Pope Leo XIV waves during his Wednesday audience Aug. 20, 2025. In a telegram dated the same day, he called moral theologians meeting in Colombia to “find a balanced synthesis” between “the laws of God” and the “dynamics of man’s conscience and freedom” in the spirit of St. Alphonsus Maria de’ Liguori. / Credit: Vatican Media
Vatican City, Aug 20, 2025 / 12:56 pm (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday invited participants attending the 17th International Congress of Moral Theology in Colombia to reflect on the world’s challenges and conflicts in light of divine revelation revealed through Jesus Christ.
The theme of the two-day congress, held at the San Alfonso University Foundation in the country’s capital, Bogotá, from Aug. 20–21, is “Ethics of the 21st Century: Changes and Conflicts in Society, Gender, AI, and Integral Ecology.”
In an Aug. 20 telegram signed by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Leo expressed his hope that the international congress will give theologians an opportunity to “find a balanced synthesis” between “the laws of God” and the “dynamics of man’s conscience and freedom” in the spirit of St. Alphonsus Maria de’ Liguori.
According to the Holy Father, the Italian saint and Church doctor was a “visible sign of God’s infinite mercy” who assumed a “charitable, understanding, and patient attitude” toward others.
At the end of the short telegram, Pope Leo invoked the Blessed Virgin Mary, “Seat of Wisdom,” to protect the men and women from various countries participating in the conference.
The 16th edition of the Redemptorist university’s moral theology congress took place in 2023 and focused on the topic of ethical and bioethical challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Vatican City, Feb 17, 2021 / 02:00 am (CNA).- Mario Draghi, an economist and retired banker, was sworn in as prime minister of Italy on Saturday, after the previous government coalition collapsed when a party pulled its support for then prime minister Giuseppe Conte.
As President Sergio Mattarella’s pick to form a new government, Draghi was an unexpected choice. But he was able to win enough support to form a new coalition, appointing a mix of technocrats and politicians to his cabinet.
Many in Italy hope that the 73-year-old Draghi, president of the European Central Bank from 2011 to 2019, can save the country’s faltering economy. He is credited with saving the failing euro during the eurozone crisis, earning him the nickname “Super Mario.”
Pope Francis signaled his approval for the economist in July 2020, when he named him as one of 26 ordinary academicians of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, which promotes the study of economic and political sciences to aid the development of the Church’s social doctrine.
But Draghi, who has had private audiences and phone calls with Pope Francis, has been seen with favor from inside the Vatican for much longer.
The former banker, who described himself in 2015 as a “liberal socialist,” was featured in a November 2019 article in the Jesuit periodical La Civiltà Cattolica, which is approved by the Secretariat of State and the Holy See before publication.
The article had high praise for Draghi, saying that he “emerges as a policymaker of the highest stature: to gratitude is added the hope that his way of proceeding without rhetoric, with in-depth analysis and vision, will be adopted in broader areas of both European and Italian politics.”
Fr. Antonio Spadaro, S.J., La Civiltà Cattolica’s editor-in-chief, told the Italian news agency AdnKronos in early February, before Draghi was confirmed as prime minister, that “the figure of Draghi was the protagonist of one of the most complex phases in the recent history of Europe.”
Spadaro, seen to be close to Pope Francis, said that while a technocratic government was not ideal for Italy, it “could be a parenthesis intended as a moment of reflection” for the country before it returns to a political government.
Draghi’s connections to the Jesuits begin from childhood. He attended a Jesuit-run school in Rome, the Massimiliano Massimo Institute, from fourth grade through the third year of high school, an experience for which he has expressed “profound gratitude.”
In a 2010 interview with Vatican Radio, he recalled “the dedication of the Jesuit fathers” and the moral standards that the school imparted.
“A message that expressed that things had to be done to the best of one’s ability, that honesty was important, but above all that we were all special in some way. Not so much because we went to Massimo but because [we were] special as human persons,” he said.
While serving as president of the Bank of Italy in 2009, Draghi wrote an op-ed for the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, in which he commented on Pope Benedict XVI’s social encyclical “Caritas in Veritate.”
