Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 4:56am

PopeWatch: Amoris Laetitia

Pope Francis continues to let others “clarify” Amoris Laetitia, and Sandro Magister gives us the details:

 

 

“The writing is very good and fully explicates the meaning of chapter VIII. . . There are no other interpretations.” With these words Pope Francis, in a letter dated September 5 of last year, approved a note from the bishops of the region of Buenos Aires who in interpreting the postsynodal apostolic exhortation “Amoris Laetitia” admitted the possibility of Eucharistic communion for the divorced and remarried who continue to cohabit “more uxorio.”

But this was a matter of a private letter to an Argentine monsignor employed in the secretariat of that group of bishops. And even the note approved by the pope was not initially intended for publication and does not bear the names of the signers. Too little and too poorly done to clarify in a definitive way the authentic meaning – that is, attributable with certainty to its author – of “Amoris Laetitia.”

An attempt has been made in recent days by the theologian closest to the pope, the Argentine Víctor Manuel Fernández, to settle this question, with the tepid assistance of “L’Osservatore Romano.” But without success.

And it could not have been otherwise. Because the confusion is at the origin. It is within the very text of “Amoris Laetitia,” which never says fully, in a clear and incontrovertible way, what Pope Francis limits himself to hinting at.

The passage that gets closest to it is in paragraph 305:

“Because of forms of conditioning and mitigating factors, it is possible that in an objective situation of sin –which may not be subjectively culpable, or fully such – a person can be living in God’s grace, can love and can also grow in the life of grace and charity, while receiving the Church’s help to this end.”

And in the connected footnote 351:

“In certain cases, this can include the help of the sacraments. Hence, ‘I want to remind priests that the confessional must not be a torture chamber, but rather an encounter with the Lord’s mercy” (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium [24 November 2013], 44: AAS 105 [2013], 1038). I would also point out that the Eucharist ‘is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak’ (ibid., 47: 1039).”

As is very well known, Francis has been asked in various forms and a number of times to bring clarity on such a confused and bungled text. In particular on the part of four cardinals, to whom the pope did not want to give a response or even grant an audience.

But here comes Fernández to sermonize that the letter to the bishops of Buenos Aires is enough and then some for those who “want to know how the pope himself interprets what he has written.”

And to those who object that a letter of that sort is too little, Fernández makes his rebuttal by dusting off a precedent concerning the interpretation of Vatican Council I, when Pius IX, in 1875, clarified a controversial point by endorsing a letter from the bishops of Germany to chancellor Bismarck.

“If the pope has received a unique charism in the Church at the service of the correct interpretation of the Word of God,” Fernández writes peremptorily, “this cannot rule out his capacity to interpret the documents that he himself has written.” It does not matter how and when he does so, the important thing is that it should be known that the “war” against him is over.

“What is left after the storm:” this is the title that the pope’s trusted theologian decided to give to the essay that he published in the latest issue of “Medellín,” the theology journal of the Latin American Episcopal Council, in the run-up to Francis’s journey to Colombia in September and to Chile and Peru next January:

> El capítulo VIII de “Amoris Laetitia”: lo que queda después de la tormenta

Since the author of the article is not only very close to Jorge Mario Bergoglio but also the de facto architect of much of “Amoris Laetitia,” to such an extent that it contains entire sections of articles of his from a decade or so ago, this statement of his was immediately interpreted as inspired by the pope himself.

Whose intention would have been to clarify once and for all – through Fernández as his chosen spokesman – two things above all.

The first is that the interpretation of the Argentine bishops is also his, and is the right one.

The second is that if Francis preferred to make way for communion for the divorced and remarried not in the body of “Amoris Laetitia” but only in skimpy footnotes, it is because he wanted to do so “in a discreet manner,” because he does not consider this the center of the document, but rather the capitals “dedicated to love.”

But the question remains: what level of authority can be attributed to an article like the one that appears in the journal “Medellín,” signed by a theologian universally considered less than mediocre?

 

Go here to read the rest. Is it possible for this pontificate to be any further from this statement of Christ:

 

But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.

Matthew 5: 37

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Don L
Don L
Monday, August 28, AD 2017 8:23am

Why is it the good Pope Francis refuses to speak with clarity that his sheep might not be consumed with fire because of his ambiguous shepherding? Is it so hard just to say–this simple thing is exactly what I meant? Maybe it’s time for the Holy Spirit to step into this mess?

Clinton
Clinton
Monday, August 28, AD 2017 11:39am

What does it say about this Pope’s agenda for his pontificate,
that said agenda can only be advanced through confusion and
obfuscation? Similarly, we saw this Pope manipulate the Synod
on the Family, making a mockery of the process and of the idea
of collegiality. What does it say about his aims then, that they
could only be advanced through the chicanery we saw?

I know it’s my duty to pray for the Pope– and in previous pontificates,
that duty was a joy to discharge. This time, it’s truly a chore, and
I find myself praying God grant us a speedy conclusion to this reign.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Monday, August 28, AD 2017 2:09pm

“I find myself praying God grant us a speedy conclusion to this reign.”

Amen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Make it so, Lord Jesus.

Michael Dowd
Michael Dowd
Tuesday, August 29, AD 2017 2:16am

Aidan Nichols, O.P., perhaps the leading theologian of our times, has issued a devastating critique of AL. http://wdtprs.com/blog/2017/08/fr-aidan-nichols-amoris-laetitia-has-led-to-an-extremely-grave-situation/
Let us pray that Father Aidan prevails and Pope Francis and his reign of heresy collapses perhaps with divine intervention.

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