The apprehension of Catholics on the eve of Pope Francis’ Post-Synod Exhortation

Roberto de Mattei
 
 Catholic , Communion For Remarried , Divorce , Marriage , Pope Benedict Xvi , Pope Francis , Synod On The Family , Walter Kasper

March 24, 2016 (Rorate Caeli) -- In this Holy Week of 2016, the sentiments and pain of Christ’s Passion being renewed is mingled with deep apprehension about the distressing situation the Church is in. The greatest worries regard the impending Apostolic Post-Synod Exhortation Pope Francis signed on March 19th and which will be published just after Easter. According to the Vatican journalist Luigi Accattoli “rumors foresee a text of no striking doctrinal or juridical affirmations, but rather will include many innovative practical choices regarding marriage preparation and couples in irregular situations: not only for the divorced and remarried but also for cohabiters, marriages with a believer and non-believer and for those only civilly-married.” (Corriere della Sera, March 20th 2016)

What will these “innovative practices” be? The docuмent’s key word is “integration”. Those who are in an irregular situation will be “integrated” into the community: they could become catechists, liturgical animators, godparents for Baptism and Confirmation, best men/bridesmaids at weddings and so on; all activities the traditional praxis of the Church to this day has forbidden them owing to their state of public sin. Yet, Alberto Melloni writes in “La Repubblica”, March 19th “on Communion for the divorced and remarried no novelties are expected. Seeing as the problem is to legitimize a praxis (…), not establish it theologically”. The docuмent does not anticipate a “general rule” of access to the Eucharist, but would allow confessors and individual bishops to permit admission to the Sacraments “case by case”. The novelty, Melloni explains, is based on facts not on words, “by giving responsibility and restoring effective powers to bishops, marking, as Cardinal Kasper said, a real “revolution”.

Let’s imagine someone said: morality exists, but let’s act as if it didn’t. Morality being the norm of human conduct, this would be an invitation to a society without rules: a veritable Far-West morality, in which everything is allowed, as long as it not theorized. Jesus said, “Whoever loves me keeps my commandments” (John 14,21). In a case like this, in the name of a false, merciful love, God’s commandments would be violated and we would make a mockery of Him. And yet this is exactly the “legitimatizing of praxis” scenario that Melloni hopes for.

If the rumours are true, those who are in a situation of public and permanent sin, could rise to the role of witnesses, guides and educators in the Christian community. This would evidently mean not only for the divorced and remarried but for public cohabiters of every kind, heterosɛҳuąƖ or ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ, indiscriminately. Will it be possible to apply “the hermeneutic of continuity” to a docuмent of this type, meant as an attempt to retain every act or word from the ecclesiastic hierarchy conformable with Tradition, whatever they are? For there to be continuity with the past it is not enough to reaffirm the indissolubility of matrimony. The continuity of doctrine is demonstrated through facts not words. Confronted with these novelties in praxis, how can it be said nothing will change? And how can the hermeneutic of continuity be proposed when it has already failed as far as the Vatican II docuмents are concerned?

In his discourse to the Roman Clergy on February 14th 2014, Benedict XVI, the most authoritative promoter of the hermeneutic of continuity, admitted the debacle of this interpretation of the events. His abdication from the pontifical throne was first of all, the defeat of his tentative to stem the post-council’s religious and moral deviation by placing it on a level of pure theological and hermeneutical debate. When the same Benedict XVI moved from the hermeneutical level to that of the facts, in conceding the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificuм, he won the battle. And Summorum Pontificuм represents the highest point of his pontificate.

Those who use the hermeneutic method, need to accept the possibility of different interpretations of the same text or event. If the plurality of interpretations is denied, by affirming that a docuмent or a papal act must necessarily be read in continuity with the precedent Magisterium, the hermeneutical method is in itself rendered futile. The rule of interpretation, moreover, as is that of every human act, is the search for what is true, not for what is convenient. For this, the distinction between the infallible and the non-infallible Magisterium, that admits the possibility of errors by the supreme Pastors of the Church, is the only thing that helps us to understand the existence of divergences among magisterial docuмents.