The economic crisis “confirms the need for a relationship between ethics and economics,” Draghi noted in the more than 1,000-word article. “Every economic decision has moral consequences. This is even more true in the era of globalization…”
“According to the Church’s social doctrine, if the autonomy of economic discipline implies indifference to ethics, man is pushed to abuse the economic instrument,” he said. “If it is no longer a means for achieving the ultimate goal — the common good — profit risks generating poverty.”
The economist was also a featured speaker at the August 2020 Rimini Meeting, an annual gathering in Italy organized by the Catholic movement Communion and Liberation.
In 2019, he was given an honorary degree from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan.
At the awarding ceremony, university rector Franco Anelli called Draghi “the protagonist of an economy ‘in action,’ not just ‘in the books.’”
And in his own speech, Draghi told students of the university that he hoped they would “put their skills to public service.”
“There will be mistakes and retreats because the world is complex,” he said. “However, I hope that you will be comforted by the fact that in history, decisions based on knowledge, courage, and humility have always shown their quality.”
Pope Francis greets a crowd of an estimated 25,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square in Rome for his Regina Caeli address on May 22, 2022. / Vatican Media
Vatican City, May 22, 2022 / 07:33 am (CNA).
In his Sunday Regina Caeli address, Pope Francis reflected on Jesus’ words to the disciples at the Last Supper in the Gospel reading from John: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.”
Speaking to an estimated 25,000 pilgrims gathered on a bright day in St. Peter’s Square in Rome, the pope noted that Jesus also makes a point to add, “Not as the world gives do I give it to you” (John 14:27).
“What is this peace that the world does not know and the Lord gives us?” Pope Francis asked.
“This peace is the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit of Jesus. It is the presence of God in us, it is God’s ‘power of peace,'” he explained. “It is He, the Holy Spirit, who disarms the heart and fills it with serenity. It is He, the Holy Spirit, who loosens rigidity and extinguishes the temptations to attack others. It is He, the Holy Spirit, who reminds us that there are brothers and sisters beside us, not obstacles or adversaries.
“It is He, the Holy Spirit, who gives us the strength to forgive, to begin again, to set out anew because we cannot do this with our own strength. And it is with Him, with the Holy Spirit, that we become men and women of peace,” Pope Francis said.
“This is the source of the peace Jesus gives us,” he added. “For no one can leave others peace if they do not have it within themselves. No one can give peace unless that person is at peace.”
Pilgrims at St. Peter’s Square in Rome on May 22, 2022. In his Regina Caeli address, Pope Francis spoke about the peace of Christ. Vatican Media
Pope Francis said, “Let us learn to say every day: ‘Lord, give me your peace, give me your Holy Spirit.’ This is a beautiful prayer. Shall we say it together? ‘Lord, give me your peace, give me your Holy Spirit.’”
Again encouraging the crowd to pray with him, he said, “I didn’t hear it well. One more time: ‘Lord, give me your peace, give me your Holy Spirit.’”
Focusing on the context of Gospel reading, Pope Francis observed that Jesus’ words to his apostles are “a sort of testament.”
The pope said, “Jesus bids farewell with words expressing affection and serenity. But he does so in a moment that is anything but serene,” referring to Judas’ unfolding betrayal and Peter’s imminent denial that he even knows Jesus.
“The Lord knows this, and yet, he does not rebuke, he does not use severe words, he does not give harsh speeches,” Pope Francis said. “Rather than demonstrate agitation, he remains kind till the end.”
He continued, “There is a proverb that says you die the way you have lived. In effect, the last hours of Jesus’ life are like the essence of his entire life. He feels fear and pain, but does not give way to resentment or protesting. He does not allow himself to become bitter, he does not vent, he is not impatient. He is at peace, a peace that comes from his meek heart accustomed to trust.”
In so doing, “Jesus demonstrates that meekness is possible,” the pope observed.
“He incarnated it specifically in the most difficult moment, and he wants us to behave that way too, since we too are heirs of his peace,” he said. “He wants us to be meek, open, available to listen, capable of defusing tensions and weaving harmony. This is witnessing to Jesus and is worth more than a thousand words and many sermons. The witness of peace.”
Pope Francis invited all disciples of Jesus to reflect on whether they behave in this way.
“Do we ease tensions, and defuse conflicts? Are we too at odds with someone, always ready to react, explode, or do we know how to respond nonviolently, do we know how to respond with peaceful actions? How do I react?” he asked.
