Despite attempts by its authors to maintain confidentiality, the appeal to Rome made by 45 theologians and Catholic scholars in the hopes of creating curial pressure for the pope to correct the errors of Amoris Laetitia has been leaked to at least one media outlet.
The UK’s Catholic Herald published a piece yesterday with some additional details of what the appeal contains:
The letter, which has been seen by the Catholic Herald, stresses that it “does not deny or question the personal faith of Pope Francis”. It also praises “valuable elements” in Amoris Laetitia which
“make an important contribution to the defence and preaching of the faith”.The signatories say that, in order for these passages to be truly effective, there should be a clarification of other passages which could mislead some readers. These are given a close theological reading.
The letter has been signed by several distinguished figures, including one of Britain’s best-known theologians and the founder of a French religious community. It has been sent to all 218 cardinals and patriarchs of the Church.
The letter is intended as an appeal to the cardinals rather than a public campaign. Possibly for this reason, the signatories have not yet disclosed their names, though they may do at a future date. The only signatory to have come forward publicly is Dr Joseph Shaw, who teaches philosophy at the University of Oxford and is chairman of the Latin Mass Society.
Dr Shaw, who is acting as spokesman for the group, said last week: “All we are asking is that Pope Francis make clear that putative heretical implications of the document are just that: heretical.”
[…]
The letter says that the exhortation does not authoritatively teach anything false, because the Pope does not have authority to do so.
But the signatories say that the “lack of precision” in some passages could lead readers “to interpret them as contradicting the real teachings of the Catholic Church and of divine revelation, and as justifying or requiring the abandonment of these teachings by Catholics in theory and in practice.
“Some cardinals, bishops, and priests, betraying their duty to Jesus Christ and to the care of souls, are already offering interpretations of this sort.”
The letter focuses on 19 statements “whose vagueness or ambiguity permit interpretations that are contrary to faith or morals, or that suggest a claim that is contrary to faith and morals without actually stating it. It also contains statements whose natural meaning would seem to be contrary to faith or morals.”
It points out theological censures which could be applied to these statements: not statements in the document itself, but propositions which might be inferred by a reader.
For instance, of the statement, “The Church… firmly rejects the death penalty”, the letter asks the Pope to clarify that this does not mean “that the death penalty is always and everywhere unjust in itself and therefore cannot ever be rightly inflicted by the State”.
The letter says that such an interpretation – as distinct from Amoris Laetitia’s actual words – should be classed as heretical. It says that an absolute and total ban on the death penalty contradicts the words of Scripture, as well as several instances of authoritative Church teaching. These include St Innocent I’s Letter to Exsuperius, St Pius V’s Catechism of the Council of Trent, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church issued by St John Paul II.
Here, as elsewhere, the letter does not accuse Amoris Laetitia of directly teaching heresy, but rather claims that a natural reading of the words “The Church…firmly rejects the death penalty” could lead people astray from Church teaching.
[…]
The letter addresses similar concerns. It mentions Amoris Laetitia’s claim that someone could “be in a concrete situation which does not allow him or her to act differently and decide otherwise without further sin”.
The letter asks the Pope to clarify that this does not mean “that a justified person has not the strength with God’s grace to carry out the objective demands of the divine law, as though any of the commandments of God are impossible for the justified; or as meaning that God’s grace, when it produces justification in an individual, does not invariably and of its nature produce conversion from all serious sin, or is not sufficient for conversion from all serious sin.”
It quotes several statements on this, including the Council of Trent: “If anyone says that the commandments of God are impossible to observe even for a man who is justified and established in grace, let him be anathema”.
On the much-debated question of Communion for the divorced and remarried, the letter says that Amoris Laetitia could lead to false conclusions. It asks the Pope to clarify that the Church should not “abandon her perennial discipline”, which is that the remarried should not receive Communion unless they live as brother and sister.
It cites not only St John Paul II’s Familiaris Consortio but also several Bible verses, and statements from the Council of Trent, Paul V, Benedict XIV, Benedict XV, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
The letter asks for a condemnation of several other interpretations of Amoris Laetitia. The propositions which it asks to be condemned include: that the sexually active divorced and remarried, if they choose their situation with full knowledge and full consent, can receive sanctifying grace; that it could be morally right for the civilly remarried to have sex with each other; that nobody can go to hell for ever; and that the moral law does not “include negative prohibitions that absolutely forbid particular kinds of action under any and all circumstances”.
Read the whole thing at the Catholic Herald.
It seems it’s only a matter of time before the full document is revealed.
That reminds me:
When Does a Heretical Pope
Become an Invalid Pope?