If all the docuмents of the Magisterium said the same things and could never enter into contradiction with each other, the words themselves would lose meaning. The objectivity of the texts would be substituted for the dialectical ability of the hermeneut, capable of reconciling the irreconcilable. But who would interpret the interpretation of the hermeneut? The process is interminable and every hermeneutic is, as the German philosopher Otto Friedrich Bollnow says, an “open form” which can contain everything, as the barycentre is moved from the ‘known object’ to the ‘knower subject’. On the other hand, hermeneutics need obscurity and prosper only in the lands where the sun of clarity does not rise.

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The Post-Synod Exhortation will not contain “any split” declares Alberto Melloni. The Pope, knowing well the tight boundary that separates heresy from orthodoxy, does not cross this red line, but places himself in a grey zone, avoiding that fatal step Melloni defines as “the breach”. However, for a docuмent to be bad it is not necessary that it be formally heretical, it is sufficient for it to be deliberately ambiguous and, in its obscurity, near or inductive to heresy. Between truth and error, ambiguity does not constitute an acceptable tertium genus, but an obscure area which must be clarified and defined. A good docuмent may contain some equivocal passage, which will need to be interpreted in the light of the general context, but if the obscure zones prevail over the light zones, the message can be nothing other than untrustworthy and unwholesome.

Two years have passed since Cardinal Kasper initiated the synod-debate and the same Kasper is chanting victory today by using the same formula he offered on February 20th 2014: “Doctrine doesn’t change, the novelty regards only pastoral praxis”. Has Kasper really won his battle? In the next few days, we hope with all our heart that our worries are proved wrong by the papal docuмent. Yet should they be confirmed, we hope fervently that those Shepherds of the Church who have sought, over the last two years, to block the way to Kasper’s ideas, now express their opinion clearly on the Post-Synod Exhortation. The text to be published is a pastoral docuмent with no intention of formulating doctrine, but rather, of giving indications for actions.

Should these indications not correspond to traditional Catholic praxis, this will need to be said with respectful candour. More than a million Catholics addressed a “Filial Appeal” to Pope Francis, asking him for a clear word on the grave moral problems currently on the table. If this word does not come from the Apostolic Exhortation, we ask the Cardinals who elected him to pronounce it; they have the power to reprimand him, correct him and admonish him, given that nobody may judge a Pope, unless, as the Medieval canon lawyers taught, he departs from the right path of the orthodox faith (Gratianus, Decretum, Pars I, Dist. XL, c. 6).

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Reprinted with permission from Rorate Caeli.

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NEWSABORTION, CATHOLIC CHURCH, POLITICS - U.S.
Fri Apr 8, 2016 - 3:30 pm EST
‘I invited him’: Vatican official defends giving speaking slot to pro-abortion Bernie Sanders

Pete Baklinski  Follow Pete
 
 Abortion , Bernie Sanders , Jeffrey Sachs , Pontifical Academy Of Social Sciences , Vatican

April 8, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) -- A high profile flap developed today in the Vatican over the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences' controversial decision to invite Bernie Sanders to address a conference in Rome while the pro-abortion Democratic presidential candidate is in a crucial moment of his campaign against Hillary Clinton.

The announcement of the invitation today comes just four days prior to a key primary contest in New York.

Though Sanders' views on life, marriage, and religious liberty diverge radically from those of Pope Francis, Sanders has tried to tie himself to Francis because of their similar messages on issues like the economy and climate

The flap developed earlier in the day when the president of the Pontifical Academy, Professor Margaret Archer, lambasted Sanders, accusing him of committing a "monumental discourtesy" by publicizing the invite. However, the academy's chancellor, Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, who outranks her, then contradicted Archer and defended the invitation.

Archer had told Bloomberg Politics, “Sanders made the first move, for the obvious reasons."