“Certainly, this meekness is not easy,” while adding ,“How difficult it is, at every level, to defuse conflicts!”
Jesus understands this. He knows “that we need help, that we need a gift,” the pope explained.
“Peace, which is our obligation, is first of all a gift of God.”
Pope Francis said that “no sin, no failure, no grudge should discourage us from insistently asking for this gift from the Holy Spirit who gives us peace.”
“The more we feel our hearts are agitated, the more we sense we are nervous, impatient, angry inside, the more we need to ask the Lord for the Spirit of peace,” he said.
Pilgrims gather at St. Peter’s Square in Rome on May 22, 2022, for Pope Francis’ Regina Caeli address. Vatican Media
Pope Francis invited the crowd to pray with him, “Lord, give me your peace, give me your Holy Spirit.” He added, “And let us also ask this for those who live next to us, for those we meet each day, and for the leaders of nations.”
After praying the Regina Caeli at noon, Pope Francis commented on the beatification in Lyon, France, later on Sunday of Pauline Marie Jericot, who founded the Society of the Propagation of the Faith for the support of the missions in the early 19th century. The pope called her “a courageous woman, attentive to the changes taking place at the time, and had a universal vision regarding the Church’s mission.”
Pope Francis continued: “May her example enkindle in everyone the desire to participate through prayer and charity in the spread of the Gospel throughout the world.”
Pope Francis also noted that Sunday marked the beginning of “Laudato Si’ Week,” a weeklong reflection inspired by his 2015 encyclical on the environment. He called the observance an opportunity “to listen ever more attentively to the cry of the Earth which urges us to act together in taking care of our common home.”
Pope Francis also mentioned that May 24 marks the Feast day of Mary Help of Christians, who is “particularly dear to Catholics in China.”
He added that Mary Help of Christians is the patroness for Chinese Catholics and is located in the Shrine of Sheshan in Shanghai in addition to many churches and homes throughout the country.
“This happy occasion offers me the opportunity to assure them once again of my spiritual closeness” to believers in China, he said.
“I am attentively and actively following the often complex life and situations of the faithful and pastors, and I pray every day for them,” he said.
“I invite all of you to unite yourselves in this prayer so that the Church in China, in freedom and tranquility, might live in effective communion with the universal Church, and might exercise its mission of proclaiming the Gospel to everyone, and thus offer a positive contribution to the spiritual and material progress of society as well.”
Pope Francis also greeted participants in Italy’s annual pro-life demonstration, titled Scegliamo la vita, or in English, “Let’s Choose Life.”
“I thank you for your dedication in promoting life and defending conscientious objection, which there are often attempts to limit,” Pope Francis said.
“Sadly, in these last years, there has been a change in the common mentality, and today we are more and more led to think that life is a good at our complete disposal, that we can choose to manipulate, to give birth or take life as we please, as if it were the exclusive consequence of individual choice,” the pope said.
“Let us remember that life is a gift from God! It is always sacred and inviolable, and we cannot silence the voice of conscience,” he concluded.
An academic congress — “From the Council to the Synod: Rereading a Church’s Journey, 60 Years on Since Lumen Gentium (1964–2024)” — was hosted by the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome from Oct. 28–30, 2024. / Credit: Pontifical Gregorian U… […]
21 Comments
From the back bleachers, yours truly humbly proposes that “a balanced synthesis between the laws of God and the dynamics of man’s conscience and freedom” respects the immutable and inviolable moral absolutes against intrinsically evil acts, as elaborated in “Veritatis Splendor,” combined with exercise of the moral virtues for matters which are not absolute.
Two points:
FIRST, with regard to such moral absolutes along with God’s infinite mercy, “…the commandment of love of God and neighbor does not have in its dynamic any higher limit, BUT (Caps added) it does have a lower limit, beneath which the commandment is broken” (n. 52).
SECOND, regarding other and more problematic matters, still governed still by the moral virtues (courage, temperance, justice and especially prudential judgment), and mostly the responsibility of those directly accountable for the common good, we can turn to the Catholic Social Teaching as synthesized, already, in “The Compendium” (2004). And, which might be organized to better effect into, first, the always central “transcendent dignity of the human person” and then, second, the following binaries:
(1) Solidarity & Subsidiarity, always together; (2) Dignity of the human Person & Family; (3) Rights & Responsibilities; (4) well-formed Conscience & faithful Citizenship; (5) Option for the Poor & the dignity of Work; (6) Personal Property & intergenerational care for God’s Creation.