When his heresy becomes formally manifest. This Letter of Protest is the first step in that process, God willing.
God willing -yes! In my view we absolutely can not be silent about the exhortation. Silence implies agreement and consent.
I understand the process, however I’m wondering if the Pope can be materially heretic only.
The first reason is that confirming the faith is his whole raison d’être. A mechanic should know how an engine works, a lawyer has no excuse not to know the law… The second reason would be the special assistance from the Holy Spirit. That would make him formally heretic even before an official pronouncement from the college of Cardinals. I don’t know.
Can we hope and pray that Pope Francis will see how he has been used, how he allowed himself to be used by the wolves around him?
That is what I pray for.
Regardless, our Lord will take of His Church. Perhaps, He is allowing all of this, for our sake, for the sake of His Church to be purified and glorified once again.
At the risk of sounding juvenile,this meme compliments yours.
I am pretty much willing to venture that the College of Cardinals will not do anything. Well, a small handful might. Time will tell. I still think a massive Schism is in the offing. Sorry, but Francis’ views (personal opinion or not) which do not fall within Catholic doctrine/dogma need called out. If, in fraternal correction (the heck with requesting Francis to clarify anything as he probably will not) Francis remains obstinate in his views as expressed in AL, then the faithful Cardinals will have no choice but to act. Their sacred oaths requires them to do so.
I’m in total agreement with you.
I think (hope) that this may be only a prudent first step in confronting this issue so that it can be said, “We humbly asked for clarification and received none. Now we must take further measures to call out Francis and his proclaimed heresy and approval of it’s practice.”
Will there be enough faithful Cardinals to act? To date, the answer has been in the negative. Maybe Archbishop Gänswein’s reported outspokenness on the footnotes of AL being used to change Doctrine will finally break the ice. He is a Canon Lawyer who worked in the CDF & seems to speak with the knowledge & blessing of PB on this & also on the abomination of the CC in Germany regarding the Church Tax & excommunicating people who don’t or won’t pay the huge amounts expected by their Hierarchy, which amounts to extortion. If others would also come out of the woodwork & support this Appeal & all the other Petitions sent to PF then there might be some chance of AL being rescinded, or at least repaired & clarified to such an extent that we won’t be able to recognise it from the original document.
You have more faith in all this than I. Francis is moving way beyond what the post-VII era gave us. And, in the wrong direction.
His reign is satanical but God is still with us, as He promised He would be. We mustn’t give up hope. The resurrection of the CC from the ashes will be stupefying. Hopefully we will all be around to witness it.
I have not given up hope on God…just the snakes in shepherd’s clothing who will do everything in their power to maintain the status quo and further the completion of the destruction of the CC from within.
Mentally they’ve been a goner for me for a long time. The attempted destruction has been fomenting for many decades & is now coming to the point where they will burn themselves out as they do not have any foundations on which to build their NO Church, for we know they won’t destroy Christ’s Church on earth – He won’t let them. The present state of affairs would appear to be leading to a full-blown schism, especially if Lund goes ahead & Papal Exhortations/Encyclicals not in keeping with the Deposit of Faith, Magisterium & Tradition are made Binding Documents. Cardinal Brandmüller is reported as having said “a law is needed to define the status of the ex-pope” & while ” the resignation of the pope is possible (can.332:2) it does not mean it is also certain to be morally licit”.
With PF’s new appointments & demotions accelerating at great speed I cannot see how he hopes for stability which is essential to good administration & discipline, a characteristic of the CC which has been lacking since Vatican II when Protestantizing & individual conscience became the norm.
I wish you were right but when you say “their sacred oaths requires them to do so” my first thought is “So does the oath of Francis…”
Thanks for your coverage of the appeal Mr. Skojec.
This is a good news in an ocean of bad news.
“The letter…stresses that it ‘does not deny or question the personal faith of Pope Francis.” That is their first fumble, right there!
I was surpised by the SSPX Bishop Fellay’s assesment that Pope Francis does truly have a strong faith and love and desire to save all people. He says that he sees him as one who unties himself from the tether (doctrine) to go and try to save the drowning. (Sorry if I’m not quoting that exactly.) As one who has always kept my distance from the SSPX and had heard of their self-righteousness, I was very impressed by his humilty.
See the whole interview: http://www.fisheaters.com/forums/index.php?topic=3472028.msg34045801
Thank you for the comment and the link.
Agree. Why even mention that? It makes it appear they question it even more. And they didn’t go for broke. Look, if he can punish the people who signed it, he will, so what is the point of crawling to him weakly, there is no point. Be direct, get it out there, and don’t whimper until you have a reason to, then, don’t whimper.
