When the Levee Breaks Amoris Laetita version

When the levee breaks, got no place to stay...

Yes, it's important to remember the classics.

When reading R. R. Reno's reservations about Amoris Laetita, the image of resisting an apparently impending flood kept recurring.  Given my previous post about the AL tidal wave--an apt image for all the reactions it has generated--I wondered if Reno trying to stop the leaks by sticking thumbs in dyke walls or whether he, having seen the first floor of home flooded, decamped to the second or third or higher floors.

Reno recognizes the face value of the new document;  nothing has changed.

Francis doesn’t actually say that divorced and remarried Catholics can receive communion. Amoris Laetitia explicitly affirms the church’s teaching on marriage. But in long digressions into the complexities of moral and pastoral discernment, Francis provides plenty of justifications for others to say that, yes, in particular situations, divorced and married Catholics can receive communion. All the while, Francis insists that the Catholic teaching on marriage must be affirmed. The ambiguity seems intentional, designed to increase scope for pastoral discretion.

The Catholic teaching on marriage is clear: It is permanent and cannot be dissolved. This is not a merely canonical matter, as though church officials at some point resolved to make indissolubility a feature of Catholic marriage. Christ warns us not to put asunder what God has put together. St. Paul associates the covenant of marriage with the unbreakable bond of God’s love for us in Christ. Then, in a move characteristic of Catholicism, the Church teaches that in our wedding rites, the sacramental promise of permanence becomes real, just as Christ’s promise to be with us until the end of the age becomes real in the transubstantiation of the bread and wine on the altar.

Marriage's reality--beyond the mere psychological or emotional apprecation--is where the trouble starts.  

radical Pope Francis is more radical than your political radical

So argues Kathryn Lopez and she's exactly right.  Lopez:

Mercy. Mercy. Mercy!

It seems all Pope Francis is capable of talking about, whatever the issue.

Then Bernie Sanders announces the pope’s more radical than he is on Morning Joe on MSNBC Friday morning, and that seems to drive the story line where hopes and dreams and Rolling Stone covers are invested in the Holy Father up-hauling Church doctrine and announcing one day soon same-sex marriage and any-/every-thing else is A-Okay.

That didn’t happen, of course, in “The Joy of Love,” released Friday from Pope Francis… and don’t miss the joy and the love in the frenzy of sound bytes and commentary.

But Sanders is right. Pope Francis is more radical than the socialist senator from Vermont. He’s radical in the ways of the Gospel.

How about that?  Even Sanders recognizes Pope Francis' challenge to world comes from sources far deeper and broader than anything Sanders himself use or references.  More Lopez:

I like to call Pope Francis the Jesuit spiritual director for the world. Of course, the problem with doing that is it unintentionally encourages all types of recycled Jesuit jokes.

Why I do it anyway is he is often a Jesuit at his best—making use of the great gift of St. Ignatius Loyola, his Spiritual Exercises. If you listen to Francis – especially in his daily Mass homilies at Santa Marta – you hear a good shepherd guiding the people of God in an examination of conscience.

I can’t remember a time where he didn’t call me out on something I needed to be called out on. He draws you deeper into prayer.

You often hear his prayers, which are so often focused deep on the suffering of those who are most overlooked, ignored, cast aside, and forgotten. And, yes, that includes the impoverished, the sick, the prisoner, and those vulnerable and seen as disposable often under false and confused banners of mercy and freedom and flourishing.

Amoris Laetitia Tsunami

Science tells us tsunamis (tidal waves) have clear warning signs before impact.  Two examples within recent memory exemplify this:  the 2004 Indonesian tsunami that resulted in at least 230, 000 deaths and the 2011 Fukushima tsunami which continues to plague Japan.

Friday, April 8, saw the release of Amoris Laetitia  ("The Joy of Love"), the Synod on the Family's final report.  You'd think we were experiencing the ecclesiological equivalent of a tsunami.  All sorts of folks--Catholic and not--weighing in on what Pope Francis did or did not say.  Not worth reposting here, but I saw at least one Twitter calling for Francis' resignation due to heresy.  Kind of like this:

H/T Mollie Z. Hemingway of The Federalist

To survive a tsunami, head to higher ground!  With that in mind, here are two, relatively differing, opinions from sources I respect.  First, Dr. Ed Peters' Canon Law Blog:

Holy Communion for divorced-and-remarried Catholics. Francis does not approve this central assault tactic against the permanence of marriage, but neither does he clearly reiterate constant Church teaching and practice against administering the Eucharist to Catholics in irregular marriage situations. And, speaking of ‘irregular marriage’, nearly every time Francis uses that traditional phrase to describe what could more correctly be termed pseudo-marriage, he puts the word “irregular” in scare quotes, as if to imply that the designation is inappropriate and that he is using it only reluctantly.

...

‘Same-sex marriage’. Francis leaves no opening whatsoever that ‘same-sex marriage’ can ever be regarded as marriage. AL 251.

Among the problems Peters sees these:

4. In AL 297, Francis writes: “No one can be condemned for ever, because that is not the logic of the Gospel!” To the contrary, it is precisely the logic of the Gospel that one can be condemned forever. CCC 1034-1035. If one meant, say, that no one can be ‘condemned for ever’ by earthly authority, one should have said so. But, of course, withholding holy Communion from those in “public and permanent adultery” is not a “condemnation” at all, so the point being made is not clear.

