Posted on 12/19/2016 11:25:59 AM PST by ebb tide
Christian faith is a scandal. God has become weak flesh and has decided that this involvement with the life of each and every man and woman be permanent in history through the Church. We are the Church: fragile, stubborn, and limited. God has deeply submerged Godself into our finite and clumsy humanity, and your and my humanity has also been deeply submerged in that tender embrace of that same God. From that moment on, the whole Christian path is marked by the pedagogy of following a concrete flesh that teaches me and accompanies me. We do not follow an idea; we do not follow certain decency ideals; we follow a live Person, and the way in which this Person has chosen to stay among us without abandoning us. The common gnostic temptation is thus avoided: we believe that God’s Love has leaned over us, being compassionate about our nothingness, inwardly restoring what was fallen, what was crushed, everything that had been wounded.
Faith becomes an ideology when our own certainty about the Christian scandal is taken for granted: when it is not necessary to start once again, when, without noticing it, we conceive our faith as a conquered territory, when we are more certain about ourselves than about who has given himself to us as the verifying criterion of our own experience.
In fact, Jesus chose Peter – a poor fisherman – to guide us. He was not a theologian or a scholar. He knew about nets and fish. It was not besides his fragility and rudeness that he became the rock to sustain the Church. It was through them that God decided to teach and surprise us all.
How is it possible to believe in this which breaks any scheme? How is it possible to believe that a Jesuit Pope, Latin-American, friend of Rafael Tello, Lucio Gera, and Methol Ferré, possesses full, supreme, and universal authority which he can exercise with complete freedom?
It seems to me that this certainty of faith is attained by the faithful adherence to the accompaniment that we receive as a gift to live out the mystery of the Church: the bishop, the pastor, the founder of a certain discipleship community to which we belong, the older sibling who counsels me and takes care of me, et cetera. God gives us people that function as a verifying factor- as a path for adherence to the faith. Through the tangible sign of that accompaniment and friendship, my heart discovers that being Church is never a formal proposition, and it is neither abstract nor disembodied. To be Church is always to live in the sphere of a guiding company, of obedience, and of availability. To leave out this tangible mediation makes the Church’s sacramentality collapse. Again, I would like to insist: we do not follow ideas. We follow a living event, acting, and embodied, and that remains faithful through history. And as much as this may sound difficult to believe, this is greatly consoling.
What can I, a lay member of the faithful – sinful and ignorant – think when I see four important Cardinals of the Church question the Pope about his ordinary magisterium? At risk, in a loud voice, how can I address them to meditation? Would it be enough to write “Dear cardinals” so they can stop for a while and read these lines?
The letter written by cardinals Burke, Caffara, Brandmüller, and Meisner- written to Francis containing five “doubts” regarding Amoris Laetitia- is certainly cordial. I am actually sorry that it became public so soon. It seems like an act of pressure. Also, some of the declarations around it have clothed it with a threatening tone. Cardinal Burke has affirmed that if Francis does not respond to their questions, they will be ready to exercise “a formal act of correction” on Peter’s successor.
I ask myself, with all respect, dear Cardinals: Have you noticed that your act of questioning – now made public – strengthens, directly and indirectly, all those who for years have distrusted Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and the Second Vatican Council? Have you noticed how some sectors associated with fantastic conspiracy theories, to ideological conservatism - so alien to the gospel- and to “moralism”, - often denounced by Pope Ratzinger-, today celebrate your position? Possibly, you are not conscious about any of this. You possibly minimize it. You possibly simply desire to dissipate any “doubts”, and you approach the Pope with the intention to learn and not really to question his Magisterium.
From my point of view, dear Cardinals, the teaching of the Pope in Amoris Laetitia is true, creative faithfulness and organic development that makes explicit the deposit of faith, underlining that every truth, in order to shine with all its attractiveness, needs to be affirmed with mercy and goodness.
Pope Francis’ silence regarding your questions can be explained in two ways. First, that these questions are already addressed in Amoris Laetitia; as well as in his homilies, messages, and catechesis, through which Francis exercises his munus docendi day by day.
You ask if it has now become possible to grant absolution in the sacrament of penance and thus to admit to Holy Communion a person who, while bound by a valid marital bond, lives together with a different person “more uxorio”. I believe that in some occasions it will be possible and in others it will not. It would all depend upon whether there is an authentic mortal sin or if there are some factors that make a human action be a sin but not of that kind. “Discernment must help to find possible ways of responding to God and growing in the midst of limits.”
On the second place, you ask if Pope John Paul II’s teaching regarding the existence of absolute moral norms – valid without exception – prohibit some intrinsically evil actions as still valid. Dear cardinals, the answer is “yes”; it is still valid. There are some actions that, in themselves, are always gravely illicit by reason of their object. But as John Paul II reminds us: “If acts are intrinsically evil, a good intention or particular circumstances can diminish their evil”.