SUMMARY: Town hall “synodality” is not enough, and Cardinal Fernandez (Fiducia Supplicans) is too much.
A balanced synthesis . . ? Hopefully an error in translation of the Pope’s words.
Isn’t this universe, world, & our human species (according to The New Testament witness) subject to the Stoikheia – that is the tenant Principalities, Powers, Dominions, Rulers, Authorities, Governments, & Thrones that reject GOD’s authority, self-identifying as “a whole host of evil in high places”.
Aren’t The Church’s many problems caused by melding with these intrinsic evils?
Isn’t the Christ-given work of The Church to confront ‘the ways of the world & its prince’ with our Holy Spirit-anointed radical obedience to & our persevering proclamation of GOD’s holy commandments; whilst not counting the cost . . ?
Now, that’s a challenge young Catholics will respond to – if given half a chance!
“Be calm but vigilant, because your enemy the devil is prowling round like a roaring lion, looking for someone to eat.”
“Think of the love that The FATHER has lavished on us, by letting us be called GOD’s children; and that is what we
A balanced synthesis . . ? Hopefully an error in translation of the Pope’s words.
Isn’t this universe, world, & our human species (according to The New Testament witness) subject to the Stoikheia – that is the tenant Principalities, Powers, Dominions, Rulers, Authorities, Governments, & Thrones that reject GOD’s authority, self-identifying as “a whole host of evil in high places”.
Aren’t The Church’s many problems caused by melding with these intrinsic evils?
Isn’t the Christ-given work of The Church to confront ‘the ways of the world & its prince’ with our Holy Spirit-anointed radical obedience to & our persevering proclamation of GOD’s holy commandments; whilst not counting the cost . . ?
Now, that’s a challenge young Catholics will respond to – if given half a chance!
“Be calm but vigilant, because your enemy the devil is prowling round like a roaring lion, looking for someone to eat.”
“Think of the love that The FATHER has lavished on us, by letting us be called GOD’s children; and that is what we are. Because the world refused to acknowledge Him, therefore it does not acknowledge us.”
“No created thing can hide from Him; everything is uncovered & open to the eyes of The One who to whom we must give an account of ourselves.”
“A balanced synthesis?”
About a year ago a friend thought to balance my bookshelf by unloading seven volumes of the complete works of St. Alphonsus de Liguori (1926!), lifted many years ago from a real pastor who passed away in 1988. I need to spend some time with this…
Thinking about “God’s mercy” and turning almost randomly to Part I of “The Way of Salvation and of Perfection,” we find many dozens of Meditations, including VIII: “The abuse of God’s Mercy”:
The reader is counseled to avoid both despair and presumption [….]. Second, “God is merciful, but he is also just [….]. Then third, “God is not mocked [….] The hope of those who commit sin because God is forgiving, is an abomination in his sight: their hope, says the holy Job, is an abomination [much in italics].”
Any “synthesis” conforming to “the spirit of St. Alphonsus Maria de’ Liguori” will be a daunting and sobering task, given the 3,000 pages of unambiguous fine print such as this.
SUMMARY: Not much here on “time is greater than space.”
A presumption there is a synthesis. If we’re addressing Hegel’s thesis antithesis synthesis it’s argued that Hegel does not give evidence of using the formula in any of his works (see Leonard F Wheat in Undiscovered Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis Dialectics).
Intelligence in Man is not distinguished by level rather by kind. Among animal species only man can make the following comparative distinctions: 1. universal and particular 2. one and many 3. union and separation 4. essence and existence 5. divine and human 6. inner and outer 7. in itself and for itself 8. potential and actual 9. unconscious and conscious 10. artificial [man-made] and natural 11. God and man. 12. Father and Son Jesus (Wheat).
