Pope's first encyclical on love and sex is lost in translation

You're right. In fact, Card. Ratzinger as Prefect of the CDF taught just that - that we Catholics can make up our own minds vis a vis Just War and Capital Punishment

In the midst of last year's debate in the United States over abortion and Communion, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger wrote a confidential memorandum entitled Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion: General Principles. It was leaked to the press, and its genuineness was confirmed by the Holy See. Catholics who wanted to see Catholic pro-abortion politicians held accountable for their reprehensible stance found much of what Ratzinger said heartening, but one statement in the memorandum caused some of them considerable perplexity:

"Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia."

Excellent explanations as usual. I would add a real Catholic must maintain the Bonds of Unity in Worship, Doctrine, and Authority to be Catholic and diligently searching for ways to "legitimately" disobey Dad speaks volumes about the quality of the CINO engaged in that activity.

St. Catherine

"As you know, he left it (the sweet key of obedience) in the hands of his vicar, Christ on earth, whom you all are obliged to obey even to the point of death. Whoever refuses to obey him is, as I have told you elsewhere, living in damnation (D 154)."

" Who has the greater merit: those who belong to an order or these others? I answer you that the merit of obedience is not measured by the act or the place or the person commanding (that is, good, bad, lay or religious), but by the measure of love in the person obeying. This is the measure with which it is measured (D 164)."

"take the wood of self knowledge along with contempt for their self complacency and self conceit, and put these into the fire of divine charity, espousing once again…holy obedience as their bride (D 162).

You confuse the principles with their application in specific circumstances. The Church teaches the principles; lay people must apply them to circumstances. In the case of war and capital punishment the principles include last resort, just cause etc.(for capital punishment, John Paul II has proposed that the only just cause is defense of the innocent, not punishment/retribution or deterrance, but even that he has not taught definitively, though he made it clearl he thinks this is the correct principle; at some point his proposed development may need to be reasserted more definitively than it has been or revised). Those principles have been taught at fairly high level of definiteness. But they constantly have to be applied in concrete circumstances, in making laws, in enforcing laws, in administering government--these circumstances vary. Bishops and priests are not supposed to be in government doing the application work. Their job is to teach but they also govern (not teaching but discipline) and so they do rightfully advise lay people in government on questions of just war, make take severe disciplinary action in cases where a king or prince or president or congressman has clearly failed to act according to the principles of justice. There's an interaction between the temporal and spiritual powers in this manner.

So if I disagree with the pope's assessment of a particular war's justice, I am not being unfaithful as a Catholic if (a big if) I have truly listened to his counsel and assessment and prayed and truly tried before God to come to a just assessment. I may not make snap judgments or lightly dismiss his assessment of a particular war or law or administrative action.

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