But then Bishop Sorondo seemed to deny that in quotes to Reuters. “It was not that way," he said. “I invited him with her [Archer’s] consensus," he said.

Reuters reports that Sorondo showed them an invitation to Sanders that was dated March 30.

The April 15-16 conference marks the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Centesimus Annus, which sets out the Church’s teaching on the social order and the place of economics within that order. In a press release, Vatican conference organizers called the conference in a “serious academic discussion” that would investigate how the Church can best engage with the world on social issues in the coming years and decades.

The internal dispute in the Vatican academy over Sanders’ invitation ignores the important question regarding why it agreed to invite Sanders to address the conference in the first place, just days before an important political contest. The question is compounded by the fact that Sanders holds a public position on abortion at extreme odds with Catholic belief in the sanctity of human life. Sanders believes in abortion-on-demand at any stage, for any reason, paid for by tax dollars.

In Centesimus Annus, John Paul II specifically mentions abortion as an attack against the “sources of life” that make a society flourish.

“Human ingenuity seems to be directed more towards limiting, suppressing or destroying the sources of life — including recourse to abortion, which unfortunately is so widespread in the world — than towards defending and opening up the possibilities of life,” the pope wrote wrote at that time. In the same encyclical, John Paul II also refers to abortion as a “scandal” that indicates a “crisis with democracies.”

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Sanders told reporters that he was “delighted to have been invited by the Vatican to a meeting on restoring social justice and environmental sustainability to the world economy.”

Also scheduled to address the conference is professor Jeffrey Sachs, one of the world’s foremost proponents of population control as well as an abortion advocate.

That pro-abortion advocates — along with many others opposed to basic Catholic teaching — are invited to address a Vatican conference has become common place under the leadership of Pope Francis.

In fact, Margaret Archer herself — appointed by Pope Francis in 2014 to as president of the academy — slammed last year an American pro-life organization after it raised concerns about two leading abortion and population control proponents being given a prominent platform at a Vatican conference on climate change. “I am appointed by the Pope and responsible directly to him. I’m afraid that leaves you and your cohort out in the cold,” she told the pro-life organization.

PASS’s chancellor Monsignor Sorondo also has a history of criticizing conservative circles in the Catholic Church opposed to the current close collaboration between the Vatican and the United Nations concerning the question of purported climate change and the new Sustainable Development Goals.


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OPINIONCATHOLIC CHURCH, SPECIALTY PAGES, VATICAN SYNOD ON THE FAMILY
Fri Apr 8, 2016 - 1:28 pm EST
Catholics cannot accept elements of Pope’s exhortation that threaten faith and family

Voice of the Family
 
 Catholic , Pope Francis , Synod On The Family

April 8, 2016 (Voice of the Family) – The promulgation of the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia by Pope Francis marks the conclusion of a synodal process that has been dominated by attempts to undermine Catholic teaching on matters relating to human life, marriage and the family, on questions including, but not limited to, the indissolubility of marriage, contraception, artificial methods of reproduction, ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖity, “gender ideology” and the rights of parents and children. These attempts to distort Catholic teaching have weakened the Church’s witness to the truths of the natural and supernatural order and have threatened the well-being of the family, especially its weakest and most vulnerable members.

The Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia is a very lengthy docuмent, which discusses a wide variety of subjects related to the family. There are many passages that faithfully reflect Catholic teaching but this cannot, and does not, lessen the gravity of those passages which undermine the teaching and practice of the Catholic Church. Voice of the Family intends to present full analyses of the serious problems in the text over the coming days and weeks.

Voice of the Family expresses the following initial concerns with the greatest reverence for the papal office and solely out of a sincere desire to assist the hierarchy in its proclamation of Catholic teaching on life, marriage and the family and to further the authentic good of the family and its most vulnerable members.