The proposition of synthesis poses a presumption these appositional parings can be synthesized. Except for the Father and Son Jesus. If we take a moral principle [principle here replaces absolute] can we modify it to satisfy its opposite and retain a morally acceptable compromise? For example communion for divorced and remarried. If using Amoris Laetitia as a guide can we retain the precept Adultery and allow communion – even if based on mitigating circumstances? Is that not accommodation rather than synthesis?
It seems Pope Leo’s premise “balanced synthesis’ between God’s law, human freedom” cannot satisfy both principle/precept and freedom. A solution is found when it’s shown as given the example of Alphonsus Ligouri that a famished man secretly taking fruit from someone’s orchard is not stealing because life or death presents a right. Whereas taking another man’s wife for sensual fulfillment presents an evil. The natural law that undergirds our conscience tells us that.
Leo XIV has made a terrible decision to open up doctrinal moral principles for discussion in reaching a synthesis with human freedom – in a regional Bogotá setting attended by a cadre of Redemptorist lecturers, professors from Columbia, a handful from elsewhere – with immense repercussions [particularly doctrinal fragmentation] for the universal Church.
Leo, a canon lawyer, must be aware that what occurs regionally by a group of unknowns [despite the heady title International Congress of Theologians] with his papal sanction will be taken elsewhere as the rule or at least the option, and for other such regional discussion of doctrine.
Hegel, when addressing thesis antithesis synthesis, theorized these dynamics in reference to the history of nations and cultures. Not to definitive moral principles.
These secular philosophers also know their ruminations including dialectics are taken as rules and options for other things beyond the initial application.
Becoming popularized or well spread it takes on bulk or immenseness sometimes personalized or “authored” and in general through “autonomous” anonymity.
Thanks, dear Fr Dr Peter Morello for illuminating what appears to be yet another crafty scheme to deceive & manipulate The Church towards blatant denial of GOD’s strict but benevolent instructions, that enable us to live a life of Grace.
Ps 118 “How shall we remain sinless? By obeying Your Word.”
“I have sought You with all my heart: let me not stray from Your commands”
“I treasure Your promise in my heart, lest I sin against You.”
“Blessed are You, O LORD, teach me Your statutes.”
Not to dismiss your analysis–which applies especially to the past twelve years–my proposition is that a synthesis of the Hegelian vintage is not possible if attempted within the spirit of St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori. Which is why I used the terms “daunting and sobering.”
Thomists celebrate Aquinas’ “synthesis” of Faith and Reason, and this direction is clearly not Hegelian. With you, I would prefer if Leo XIV had used the better term “coherence” instead of synthesis, which was preferred by Benedict XVI.
A Hegelian outcome would/will (?) be out of step with Liguori. That’s my point–a not-entirely-subtle invitation for theologians to consider that what the magisterium upholds about God and human freedom is not “rigid, bigoted, fixistic and backwardist.”
Although Peter, Faith and Reason cohesive by nature [as God ordained] are not two opposing premises. God’s Law and human freedom are opposed. Unless we attribute freedom to following God’s Law. Which is not a true synthesis. The phrasing by Leo XIV means freedom from God’s Law.
Although Peter, Faith and Reason cohesive by nature [as God ordained] are not two opposing premises. God’s Law and human freedom are opposed. Unless we attribute freedom to following God’s Law. Which is not a true synthesis. The phrasing by Leo XIV means freedom from God’s Law.
Faith is a gift. Reason a natural faculty. Neither are opposed although differ, both compliment the other.
“It follows that the authority of the Church, when she pronounces on moral questions, in no way undermines the freedom of conscience of Christians. This is so not only because freedom of conscience is never freedom ‘from’ the truth [!] but always and only freedom ‘in’ the truth [!], but also because the Magisterium does not bring to the Christian conscience truths which are extraneous to it; rather it brings to light the truths which it ought already to possess, developing them from the starting point of the primordial act of faith” (St. John Paul II, “Veritatis Splendor,” 1993, n. 64).
“It brings to light the truths which it ought already to possess, developing them from the starting point of the primordial act of faith” (St. John Paul II, “Veritatis Splendor,” 1993, n. 64).
John Paul is not precise in this diagram in reference to the natural law within, that prescient knowledge that all men possess realized in the act of apprehension of good from evil. ‘We do not require grace to apprehend this law within’, which law is a reflection of the divine law. That is why all men are subject to judgment if they commit intrinsically evil sin. It is this natural law that undergirds conscience. Insofar as freedom it belongs to the will. Which is why Aquinas holds, evil is in the will.
