Another week, another critique, another appeal for the pope to correct his questionable statements in AL, another appeal to be ignored altogether...This critique is from Josef Seifert (born 1945), an Austrian Catholic philosopher and author of at least 26 books on philosophy, the first of them having been Knowledge of Objective Truth in 1982, one of a handful he has written on the subject of truth (a two-volume work under the title De veritate: About truth, 2008; Knowledge of perfection: The way of reason towards God, 2010; and The dictatorship of relativism: The battle over absolute truth for the future of Europe, 2012). He is a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life.
Josef Seifert presents a detailed critique of AL -
and calls on the pope 'to rescind its heretical statements'
by Maike Hickson
THE WANDERER
August 8, 2016
Last August 3, Guiseppe Nardi, Vaticanista for the German Internet portal Katholisches.info, presented Professor Josef Seifert’s important 28-page-long critique
http://www.katholisches.info/2016/08/03/freuden-betruebnisse-und-ho%ef%ac%80nungen-josef-seiferts-umfassende-analyse-zu-amoris-laetitia/
of Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation
Amoris Laetitia (AL).
Prof. Seifert, the founding rector of the International Academy of Philosophy, said that a previously published version of the critique
http://www.onepeterfive.com/tears-jesus-amoris-laetitia/)
had not at all been authorized by him and that it was only an earlier draft of his now-published, longer article t published by AEMET
(http://aemaet.de/index.php/aemaet/index), a journal for philosophy and theology.
In the following report, I shall present some of the major arguments of Professor Seifert in his incisive critique and additional call for correction, which he directly addresses to Pope Francis himself.
He insists that his critique is written in a humble and loyal manner, without any attempt to “attack the pope, to damage him or to deny his legitimacy.” Seifert’s stated intention, thus, is
“to support him and to assist him in his fundamental task to teach the truth.”
The Austrian professor says that “some passages of AL – and especially those which should have the greatest impact – are the cause of great concern and also deep sadness” (because)
(They) are at least seemingly in conflict with the Word of God and the teaching of the Holy Catholic Church
- on the moral order,
- on intrinsically evil and disordered acts,
- on God’s Commandments and our capacity to fulfill them with the help of Grace,
- on the danger of eternal damnation (hell),
- on the indissolubility of marriage and the sacredness of the Sacraments of the Eucharist and of Matrimony, as well as
- on the sacramental discipline and pastoral care of the Church which stems from the Word of God and the 2000-year-old tradition of the Church.
Professor Seifert speaks here as a philosopher and as a Catholic, and
he urges all Catholics “to plead with the pope with the fire of love for God, and for immortal souls, to clarify some passages of AL and to correct others.”
He insists that (even) “papal statements which – at least in its formulations – are or only seem to be wrong and contrary to the Church’s teaching - demand in the same urgent manner a correction.”
He also reminds the reader of the “primacy of truth” which even urged Saint Paul to publicly rebuke and criticize the first pope, Saint Peter.
Seifert concentrates his critique mostly on passages in the eighth chapter of AL. For example, he says:
Some formulations of AL which seem to be dangerously ambiguous cry out for clarification; others – and here I go a step further than Bishop Athanasius Schneider in his noble open letter to the pope – I consider to be wrong and I believe that they should be rescinded by the Holy Father himself.
Seifert proceeds to analyze the major question that emerges from AL, namely: who are these “couples in irregular situations” whom AL wishes to admit to the Sacraments, as proposed in footnote 351?
He presents four different answers:
1. No couples in “irregular situations” (adulterers, promiscuous or homosexual couples);
2. All “irregular couples” (divorced, adulterers, lesbian and homosexual couples);
3. A few (or many) “irregular couples” who live in objectively sinful situations – but only after an examination of conscience (with the help of a priest or alone);
4. Only those who have entered a 'marriage of conscience', since they are not able to receive a declaration of nullity of their first marriage, but believe in their heart to have grounds for such a declaration.
Without presenting Professor Seifert’s detailed discussion of each of these four possible answers, I shall present some statements he makes along the way. To sum up his conclusion ahead of the details: Seifert himself declares that
Pope Francis did intend “to change something of the sacramental order – which is a logical conclusion of the fact that footnote 351 admits some couples to the reception of the Sacraments who, up to now, had been absolutely excluded from the reception of the Sacraments.”
