greater solidarity with other people. But he warned: “So often today, in the highly individualistic society that people are growing up in, people think that my experience is the criteria. ‘Am I happy or not happy?’ What that might really be is, ‘Do I feel pleasure or don’t I feel pleasure?’ Or, ‘Do I feel selfish?’ And if I feel okay, then that’s all that matters.”

Then on January 26^th of this year, Pope Leo delivered an important speech to the bishops of the Roman Rota on the theme of “speaking the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15), emphasizing that these are not in opposition but must be advanced together. Referring to cases involving matrimonial nullity and other issues in canon law, he warned:

Sometimes there is a risk that excessive identification with the oft troubled vicissitudes of the faithful may lead to a dangerous relativization of truth. In fact, misunderstood compassion, even if apparently motivated by pastoral zeal, risks obscuring the necessary dimension of ascertaining the truth proper to the judicial office.

Particularly in cases involving matrimonial nullity, this “could lead to pastoral decisions lacking a solid objective foundation.”

He also warned against “a cold and detached affirmation of the truth” that neglects the need for “respect and mercy.” But he said the bishops’ work should

… always be motivated by that true love for neighbour that seeks above all else his eternal salvation in Christ and in the Church, which entails adherence to the truth of the Gospel. We thus find the perspective in which all ecclesial juridical activity must be placed: the salus animarum as the supreme law in the Church. In this way, your service to the truth of justice is a loving contribution to the salvation of souls.

What we need now is clarity on whether the Church’s future teaching and practice will be guided by Pope Francis’s “paradigm shift,” or by the harmonious union of objective truth and Christian charity proposed by Pope Leo.

(*This document was issued by the Vatican only in Italian and Latin. I am grateful to Thomas D. Williams, STD, for ensuring the accuracy of these translated quotes.)

Editor’s note: This essay was posted originally on the “What We Need Now” site and is posted here with kind permission.