Cath. Caucus: There's a movement to undermine Catholic morality -Communion is jus the start

I am going to risk a prediction: 2018 will be the year we see an end to the fighting over Amoris Laetitia.

This might seem rather presumptuous, given that just this week five bishops have underscored the Church’s traditional teaching on the reception of Communion by the divorced and remarried. The bishops’ statement is a positive delight to read for its clarity of thought and expression – especially after some of the tortured sophistries we have had to endure of late.

The document unflinchingly reminds us that some things are just wrong, and no amount of personal reflection or mitigating circumstances can change that.

Seeming to address directly the various interpretations of that single contentious footnote in Amoris Laetitia (the one Pope Francis cannot remember), the five bishops quote St John Paul II: “The confusion created in the conscience of many faithful by the differences of opinions and teachings … about serious and delicate questions of Christian morals, ends up by diminishing the true sense of sin almost to the point of eliminating it.” This describes all too well the results, and I would say the intentions, of many of the opaque and tendentious “pastoral” guidelines which have followed Amoris Laetitia.

The doctrinal errors in interpreting Amoris Laetitia are part of a serious movement afoot in the Church to undermine her clarity of thought and expression on the moral order, especially regarding marriage, sexuality and personal conscience. What drives this movement? Let’s be clear: it has nothing to do with helping divorced and remarried Catholics. Those of us who work in marriage tribunals, where canonists and priests have more contact with such couples on a daily basis than most working in bishops’ conferences have in a year, can tell you that the divorced and remarried are, in the vast majority of cases, desperately seeking clarity from the Church, not to be told to “do whatever they think is right.”

Those so vocally opposing a “legalistic” approach, in which some things are objectively right or wrong, show themselves to be a peculiar kind of Pharisee. The law of the Church, including canon law, is made up of Divine Law, which no power on earth can change, and ecclesiastical law, which the Church promulgates on her own authority to better help the faithful understand their situation, live in accord with Divine Law and, ultimately, get to heaven.

Contrast this with many of the “interpretations” of Amoris Laetitia which call for the divorced and remarried to be admitted to Communion, even if they are living as husband and wife. Some are arguing that canon law can be twisted to vindicate a person’s situation through their desire for it to be different, even if they have no intention to change it. Essentially, as long as someone wishes they were really married, or wishes they were able to live according to the truth that they are not, that is close enough.

It is a nonsense solution which, even if it could technically be argued to satisfy ecclesiastical law (which it does not), would do nothing to change the Divine Law regarding the sinfulness of living with someone who isn’t your husband or wife as if they were. Those who think it could, do so from a dangerously flawed and warped legalistic mentality, one which thinks that the Church makes laws, and we get to heaven by following them. In fact, the Church uses law as a means of guiding us towards God’s truth, not reinventing it. Canon law is a tool, not a means of salvation. It is a light for our steps. Those using tortured philosophical and legal rationales to justify what the Church knows and says to be wrong are marking out a very different path, with a different destination.

The push for a change, or “development,” in Church teaching regarding the divorced and remarried has much wider implications. The real goal is to spin the Church into an abdication of her objective and absolute moral authority, especially in the realm of human sexuality. The language of “personal conscience” is being used to dress up the grave evil of moral relativism. Those fighting for it are the remnant and inheritors of the liberal generation of the 60s and 70s.

Which brings me to the reason I am predicting that the debates around Amoris Laetitia will come to an end in 2018. The reason is not that the Communion issue will be resolved, but that the faction will move on to their real agenda. This year will mark the 50th anniversary of the issuing of Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI’s affirmation of the dignity of human sexuality, and the intrinsic and unbreakable link between the unitive and procreative aspects of the sexual act.

Last year the National Catholic Register’s Edward Pentin quoted a “well-respected Church figure” as telling him during the 2014 family synod: “Of course, you realise this is all about Humanae Vitae. That’s what I think they’re after. That is their goal.” Pentin says the current mood in Rome suggests his source knew what she was talking about. I have to agree with him: the efforts to “interpret” Amoris Laetitia and the Church’s teaching on the indissolubility of marriage will prove to have been a mere dress rehearsal for an all-out assault upon Pope Paul’s great encyclical.

At the time of the cultural and sexual revolution, the Church spoke powerfully and prophetically against the inevitable consequences of what was happening. In the last half-century, Paul VI’s encyclical has proven ever more prescient and relevant. It is a bitterly comical irony that, just as wider society is beginning to wake up to the consequences of a sexual ethic based solely on consent and the pursuit of personal fulfilment, the Church is having to defend herself against those within who deny not just the Church’s teaching, but the last 50 years of history which have so convincingly vindicated it.

Most faithful and traditional Catholics who are observing this Vatican assault against the Church and the faith are prepared, or are getting prepared to become the remnant, and preparing for the surreal possibility they will be sooner than later be associating in a more or less underground fashion, together with other faithful Catholics and faithful priests, who all together will most assuredly refuse to cooperate with evil and with the schismatics at the top who are running the Vatican.

Watching for abuse to our Lord in communion will be the signal.

One might tolerate measures of decline and offer it up as reparation and as a suffering for the redemption of others, but any laxity toward our Lord in the Eucharist will be the end of parity.

Let the Vatican mess with degrading the Eucharist and the faithful remnant will vacate “to the hills”, as sacred scripture warns.

The Lord has our eyes on Himself in the Eucharist. We are watching for the final battle, the Great Apostasy.

Humanae Vitae....

Perhaps that is the ultimate goal for Satan, but for this side, it is more likely the lynch pin that is need to be taken out in order to “OK” man on man relationships. There is large group of clergy who swing for the other side with regards to disordered sexual relationships who are pushing this. They need there conscience pacified so they look for a legalistic(which is quite distorted from sound reasoning as it is, which is really telling) approach to say all is now fine, and to do so they have to ignore divine law, they have to ignore the spiritual side of things, and discard, if they ever really had any, supernatural faith. The consequence for this will be a world wide obliteration (this is Satan’s goal) of proper social norms since our existence does revolve around the family where sex is good and proper within the confines of Holy matrimony and an openness to have children, i.e. no contraception since this goes against that, no irregular unions, no divorced and remarried, no abortion, no going out of your way to avoid having children, etc. God is going to test our faith, we must not leave the Church even though it looks like most are going to do exactly that. Those that leave or never come into the Church especially as a direct result of all this are greatly endangered on going into Hell, which is Satan’s objective.

If you think about it, we have been well-prepared to know the truth thanks to JPII and Benedict.

The reaction the leftists are getting from us is I am sure a headache to them. They expected the same reaction we gave them after Vatican II where they could just say, "Spirit of Vatican II" and we would just look at them and say, "Oh, Okay."

It is way different now. We have had good teaching and are well-fed. We have good Catholic media. And, because of that we can't be hornswoggled like before.

God is going to test our faith, we must not leave the Church even though it looks like most are going to do exactly that. Those that leave or never come into the Church especially as a direct result of all this are greatly endangered on going into Hell, which is Satan’s objective.

I agree. I do believe that God has been preparing his troops for some time. It is no accident that this is falling into our laps at this time.

JPII one time said (I will paraphrase) that the fight will not be between one religion and another but between those who truly believe and those who do not.

There will be an unmasking and those who do not believe will be left with nothing to hide themselves.

Our command is to hang on to the Cross. At some point in the near future we will see how He worked everything for our good.

And He will be eternally praised.

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