A few more thoughts on Amoris Laetitia

A rare late Friday afternoon blog post for you.  I haven’t thought this post through very well, I only have a few minutes……we’ll see what emerges.

I saw some commentary on the post to the effect that we shouldn’t panic, the Church still stands, a pope cannot destroy the Church, etc.  I do not panic for the Church.  I panic for the millions of souls who will, with absolute certainty, fall into error and lose their faith.  I panic over the irreparable (in human terms) harm being done to the Church and souls.  I have great fear over the future, and further chaos.  I fear the gathering darkness, and just how brutal the Church’s passion must be.  Since the Church is our Lord’s Body on earth, we can discern her passion will be every bit as terrible as His.

I have considered whether my initial post on this matter was scandalous or over the top.  I did get some guidance that I might pull back my strong hints regarding Francis’ lack of faithfulness to the belief and practice of the Church.

But considering the matter more coolly, now that the initial shock and anger have subsided, I would have a hard time issuing a retraction.  Subsequent analysis, contra the claims of Cardinal Burke, has indicated that Amoris Laetitia (the “Joy of Sex?”) constitutes a clear addition to the Church’s Magisterium*.  Yet it contains scores of statements which are scandalous, dangerous, possessed of a grave tendency to spread error and undermine the Faith, or out and out erroneous.  Millions have already concluded that the Church has somehow changed her Doctrine on solemn matters such as the reception of the Blessed Sacrament by those persisting in openly adulterous unions.

This document represents not only a radical departure from the Church’s perennial belief and practice on numerous moral matters, it contains not only grave misrepresentations (to the point of prevarication) of previous magisterial statements, but it, to me, represents a direct assault on some of the most critical moral doctrines of the Faith.  Declaring pseudo-sodo-marriage to be out of bounds while gravely wounding marriage by helping to normalize divorce, remarriage, and de-sacralizing the Blessed Sacrament is not just unwise, it self-contradictory.  How did we get to the point where the culture is so insane that most Catholics now believe that marriage between two people of the same sex is not only possible, it is full equivalent to true marriage and should be recognized as such by law?  Precisely through the mass normalization of divorce, remarriage, abuse of the Blessed Sacrament (and the self-denial of the torrents of Grace that should flow from it), etc.  It is contradictory to gravely weaken the Church’s condemnation of fornication, while at the same time declare abortion to be impermissible.

That is to say, what we are confronted with in Amoris Laetitia is very different from, say, Honorius signing a document endorsing Arianism at the point of a sword.  This is a concerted, deliberate, pre-meditated act.  What is more, it touches not on just one point of Doctrine but many of them.

The solemn Doctrine of the Faith is a tightly woven cohesive whole.  One thread cannot be pulled without unraveling the entirety.  The protestant revolutionaries proved this irrefutably with the founding of their false sects. Many started with just one particular point of deviation (such as the rejection of indulgences), but in virtually no time that “one thing” expanded into a radically different, and implacably hostile, set of beliefs.  If this course of synodal- and, it must be said, papal-induced chaos continues for even a few years, there will be nothing left.

Taken as a whole, I am forced to conclude that, from an earthly perspective, Francis lacks the Faith.  However, I also believe that he remains the Bishop of Rome seated in the Chair of Peter and head of the universal Church.  I do not know how to reconcile these beliefs.  I can only conclude that this is a mystery far beyond me, a mystery which may well continue to torment the Church for decades should he be followed by like-minded individuals as the Church continues her inevitable passion.  I am not saying, even remotely, that the Church has fallen, that Christ’s promise is false. I am not saying that the heretical sects are somehow right. I am not saying that the Church is reduced to an invisible element.

I am only saying that based on all the mass of evidence we have before us (and it is copious), Francis holds views which cannot be reconciled with the perennial belief and practice of the Church. Since holding those beliefs in their entirety has always been taken to be the sine qua non of being Catholic, the conclusion is inescapable.

I know Jesus Christ will prevail in the end. I strongly suspect all these events are being directed by His positive will.  I have not the faintest doubt that Christ will come in glory, the dead will rise, and there will be a final judgment of the good and evil.  I pray I have the faith to stand fast in these difficult times, but nothing any pope says or does is going to cause me to fall away.  Nor should you.  But I’m not going to bury my head in the sand, pretend this is not huge significant, or go along as if nothing has happened.  Something has happened, and we all have to come to terms with it while striving with all our might to remain faithful.

I strongly feel what we are seeing now from many quarters, seeking to explain away this exhortation or diminish its significance, is an exact replay of how the modernists were able to remake the Church in the wake of Vatican II.  If you wondered how people raised in the Faith with the Mass of Ages to sustain them could meekly accept, with precious little opposition, the radical changes foisted on the Church, look around you.  In fact, the process never stopped, but today the similarities are too striking to ignore.

I hope and pray I may be some tiny bit of assistance to you all in that effort. But if you’re looking for apologias for this pontificate, you’re probably going to be better off visiting other sites.

*- I have seen Cardinal Burke’s claim that Amoris Laetitia is not a magisterial document. I believe the case Cardinal Burke puts forth is flawed.  As other sites have noted, declaring Amoris Laetitia to be non-magisterial would be to throw out numerous other similar apostolic exhortations of the post-conciliar period, such as Familiaris Consortio, generally seen as being a much more orthodox document.  But perhaps throwing out all these apostolic exhortations from the post-conciliar period, novel as they are in consisting of “conclusions” ostensibly drawn from a meeting of a limited sub-set of bishops (I say ostensibly, as it is very apparent this pope had a conclusion in mind from well before the idea of a series of synods was even floated), might not be such a bad thing?  Perhaps Cardinal Burke is on to something, after all?  Or perhaps the argument could be framed that any document, from whatever source, that contradicts the Faith is immediately inadmissible?  But how to reconcile this with the magisterial definition of the Office of the Papacy that has emerged, particularly over the past 150 years?

I am not the one to answer these questions.  I have a feeling, however, that should the Church and this earth survive for another few hundred years, future saintly theologians will be struggling with these  questions, and might arrive at surprising conclusions.

Enough!  Have a blessed weekend.