Faith enlightens the intellect regarding natural law and strengthens the will to observe the law. Whereas revealed knowledge of heroic virtue required for salvation are not found by reason, rather they are gifts of the Holy Spirit, knowledge of which and adherence by grace surpass Man’s natural capacity.
A correction to “John Paul is not precise in this diagram”. John Paul is likely focused on the baptized who are certainly recipients of grace at baptism, and other non baptized to whom God wishes to confer grace – all of whom would be subject “to [the] light [of] truths which it ought already to possess, developing them from the starting point of the primordial act of faith”.
‘The interview appears in the Spanish-language book “León XIV: ciudadano del mundo, misionero del siglo XXI” (“Leo XIV: Citizen of the World, Missionary of the XXI Century”), a biography by Crux correspondent Elise Ann Allen, published on Sept. 18 in Spanish by Penguin Peru. English and Portuguese editions are expected in 2026.
In the book, Pope Leo, a longtime missionary in Peru before he was pope, underlines that the Church’s primary mission remains spiritual, not political.
“My role is announcing the good news, preaching the Gospel,” he said. “I don’t see my primary role as trying to be the solver of the world’s problems. I don’t see my role as that at all, really, although I think that the Church has a voice, a message that needs to continue to be preached, to be spoken and spoken loudly.”’
From the back bleachers, yours truly humbly proposes that “a balanced synthesis between the laws of God and the dynamics of man’s conscience and freedom” respects the immutable and inviolable moral absolutes against intrinsically evil acts, as elaborated in “Veritatis Splendor,” combined with exercise of the moral virtues for matters which are not absolute.
Two points:
FIRST, with regard to such moral absolutes along with God’s infinite mercy, “…the commandment of love of God and neighbor does not have in its dynamic any higher limit, BUT (Caps added) it does have a lower limit, beneath which the commandment is broken” (n. 52).
SECOND, regarding other and more problematic matters, still governed still by the moral virtues (courage, temperance, justice and especially prudential judgment), and mostly the responsibility of those directly accountable for the common good, we can turn to the Catholic Social Teaching as synthesized, already, in “The Compendium” (2004). And, which might be organized to better effect into, first, the always central “transcendent dignity of the human person” and then, second, the following binaries:
(1) Solidarity & Subsidiarity, always together; (2) Dignity of the human Person & Family; (3) Rights & Responsibilities; (4) well-formed Conscience & faithful Citizenship; (5) Option for the Poor & the dignity of Work; (6) Personal Property & intergenerational care for God’s Creation.
SUMMARY: Town hall “synodality” is not enough, and Cardinal Fernandez (Fiducia Supplicans) is too much.
A balanced synthesis . . ? Hopefully an error in translation of the Pope’s words.
Isn’t this universe, world, & our human species (according to The New Testament witness) subject to the Stoikheia – that is the tenant Principalities, Powers, Dominions, Rulers, Authorities, Governments, & Thrones that reject GOD’s authority, self-identifying as “a whole host of evil in high places”.
Aren’t The Church’s many problems caused by melding with these intrinsic evils?
Isn’t the Christ-given work of The Church to confront ‘the ways of the world & its prince’ with our Holy Spirit-anointed radical obedience to & our persevering proclamation of GOD’s holy commandments; whilst not counting the cost . . ?
Now, that’s a challenge young Catholics will respond to – if given half a chance!
“Be calm but vigilant, because your enemy the devil is prowling round like a roaring lion, looking for someone to eat.”
“Think of the love that The FATHER has lavished on us, by letting us be called GOD’s children; and that is what we
A balanced synthesis . . ? Hopefully an error in translation of the Pope’s words.
Isn’t this universe, world, & our human species (according to The New Testament witness) subject to the Stoikheia – that is the tenant Principalities, Powers, Dominions, Rulers, Authorities, Governments, & Thrones that reject GOD’s authority, self-identifying as “a whole host of evil in high places”.
Aren’t The Church’s many problems caused by melding with these intrinsic evils?
Isn’t the Christ-given work of The Church to confront ‘the ways of the world & its prince’ with our Holy Spirit-anointed radical obedience to & our persevering proclamation of GOD’s holy commandments; whilst not counting the cost . . ?
