From Wikileaks:
Posted on 01/05/2018 2:31:36 PM PST by ebb tide
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.
From Wikileaks:
The dots are all over the place, but it’s not too hard to connect them.
BTW, Francis is keeping his corrupt henchman, Maradiaga, who had to submit his resignation when he turned 75 (today or yesterday). In any case, even though the guy is sunk up to the eyeballs in financial and sexual corruption, he’s a Francis kind of guy and Francis is not accepting his resignation but letting him stay in power in all of his various important posts.
As we say in Spanish, “un asco,” meaning “disgusting” or “disgraceful.”
I think the real intent is to make homosexual activity not a sin.
I think Bergoglio even believes in sin, whether it’s adultery, sodomy, bearing false witness, worshiping false gods, stealing, coveting thy neighbor’s goods, etc.
Typical communist.
I don't think Bergolio believes ...
I agree with you. Getting rid of Humanae Vitae is necessary, because then the difference between heterosexual and homosexual intercourse becomes more difficult to define.
In fact, a strong argument can be made that separating the sexual act from the possibility of procreation is what has fueled the growth of the LGBT movement.
I think for a lot of younger people this may be hard to see, but as one ages the truth of Humanae Vitae becomes crystal clear.
“Before Vatican II, it was very clear what the purpose of marriage was for, having children and educating them. Secondarily it was for mutual help and a remedy for the distorted sexual drive (concupiscence) caused by Adam and Eve.... After Vatican II the primary purpose of marriage was changed from having children to “the unitive” (man and woman coming together as one). Then the next purpose was procreation (having children). This was a huge change and paradigm switch.......So as the switch took place from children to unitive love, we find that this also applies to the homosexual union of “love”. They can not have children from their sterile love relationships. Why can they not get married? They love each other....
He is a man of the church, just not the Catholic Church.
It’s actually a little more complicated than that.
The Church has never forbade the marriage of a woman who is too old to bear children. So in that sense, the Church never put primacy on the procreative aspect of marriage. In fact, in the Obergefell case, this issue was not adequately answered by those arguing against SSM.
To be honest, I am uncomfortable with the Chuech’s official position on the use of protective measures when one spouse has HIV.
I don’t argue that Humanae Vitae has been prophetic about the results of widespread contraception.
But I do think that more needs to be done to clarify, and perhaps improve its reasoning, with respect to the purpose and proper ends of human sexuality.
The Church has always placed procreation as the first end of marriage. The fact that some women are "too old" is irrelevant. Keep in mind that the Church has always taught and believed that Sarah was "too old" and yet she still conceived a child by a miracle of God.
Science is more advanced today. There is nothing in Church teaching that would prohibit a woman who has had a hysterectomy from marrying, as long as her prospective spouse knew about the condition previous to the marriage.
Why?
Until you can answer that question in a persuasive way, without cutting and pasting official pronouncements of the Church, you will not make progress on this subject.
Are you telling me that I need to find Church teaching or not?
So far, all you keep telling me is that the Church doesn't forbid marriage to older folks. I am not debating that. I know that. What I am saying is, that regardless of the couples' age, the Church teaches (that is prior to Vatican II of course) the primary ends of marriage are procreation.
What exactly do you have an issue with?
Would it not follow that if the primary end of marriage is procreation, that a person known to be infertile should not participate in the activity?
What I am really getting at is an argument about God’s plan for creation, and the innate differences- and not just the bodily ones— between men and women.
The argument about what the proper ends of human sexuality are should start from the idea of the complementary nature of the two sexes, and not the sexual act itself.
Are you disagreeing with Church teaching on the primary and secondary ends of marriage? Are you saying that the Church is wrong for focusing on the marital act when it comes to marriage?
I really don't understand what your issue is here.
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