We consider that in raising the following concerns we fulfil our duty as clearly laid out in the Code of Canon Law, which states:

According to the knowledge, competence, and prestige which they possess, they have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful, without prejudice to the integrity of faith and morals, with reverence toward their pastors, and attentive to common advantage and the dignity of persons. (Canon 212 §3)
Admission of the “divorced and remarried” to Holy Communion

Amoris Laetitia, over the course of Chapter VIII (paragraphs 291-312), proposes a number of approaches that prepare the way for “divorced and remarried” Catholics to receive Holy Communion without true repentance and amendment of life. These paragraphs include:

confused expositions of Catholic teaching on the nature and effects of mortal sin, on the imputability of sin, and on the nature of conscience;
the use of ideological language in place of the Church’s traditional terminology;
and the use of selective and misleading quotations from previous Church docuмents.
A particularly troubling example of misquotation of previous teaching is found in paragraph 298 which quotes the statement of Pope John Paul II, made in Familiaris Consortio, that there exist situations “where, for serious reasons, such as the children’s upbringing, a man and woman cannot satisfy the obligation to separate.” However in Amoris Laetitia the second half of Pope John Paul II’s sentence, which states that such couples “take on themselves the duty to live in complete continence, that is, by abstinence from the acts proper to married couples” (Familiaris Consortio, No. 84),  is omitted.

Furthermore, in the footnote to this misleading quotation, we read:

In such situations, many people, knowing and accepting the possibility of living ‘as brothers and sisters’ which the Church offers them, point out that if certain expressions of intimacy are lacking, ‘it often happens that faithfulness is endangered and the good of the children suffers’ (Second Vatican Ecuмenical Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 51).
The docuмent makes reference to this erroneous view but does not explain why it is a false approach, which is namely that:

All sɛҳuąƖ acts outside of a valid marriage are intrinsically evil and it is never justifiable to commit an intrinsically evil act, even in order to achieve a good end.
“Faithfulness is endangered” by acts of sɛҳuąƖ intimacy outside of marriage but faithfulness is lived when two individuals in an invalid union refrain from sɛҳuąƖ intimacy in fidelity to their original union, which remains valid.
The quotation implies that children will suffer because their parents, with the help of divine grace, live chastely. On the contrary, such parents are giving their children an example of fidelity, chastity and trust in the power of God’s grace.
The docuмent cites Gaudium et Spes but the passage is quoted out of context and does not support the argument made. The context makes clear that Gaudium et Spes is speaking of married Catholics, in the context of procreation, not those cohabiting in an invalid union. The full sentence is as follows:

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But where the intimacy of married life is broken off, its faithfulness can sometimes be imperilled and its quality of fruitfulness ruined, for then the upbringing of the children and the courage to accept new ones are both endangered (Gaudium et Spes, No. 51).
It is therefore difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Apostolic Exhortation is at least raising the possibility that adulterous sɛҳuąƖ acts might in some cases be justifiable and has misquoted Gaudium et Spes as if to provide grounds for this.

Other approaches that undermine Catholic doctrine on reception of the sacraments will be discussed by Voice of the Family in due course.

Parental rights and sex education

Amoris Laetitia includes a section entitled “The Need for Sex Education” (paragraphs 280-286). This section spans more than five pages without making even one reference to parents. On the other hand there is reference to “educational institutions”. Yet sex education is “a basic right and duty of parents” which “must always be carried out under their attentive guidance, whether at home or in educational centers chosen and controlled by them” (Pope John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, No. 37). The omission of this teaching seriously fails parents at a time when parental rights regarding sex education are under serious and sustained attack in many nations of the world, and at the international institutions. In this section Amoris Laetitia does not cite any of the previous Church docuмents that clearly affirm this right; it does however cite a psychoanalyst, Erich Fromm, associated with the Frankfurt school. The docuмent’s earlier references to parental rights (paragraph 84), while welcome, cannot compensate for the exclusion of parents from this section.

ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ unions

Amoris Laetitia, following an approach similar to that previously adopted in synod docuмents, implies that “same-sex unions” may offer a “certain stability” and can have a kind of similarity or relation to marriage. It states that:

We need to acknowledge the great variety of family situations that can offer a certain stability, but de facto or same-sex unions, for example, may not simply be equated with marriage. (Paragraph 53)
There is great pressure at the international institutions for the rejection of the traditional understanding of the family through the adoption of language which refers to “variety” or “diversity” in the forms of the family. The implication that “same-sex unions” form part of the “great variety of family situations” is precisely what pro-family groups are fighting hard to oppose. By using such language the Apostolic Exhortation undermines the pro-family movement’s work to protect the true definition of the family and, consequently, to protect children who depend on the family structure willed by God for their well-being and healthy development.

It should be noted that in paragraph 251 the authentic teaching of the Church, that “there are absolutely no grounds for considering ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family” is restated.

“Gender ideology”

Amoris Laetitia endorses a central aspect of “gender ideology” by asserting that it “needs to be emphasized” that biological sex and socio-cultural ‘gender’ can be “distinguished but not separated” (paragraph 56). This acceptance of the underlying principle of gender theory undermines the docuмent’s otherwise welcome criticism of the ideology and its effects. The false notion that biological sex is distinguishable from so-called “gender” was first proposed in the 1950s and is the foundation of “gender ideology”. Opposition to the consequences of “gender ideology”will be impossible if its erroneous first principle is accepted.

Attacks on innocent human life

Amoris Laetitia fails to grapple with the scale of the threat to unborn children, the elderly and the disabled. Conservative estimates indicate that over one billion unborn lives have been destroyed by abortion over the last century. Yet in a docuмent addressing challenges to the family, which is 264 pages long, there are only a small number of passing references to abortion. There is no mention of the destruction caused by artificial methods of reproduction, which have also resulted in the loss of millions of human lives. The absence of serious discussion of attacks on unborn life in this context is a grave omission.

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There is also minimal reference to euthanasia and assisted ѕυιcιdє despite the increasing pressure for their legalization across the world. Failure to adequately discuss this threat is likewise another very regrettable omission.

Contraception

Amoris Laetitia fails to adequately restate Catholic teaching on the use of contraception. This is a troubling oversight given that (i) the separation of the procreative and unitive ends of the sɛҳuąƖ act is a major catalyst for the culture of death and that (ii) there is widespread disobedience and ignorance of the Church’s teaching in this area precisely because of the failure of the hierarchy to communicate this truth.  The docuмent’s discussion of conscience is likewise flawed both in paragraph 222, which deals with “responsible parenthood”, and in Chapter VIII which deals with the admission to the sacraments of those in public adultery. Paragraph 303 is of particular concern, especially in the following assertion:

Yet conscience 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.
This statement seems to adopt a false understanding of the “law of gradualness” and suggest that there are certain occasions when sin is not only unavoidable but even actively willed by God for that person. This would clearly be unacceptable.

Conclusions

This is only a brief introduction to the very numerous problems found within Amoris Laetitia. It will take further study to fully draw out all the implications of the text but it is already abundantly clear that the docuмent fails to give a clear and faithful exposition of Catholic doctrine and leads inescapably to conclusions that could result in violations of the immutable teaching of the Catholic Church, and those disciplines which are inextricably founded upon it. Our initial overview provides sufficient cause to regard this docuмent as a threat to the integrity of the Catholic faith and the authentic good of the family.

We reiterate once again that we make these criticisms with great reverence for the office of the papacy but with the consciousness of our duties as lay Catholics towards the good of the Church, and our duties as pro-life/pro-family campaigners to work to protect the family and its most vulnerable members.

Reprinted with permission from Voice of the Family.