The third question asks: After Amoris Laetitia (n. 301) is it still possible to affirm that a person who habitually lives in contradiction to a commandment of God’s law, as for instance the one that prohibits adultery (cf. Mt 19:3-9), finds him or herself in an objective situation of grave habitual sin? The answer to this requires us to make some distinctions. A situation of grave habitual sin refers to an obstinate conduct objectively contrary to the norms taught by the Gospel, so it does not refer to the imputability but rather to the nature of an action. Mortal sin is the action that involves grave matter, full knowledge, and deliberate consent. For this reason, for an action that is objectively evil to be a mortal sin it is required that certain subjective conditions make it imputable. The prohibition to access Holy Communion in a situation of grave sin relies on the possibility of disturbing the community’s order, of generating scandal, or similar situations. In other words, it is a disciplinary norm – not a doctrinal one – that the Pope can modify. On the contrary, the impossibility of accessing Holy Communion in mortal sin is part of our doctrine and not a mere disciplinary norm. Considering this, it is not possible to affirm that every person in a situation of grave sin is also, by definition, in a situation of mortal sin. It is enough to think about people who live in situations that involve sexual slavery, and in which, evidently, there is a situation of grave sin (prostitution) without implying – due to the slavery involved in the action – that what they do is imputable to the same degree that when they are considered to be done with full knowledge and deliberate consent. It seems that the Cardinals get close to this when they recognize that a person who lives in an objective situation of sin “ it is not certain that they are subjectively imputable for their habitual transgressions”.
The fourth question asked to the Pope is: After the affirmations of Amoris Laetitia (n. 302) on “circumstances which mitigate moral responsibility,” does one still need to regard as valid the teaching of St. John Paul, according to which “circumstances or intentions can never transform an act intrinsically evil by virtue of its object into an act ‘subjectively’ good or defensible as a choice”? Yes. The circumstances or intention modify, only accidentally, the moral quality of the action. And both are relevant in order to determine the imputability of an action. For this reason, Pope Francis is right when he affirms: “For this reason, a negative judgement about an objective situation does not imply a judgment about the imputability or culpability of the person involved”.
The fifth question inquires if one ought to regard as valid the teaching of St. John Paul II that excludes a creative interpretation of the role of conscience and that emphasizes that conscience can never be authorized to legitimate exceptions to absolute moral norms that prohibit intrinsically evil acts by virtue of their object. Yes. Amoris Laetitia does not endorse exceptions to the absolute moral norms. What exists are attenuating factors that, in some cases, may cause a committed sin not to be imputable on a subject with the necessary characteristics to consider it as an action that should be identified as a mortal sin.
The whole question is certainly not resolved with what I have written above. I am aware that my answers are very brief.
I would like to finish proposing a second possible reason that may explain the Pope’s silence. In Misericordia et misera, Francis speaks in several occasions about “silence.” Explaining the encounter of Jesus with the adulterous woman, he points that “to those who wished to judge and condemn her to death, Jesus replies with a lengthy silence. His purpose was to let God’s voice be heard in the consciences not only of the woman, but also in those of her accusers, who drop their stones and one by one leave the scene.” Can this be the reason for the Pope’s silence? Can he be waiting for the men that vowed fidelity to him may possibly reconsider their position and return to the pedagogical way to which we have pointed at the beginning? May God will, that with dialogue and good intentions, with common prayer and sincere embrace, we may all journey with Peter’s successor and with the bishops in communion with him. By doing this we may give a live testimony showing that, besides some differences in sensitivity to specific topics, communion is always possible when we existentially discover the primacy of the merciful love of God, who loves us all and always forgives us.
It’s been 91 days now.
Explaining the encounter of Jesus with the adulterous woman...
the woman renounced her sins and agreed to sin no more.
Jesus allows us free will and will not change or prevent our decisions to sin.
The essence of this huge pile of steaming excrement is the same lie that Cardinal Wuerl has been peddling for ten years: that it is necessary for the minister of Communion to know “the state of the soul” of the would-be communicant before he can even consider denying Communion.
This has been Wuerl’s primary excuse for giving Communion to Pelosi, Biden, Kerry, Lesbian Buddhists, gay couples, etc.
Of course, Denial of Communion is about preventing SCANDAL, which nothing to do with the interior state of the communicant.
They all know this. They are all liars.
I saw malevolence on Bergoglio’s face the night of his election. As though he was in the midst of a great crime.
When he KNELT TO THE CROWD and they screamed their approval...
Now we know what a malevolent person he is. He has cleansed the Pontifical Academy for Life of the pro-lifers. The phones are bugged. There are spies everywhere. But he is no petty thug. He hates Catholics, priests, seminarians, marriage, the Blessed Sacrament—and he means to destroy them.
Bing for EMMA BONINO POPE FRANCIS.
Surprise, surprise! Bergoglio and sycophants ceaselessly babble about "surprises", in aid of brainwashing us into accepting the malicious lie that God -- through the special, prophetic discernment of Bergoglio -- has replaced the Deposit of Faith with a new (capricious) reality.
I don’t see how Cardinals asking questions, seeking clarity on points and subjects, questioning conclusions, has any negative effect on anything. I thought that it was the reason that church leaders get together....to discuss religious questions, subjects, etc.......Popes certainly have learned advisors and they should be listened to, accepted or overruled.
Nor has he made an effort to hide his evil predilections. His slavering over the sacrilegious marxist "crucifix" gifted to him by Morales was telling. Note also the "osiris position" of the figure displayed on his own "pectoral cross". His favored symbols openly reveal his true allegiances.
a caller on EWTN asked Father Mitch Pacwa what he thins about this and he said,”Pope Francis is a great proponent of dialog. he should engage in dialog with the cardinals
Well that was a fine dodge if I ever saw one.
I think you missed the point. Pope francis is refusing to dialog with the cartdinals. And he always talks about dialog
I didn’t miss the point. I get what he was saying but he didn’t really tell us what he thought of the situation. In other words, does he agree with the Four or not? He just thinks they all should just “dialog”.
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