5. In AL 280-286, directly discussing sex education for youth, I did not see any acknowledgement, indeed not even a mention, that parents have rights in this important area. Perhaps that is to be gleaned from comments about parents made elsewhere in AL.

Peters also links to Father Schall, SJ's comments, so I will, too:  read them here. 


Then here's Bishop Robert Barron's initial reflections:
In regard to the moral objectivities of marriage, the Pope is bracingly clear. He unhesitatingly puts forward the Church’s understanding that authentic marriage is between a man and a woman, who have committed themselves to one another in permanent fidelity, expressing their mutual love and openness to children, and abiding as a sacrament of Christ’s love for his Church (52, 71). He bemoans any number of threats to this ideal, including moral relativism, a pervasive cultural narcissism, the ideology of self-invention, pornography, the “throwaway” society, etc. He explicitly calls to our attention the teaching of Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae regarding the essential connection between the unitive and the procreative dimensions of conjugal love (80). Moreover, he approvingly cites the consensus of the recent Synod on the Family that homosexual relationships cannot be considered even vaguely analogous to what the Church means by marriage (251). He is especially strong in his condemnation of ideologies that dictate that gender is merely a social construct and can be changed or manipulated according to our choice (56). Such moves are tantamount, he argues, to forgetting the right relationship between creature and Creator. Finally, any doubt regarding the Pope’s attitude toward the permanence of marriage is dispelled as clearly and directly as possible: “The indissolubility of marriage—‘what God has joined together, let no man put asunder’ (Mt 19:6) —should not be viewed as a ‘yoke’ imposed on humanity, but as a ‘gift’ granted to those who are joined in marriage…” (62).
And more:
The second move—and here we come to what will undoubtedly be the most controverted part of the exhortation—is to employ the Church’s classical distinction between the objective quality of a moral act and the subjective responsibility that the moral agent bears for committing that act (302). The Pope observes that many people in civil marriages following upon a divorce find themselves in a nearly impossible bind. If their second marriage has proven faithful, life-giving, and fruitful, how can they simply walk out on it without in fact incurring more sin and producing more sadness? This is, of course, not to insinuate that their second marriage is not objectively disordered, but it is to say that the pressures, difficulties, and dilemmas might mitigate their culpability.  Here is how Pope Francis applies the distinction: “Hence it is can no longer simply be said that all those in any ‘irregular’ situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace” (301). Could the Church’s minister, therefore, not help such people, in the privacy of the rectory parlor or the confessional, to discern their degree of moral responsibility? Once again, this is not to embrace a breezy “anything-goes” mentality, nor to deny that a civil marriage after a divorce is objectively irregular; it is to find, perhaps, for someone in great pain, a way forward. - See more at: http://aleteia.org/2016/04/08/bishop-barron-first-thoughts-on-amoris-laetitia/#sthash.LnwLcjCE.dpuf

Read more of Bishop Barron here.

It will take time, of course, to sort through all that Amoris Laetitia gives, but right now the tsunami seems an awful lot like last summer's first experience of Laudato Si'.  We had to read throughout it a few (hundred) times to ascertain its arguments, strengths, and weaknessess.  Amoris will be no different.  The problem, as Scott Eric Alt notes, is that often Pope Francis' style leaves even his most ardent defenders (which Alt and Bishop Barron both are) confused.  So let's seek the highest ground possible, let the tsunami damage flow through, and then descend to start the inevitable clean-up.

New York Times Attempts to Read Tea Leaves Ahead of Amoris Laetitia

New York Times Attempts to Read Tea Leaves Ahead of Amoris Laetitia


Latest post by Scott Eric Alt at Patheos, wherein the intrepid Mr. Alt assesses the NYT and finds it wanting.  Namely, it wants--wants Pope Francis to finally get with the program and deliver the liberal goods promised at his 2013 election.


The Synod's final report Amoris Laetitia has been rumored/feared (depends on whom you ask) to do this.


Alt's not buying it and nor should we.  A sample, starting with the Times quoted:

For the past two years, Francis has guided the church through a sweeping exercise of self-examination that some scholars have compared to the Second Vatican Council.

Really? Methinks “some scholars” doth exaggerate too much—perhaps the result of their own private fantasies of hope and change.

Having led Catholics into such delicate terrain, Francis has stirred hope and fear. Some religious conservatives warn he could destabilize the church and undermine Catholic doctrine. [The sky is falling.] Some liberals, though, are hoping Francis will directly address same-sex marriage and contraception in a way that would make the church more responsive to today’s realities.

By “responsive,” read “obeisant.” That is what the Times hopes. But the conservatives and the liberals are both wrong. (That will not stop either of them, after tomorrow, from claiming vindication, but wrong they are.)

Earlier this year Alt addressed with equally calm demeanor and sharp logic what he has correctly labeled "Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome" among the Church's right-wing.  The left and its secular support staff (i.e., the NY Times) doesn't have derangement syndrome as much as "dissatisfied irrational hope syndrome."  They--the left--keep thinking we're just days away from the Francis-inaugurated Eschaton wherein Vatican II will be restored authentically.  That, Alt notes, isn't going to happen any time soon.  The Right, though, suffers from its own maladies.  As one of Alt's friends cross-posted on Facebook from Catholic Memes (who, in turn, received it from Greg Hillis):







As Alt notes, maybe we should, y'know, read the document before commenting.  Well said.