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NEWSABORTION, POLITICS - U.S.
Fri Apr 8, 2016 - 11:50 am EST
Ted Cruz takes stand against abortion after rape: Go after the rapist, don’t kill the baby

Fr. Mark Hodges
 
 2016 Presidential Election , Abortion , Rape Exception , Ted Cruz

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 8, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) -- Texas senator and presidential hopeful Ted Cruz has run as the most prolife candidate, and this week, Cruz once again boldly backed up his prolife credentials.

Fox News' Megyn Kelly conducted an extended interview with Cruz prior to his victory over Trump in the Wisconsin primaries.  At one point, Kelly brought up the fact that Cruz believes in the sanctity of innocent human life regardless of the circuмstances of conception.

"For people like me," Kelly told Cruz, not allowing abortion in cases of rape or incest "may be a problem in getting behind President Ted Cruz."

Sen. Cruz answered Kelly by first emphasizing his compassion for rape survivors.  "I’ve spent a lot of years in law enforcement," Cruz explained.  "I was the Solicitor General in the state of Texas and I have handled horrific cases of rape... I went before the U.S. Supreme Court and argued in defense of...capital punishment for the very worst child rapists."

"Rape is a horrific crime against the humanity of a person, and needs to be punished, and punished severely," Cruz stated, "but at the same time, as horrible as that crime is, I don’t believe it’s the child’s fault."

Cruz takes the prolife stance that to kill the living, preborn child is unjust, and does not unrape a woman, but rather only answers the violence of rape with the violence of abortion.

"We weep at the crime," Cruz told Kelly.  "We want to do everything we can to prevent the crime on the front end, and to punish the criminal, but I don’t believe it makes sense to blame the child."

LifeSiteNews sought out individual prolife leaders who themselves were conceived in rape for comment.

Rebecca Kiessling told LifeSiteNews, "I spoke with Senator Cruz by phone over a month ago about messaging on this issue, and I discussed the mistakes made by others," she said.

"Ted Cruz has the right values to begin with and I'm thankful he recognizes the humanity of those like me, who do not deserve the death penalty for the crimes of our biological fathers," Kiessling said.

"To say that you are against taking a child's life unless that child happened to be conceived in rape, would imply that the death penalty is the appropriate punishment for that child," Pam Stenzel told LifeSiteNews.  "It implies that the child should pay the ultimate price for the crime of her father."

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"As a woman who was conceived in rape, I am so thankful that my birthmother did not make me pay for that crime, but sacrificed herself to give me life, and then the ultimate gift of my adoptive family," Ms. Stenzel continued.  "She did not repay violence with more violence."

"As a counselor, I've spent over two decades counseling women in crisis," Ms. Stenzel explained.  "To say that abortion for the victim of rape would heal her, or make the rape go away is patently false."

"In fact, for most victims of rape who become pregnant as a result and then had an abortion, they will tell you that the abortion was as traumatizing, if not more, than the rape itself," the prolife counselor said.

Ms. Stenzel concluded, "The only person who benefits from an abortion in the case of rape is the rapist!"

Monica Kelsey is a prolife speaker, and the "product of rape."  "When we talk about the rights of the unborn child, we should never discuss the conception in which that child was conceived by," she told LifeSiteNews.  "The unborn child conceived in rape is just as much of a person as a child conceived with wine and roses."

"Having an abortion after rape does not un-rape the woman," Ms. Kelsey explained.  "This woman will still have to heal spiritually, emotionally and physically.  Having an abortion is not going to change that, and studies show that abortion adds more trauma."

"I am thankful that in 1972, when my birth mother was brutally attacked and raped and left along the side of the road to die, that there were advocates fighting to keep abortion illegal even in the cases of rape," Ms. Kelsey concluded.  "I pray that our next president sees the value of every person, born and unborn, and fights every day to protect us all!"

MSNBC noted that since the U.S. Supreme Court twin rulings Roe v Wade and Doe v Bolton in 1973 that legalized abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy for any reason, the Republican ticket has officially been prolife, but has always supported a rape exception.  Should Sen. Cruz win the Republican nomination, he would be the first consistently prolife presidential candidate in the history of the republic.