Now, that’s a challenge young Catholics will respond to – if given half a chance!
“Be calm but vigilant, because your enemy the devil is prowling round like a roaring lion, looking for someone to eat.”
“Think of the love that The FATHER has lavished on us, by letting us be called GOD’s children; and that is what we are. Because the world refused to acknowledge Him, therefore it does not acknowledge us.”
“No created thing can hide from Him; everything is uncovered & open to the eyes of The One who to whom we must give an account of ourselves.”
“A balanced synthesis?”
About a year ago a friend thought to balance my bookshelf by unloading seven volumes of the complete works of St. Alphonsus de Liguori (1926!), lifted many years ago from a real pastor who passed away in 1988. I need to spend some time with this…
Thinking about “God’s mercy” and turning almost randomly to Part I of “The Way of Salvation and of Perfection,” we find many dozens of Meditations, including VIII: “The abuse of God’s Mercy”:
The reader is counseled to avoid both despair and presumption [….]. Second, “God is merciful, but he is also just [….]. Then third, “God is not mocked [….] The hope of those who commit sin because God is forgiving, is an abomination in his sight: their hope, says the holy Job, is an abomination [much in italics].”
Any “synthesis” conforming to “the spirit of St. Alphonsus Maria de’ Liguori” will be a daunting and sobering task, given the 3,000 pages of unambiguous fine print such as this.
SUMMARY: Not much here on “time is greater than space.”
A presumption there is a synthesis. If we’re addressing Hegel’s thesis antithesis synthesis it’s argued that Hegel does not give evidence of using the formula in any of his works (see Leonard F Wheat in Undiscovered Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis Dialectics).
Intelligence in Man is not distinguished by level rather by kind. Among animal species only man can make the following comparative distinctions: 1. universal and particular 2. one and many 3. union and separation 4. essence and existence 5. divine and human 6. inner and outer 7. in itself and for itself 8. potential and actual 9. unconscious and conscious 10. artificial [man-made] and natural 11. God and man. 12. Father and Son Jesus (Wheat).
The proposition of synthesis poses a presumption these appositional parings can be synthesized. Except for the Father and Son Jesus. If we take a moral principle [principle here replaces absolute] can we modify it to satisfy its opposite and retain a morally acceptable compromise? For example communion for divorced and remarried. If using Amoris Laetitia as a guide can we retain the precept Adultery and allow communion – even if based on mitigating circumstances? Is that not accommodation rather than synthesis?
It seems Pope Leo’s premise “balanced synthesis’ between God’s law, human freedom” cannot satisfy both principle/precept and freedom. A solution is found when it’s shown as given the example of Alphonsus Ligouri that a famished man secretly taking fruit from someone’s orchard is not stealing because life or death presents a right. Whereas taking another man’s wife for sensual fulfillment presents an evil. The natural law that undergirds our conscience tells us that.
Leo XIV has made a terrible decision to open up doctrinal moral principles for discussion in reaching a synthesis with human freedom – in a regional Bogotá setting attended by a cadre of Redemptorist lecturers, professors from Columbia, a handful from elsewhere – with immense repercussions [particularly doctrinal fragmentation] for the universal Church.
Leo, a canon lawyer, must be aware that what occurs regionally by a group of unknowns [despite the heady title International Congress of Theologians] with his papal sanction will be taken elsewhere as the rule or at least the option, and for other such regional discussion of doctrine.
Hegel, when addressing thesis antithesis synthesis, theorized these dynamics in reference to the history of nations and cultures. Not to definitive moral principles.
These secular philosophers also know their ruminations including dialectics are taken as rules and options for other things beyond the initial application.
Becoming popularized or well spread it takes on bulk or immenseness sometimes personalized or “authored” and in general through “autonomous” anonymity.
Thanks, dear Fr Dr Peter Morello for illuminating what appears to be yet another crafty scheme to deceive & manipulate The Church towards blatant denial of GOD’s strict but benevolent instructions, that enable us to live a life of Grace.
Ps 118 “How shall we remain sinless? By obeying Your Word.”
“I have sought You with all my heart: let me not stray from Your commands”
“I treasure Your promise in my heart, lest I sin against You.”