A.L. was designed to be a schismatic document. The Pope is, ultimately, the author.
PF got thousands of these crazy sayings….it’s a once a week heresy.
I can’t keep up!
Perhaps the Holy See should publish a weekly newspaper titled “Heresy Today- Doctrine through the eyes of Mercy.”
““does not deny or question the personal faith of Pope Francis”.
“valuable elements”
“make an important contribution to the defence and preaching of the faith”.
“The letter says that the exhortation does not authoritatively teach anything false, because the Pope does not have authority to do so.”
“lack of precision.”
If the letter can’t actually tell the truth and doesn’t want to call the spade a spade it would have been better if they simply avoided all the pompous congratulatory gratuitous flattery and just stuck to the ‘imprecise’ things they want clarified.
The devils don’t care if the document isn’t legally bindingly authoritative. They just want to create the impression that it is. And that’s more than enough for them. After all, they never care about all those high-falutin’ theological details that the uppity scholars like to argue about. This is all for the good of the common man! And the common man thinks and interprets with his libido. Not his brain.
I’m with you. One of the most annoying aspects of this time is the constant flattery and appeasing appeals. It is nauseating, but it must be necessary! That ring must be kissed, and publicly, under this regime. They really must be fearful, and with likely good cause, but can’t men speak like men anymore? Out with it and no nonsense!
They are so nice to Pope Francis, yet Pope Francis called the faithful Catholic “Fundamentalist”.
Ohhhhhh lookie here, Pope Benedict XVI speech on April 2005 (strange coincidence?) so fitting for Pope Francis:
“Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church is often labeled today as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and swept along by every wind of teaching, look like the only attitude acceptable to today’s standards.” -Pope Benedict XVI
I think Pope Francis supports the interpretation of Cardinal Schonborn as regards AL and doubt he will waver. The 45 theologians who signed the correction of errors in AL should hope Pope Francis will cast a benign eye on them. We should all recognize that the primary mission of Pope Francis is to remove all difficulties for Protestants to merge with the Nu Catholic Church. Use of ambiguity, confusion, obfuscation, dissembling and prevarication are merely tools employed in his statements and documents to achieve this purpose.
And now reports that Francis will complete the doctrinal/dogmatic
coup d’etat by tossing Cardinal Mueller as Prefect for the Office of the
Doctrine of the Faith and replacing him with…..
Cardinal Schonborn. The switch to the dark side will be complete.
Remember what Francis said in reply to a reporters question(s) regarding AL? He said that what Cardinal Schonborn said is the pope’s view. And, yes, Schonborn said it is BINDING DOCTRINE.
How much more heretical can we get?
They soft peddled this big time. Of course they realize that Satan himself can declare truth with 99% accuracy, and all he needs is a 1% drop of poison. AL has a tad more than a 1% drop of poison, for which the entire thing MUST be shredded. More like burned into ashes which would be more appropriate.
I hope that this doesn’t result in a erdogan-like purge of “neo-palagianismists”.
At the risk of being chastised for not knowing better, can someone decipher this issue in a manner in which morons like myself can understand the nuances, meaning behind all this. When one factors in the seemingly catholic way of speaking in ambiguities, generalities, and frankly surface understandings not aligning with actual meaning, a straight forth explanation that cuts right to the heart of what is at stake here would be helpful to myself and others in the same situation. For example, I would think that the death penalty would be a sin, regardless. But as I read, there seems to be a disagreement on this. When the term heretical starts getting thrown around in an official manner, and directed at those who should be all means know better, clarity and a straight to the point manner I firmly believe is called for.
Theologians are like lawyers: they work in precise terms and established understandings, not in vagueries and ambiguities. In the good old days of non-modernist theology, there were things called theological censures, which were carefully defined categories of theological error that could be applied to any hypothesis in theological thought to determine whether or not it was actually orthodox. (Heterodox thought would, thereby, be censured.)
It’s a technical process, but also a highly specific, and thus, effective one. This group of theologians appears to have used the old theological list of censures to highlight the errors that would be found in a natural reading of the exhortation – errors that could lead Catholics into a heretical understanding of the subjects therein.
The difficulty in analyzing a document like Amoris Letitia is that it is *designed* to be ambiguous. It is therfore difficult to determine with certitude whether it intends to convey heretical meaning or if it only does so incidentally through imprecise language.
This is why an analysis of the document requires a certain amount of circumspection. At the same time, one of the original theological censures was intentional ambiguity – because it could so easily lead the faithful into error.