“Blessed are You, O LORD, teach me Your statutes.”
Not to dismiss your analysis–which applies especially to the past twelve years–my proposition is that a synthesis of the Hegelian vintage is not possible if attempted within the spirit of St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori. Which is why I used the terms “daunting and sobering.”
Thomists celebrate Aquinas’ “synthesis” of Faith and Reason, and this direction is clearly not Hegelian. With you, I would prefer if Leo XIV had used the better term “coherence” instead of synthesis, which was preferred by Benedict XVI.
A Hegelian outcome would/will (?) be out of step with Liguori. That’s my point–a not-entirely-subtle invitation for theologians to consider that what the magisterium upholds about God and human freedom is not “rigid, bigoted, fixistic and backwardist.”
Agreed.
Although Peter, Faith and Reason cohesive by nature [as God ordained] are not two opposing premises. God’s Law and human freedom are opposed. Unless we attribute freedom to following God’s Law. Which is not a true synthesis. The phrasing by Leo XIV means freedom from God’s Law.
Although Peter, Faith and Reason cohesive by nature [as God ordained] are not two opposing premises. God’s Law and human freedom are opposed. Unless we attribute freedom to following God’s Law. Which is not a true synthesis. The phrasing by Leo XIV means freedom from God’s Law.
Faith is a gift. Reason a natural faculty. Neither are opposed although differ, both compliment the other.
“God’s Law and human freedom are opposed”?
“It follows that the authority of the Church, when she pronounces on moral questions, in no way undermines the freedom of conscience of Christians. This is so not only because freedom of conscience is never freedom ‘from’ the truth [!] but always and only freedom ‘in’ the truth [!], but also because the Magisterium does not bring to the Christian conscience truths which are extraneous to it; rather it brings to light the truths which it ought already to possess, developing them from the starting point of the primordial act of faith” (St. John Paul II, “Veritatis Splendor,” 1993, n. 64).
“God’s Law and human freedom are opposed. Unless we attribute freedom to following God’s Law”.
By ordained nature the will is not opposed to God’s law. By tendency due to original sin it is opposed.
Jesus Christ is the balance between the laws of God and the dynamics of man’s conscience and freedom.
“It brings to light the truths which it ought already to possess, developing them from the starting point of the primordial act of faith” (St. John Paul II, “Veritatis Splendor,” 1993, n. 64).
John Paul is not precise in this diagram in reference to the natural law within, that prescient knowledge that all men possess realized in the act of apprehension of good from evil. ‘We do not require grace to apprehend this law within’, which law is a reflection of the divine law. That is why all men are subject to judgment if they commit intrinsically evil sin. It is this natural law that undergirds conscience. Insofar as freedom it belongs to the will. Which is why Aquinas holds, evil is in the will.
Faith enlightens the intellect regarding natural law and strengthens the will to observe the law. Whereas revealed knowledge of heroic virtue required for salvation are not found by reason, rather they are gifts of the Holy Spirit, knowledge of which and adherence by grace surpass Man’s natural capacity.
A correction to “John Paul is not precise in this diagram”. John Paul is likely focused on the baptized who are certainly recipients of grace at baptism, and other non baptized to whom God wishes to confer grace – all of whom would be subject “to [the] light [of] truths which it ought already to possess, developing them from the starting point of the primordial act of faith”.
“Balanced synthesis”? The corruptions going on in liturgy said to be according to VATICAN II the pastoral Council, are not pastoral.
At least, this sounds properly Papal –
‘The interview appears in the Spanish-language book “León XIV: ciudadano del mundo, misionero del siglo XXI” (“Leo XIV: Citizen of the World, Missionary of the XXI Century”), a biography by Crux correspondent Elise Ann Allen, published on Sept. 18 in Spanish by Penguin Peru. English and Portuguese editions are expected in 2026.
In the book, Pope Leo, a longtime missionary in Peru before he was pope, underlines that the Church’s primary mission remains spiritual, not political.
“My role is announcing the good news, preaching the Gospel,” he said. “I don’t see my primary role as trying to be the solver of the world’s problems. I don’t see my role as that at all, really, although I think that the Church has a voice, a message that needs to continue to be preached, to be spoken and spoken loudly.”’