To address specifically your questions on the death penalty, please read this essay I wrote on the topic last year.
https://onepeterfive.wpengine.com/getting-it-wrong-about-the-death-penalty/
Thank you very much
Or worse.
What Steve says about AL being intentionally ambiguous {as has been said by others, so he is not alone} begs the question “So what?”
Well, that would be a very good question.
Discussions of heresy frequently, or I should say almost always involve specific utterances or writings that conflict with Church teaching. However, such specifics are not, in the history of the Church, always the only causes for declarations of heresy. One that comes to mind was the condemnation of the Synod of Pistoia. In that case, the synod was condemned specifically for clearly affirming heresy AND ALSO for putting forth ambiguous statements that might encourage others to take heretical positions. The mere existence of ambiguity itself was condemned and sufficed to be declared heresy. In modern times, we see the demand for clarity in the presentation of the Gospel in CCC1697, a paragraph that stands in concert with the condemnation of the Pistoia’s ambiguity.
I do not think there is anyone on planet earth who reads Pope Francis or listens to him that believes he speaks or writes with a “yay and a nay”, clearly and without ambiguity. THIS ALONE, since it represents what might even be called the lasting legacy of his pontificate, causes me to say he is a heretic EVEN IF deep down in he is as orthodox as Pope Pius V. We cannot know what his heart is, but we CAN and DO know what he says. And what he says and writes is simply NOT CLEARLY in agreement with the perennial Magesterium of the Church. Going further, what I do see, as an ex-Lutheran, is a Lutheran sitting in the Chair of St Peter. At this point I just cannot see it any other way.
According to Abp. Forte, the ambiguity was clearly designed to foist heresy on the Church by the open interpretation of the reader – that is hide the mess they would make. Of course he didn’t say it directly in those words. There is no doubt about the plan to approve of sin by looking at the evidence of the process, who lead the plans, and the outcome. As one who has spent time word-smithing on variouscorporate documents over the years, such clever ambiguity never happens by accident. Not to mention the marketing of repetition like Commandments are mere ideals. And you will notice the ambiguity always allows for approval of sin. Where there is the smoke of satan there is the fire of hell.
There is nothing that precludes The College of Cardinals from requesting that pope Francis state The Catholic Church’s teaching on sexual morality and those persons existing in irregular sexual relationships, including The Catholic Church’s teaching on presenting oneself to receive The Holy Eucharist, when one is not in communion with Christ, and His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
Oh yes there is – cowardice.
It seems the Pope and his defenders have decided traditionalist opposition to his papacy is something to be generally ignored and maybe they are right.
But they could absolutely bring out the big guns if they wanted to. From slavery to usury to torture, there is enough there to make the signers of this letter squirm.
But if you really wanted to see them crawl home to Mama, they could require them to deal with previous teaching from Popes and Councils on the Jews. In this Israel-first world of American style conservatism, having the signers be required to respond to whether or not those teachings on the Jews still bind, would cause immense embarrassment and the entire traditionalist opposition would fold.
Oh so this is where ‘ganganelli’ has been!
But I’m willing to bet against the ‘gag’ and believe the signers would firmly be all for getting rid of usury and especially stating the obvious that the Jews need to convert. The same for defending the circumstances of ‘slavery’ as it was properly understood. Especially considering the same rules for slavery still apply today, except your earnings go to the government to pay for debt accumulated to funny money creating banks.
I’m willing to sign first. Just draft the document Gaggy and I’ll be there!
Despite this being possibly the best response they could give, I don’t believe that it will amount to anything. It will be shuffled off to the waste bin and ignored. And perhaps an off the cuff remark will be made at some point denouncing certain unnamed individuals for being stuck in old modes of thinking and trying to hold back progress in the church. That’s the result I expect to see, sadly. We’ll see. May Christ soften the hearts of the hierarchy to be accepting of Catholic Tradition, we pray.
When such confusion is caused, along with pain, fear and anxiety regarding statements, exhortations given by Pope Francis, would it not be a loving thing to try to rectify this so as bring peace and contentment to those who are anxiously and understandably very confused.
Is that not what a mother does, in comfort of her child? Is that not what Holy Mother Church perhaps should be considering in doing now?
Think in our own personal relationships, whether they be of a parent, a spouse, clergy, friend: When one has unintentionally caused a misperception leading to pain, anxiety, does it matter who is right or wrong? No, all that matters is that clarity is given and that peace prevails for the sake of the loved one who misinterpreted statements, situations that led to hurt, worry, etc.
To be truly humble of heart, should we not care more for the other, than for our self righteousness or indignant attitude that ” I have done nothing wrong, it is you who erred in your perceptions of things. ”
Clarity is always a sign of great love for the other.