With it, Seifert explicitly rejects statements from Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Cardinal Raymond Burke, and Archbishop Charles Chaput on that matter. He does, however, agree with them that,
since the matter at stake pertains to the 2000-year-old traditional teaching of the Church, as it directly stems from the Word of God, this teaching cannot be changed, even though the erroneous statements in AL still will have grave consequences.
He says: “Indeed, for a couple of reasons, AL has not changed anything of the Church’s sacramental discipline” which is about “unchangeable truth rooted in Revelation” and established in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and in the Code of Canon Law.
As to the second possibility, namely that all couples in irregular situations are now admitted to the Sacraments, Professor Seifert quotes several sources who defend this thesis, namely: Father Antonio Spadaro, S.J., the Philippine Bishop’s Conference, Archbishop Blaise Cupich, and Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, among others.
Seifert calls this position “the radical, contrary and absolute opposite of the traditional teaching.” He says:
If instead of none, all adulterous, homosexual, lesbian and promiscuous couples are now invited to the Sacraments, there are truly no more limits – as Father Spadaro assures us. Why not give the Sacraments to couples – nurses and physicians – who, through abortion or through their assistance in it, have been automatically excommunicated?
In Seifert’s eyes, if one were to follow this path “one would desecrate the Holy Temple of God, yes, turn it into a satanic temple, a frightening place that would allow any possible Eucharistic sacrilege and blasphemy.”
Calling it
“a false interpretation and a total inversion of the sense of AL,” the professor says that – since such an interpretation has now been presented by bishops’ conferences and personalities such as Father Spadaro –
“a very clear and quick papal declaration that such an interpretation of the words of AL is a radical misinterpretation, is urgently necessary and highly urgent – if one wants to avoid the total chaos.”
[As much as one acknowledges Seifert's 'charity' towards JMB in calling the Schoenborn-Spadaro interpretation 'a false interpretation and a total inversion of the sense of AL', it is also falsely naive. The pope himself has advised everyone who question what AL really says about remarried divorcees in particular to turn to Cardinal Schoenborn 'who is an excellent theologian' for the right interpretation. If we did not already know what he really means and wants from all he has said and done since he became pope - and long before, as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, with his 'communion for everyone' diocesan policy!... So all the calls for him to 'clarify' what he means - Schoenborn, Spadaro et al have done all the exegeses that the text requires to lay bare what the pope means and wants - or worse, to expect the pope to rescind what he has written [What, admit he was in error in some way, even if it were only for unclear language?], are initiatives that must go on the record, for the record, but which are clearly in the realm of wishful thinking. ]
Professor Seifert, in quoting AL 297, shows that the text itself seems to indicate that ALL couples have to be “integrated” and that “no one may be condemned forever – that is not the logic of the Gospels!” He insists upon the call for clarification and claims that
This silence of Pope Francis strengthens the wrong and scandalous second interpretation […] especially if one considers that it is not at all Pope Francis’s general tendency to let things go without public corrections. [Really, Professor? Are you observing from Mars, perhaps???]
For example, the pope recently corrected – immediately and publicly – the impression created in the minds of many that Cardinal [Robert] Sarah’s simple invitation, motivated by noble liturgical considerations, that priests […] may more often celebrate the Holy Mass toward the East (versus Deum), announced a change of Paul VI’s liturgical norms according to which the Holy Mass normally should be celebrated versus Populum. [Probably the only example that can be cited - and the immediate reaction was because it involved something JMB personally disapproves of, if not being contemptuous of it!]
Seifert concludes that this immediate critical and public reaction of Pope Francis [regarding 'ad orientem] – which Seifert himself regrets –
makes the world believe even more that the silence of the pope is a papal consent concerning the scandalous second interpretation of “couples in irregular situations” (who objectively live in the state of grave sin) and who now shall all be admitted to the Sacraments without distinction. [But he was not silent when he answered the question placed explicitly to him eight days after AL was published:
Does anyone really expect him to articulate, verbally or in writing, anything that could be used as documentary evidence of - if not heresy - at the very least, openly violating what the Catechism states, based on Scripture, Tradition and the pre-Bergoglian magieterium???]
The same applies, according to Seifert, to
the pope’s silence concerning the recent
Corriere della Sera interview
http://www.onepeterfive.com/cardinal-schonborn-says-amoris-laetitia-binding-doctrine/
with Cardinal Schönborn “whom the pope has declared to be the most competent interpreter of AL,” and who then also made “the unbelievable statement that AL has completely eliminated the distinction between regular and ‘irregular’ couples.”
[Again, the professor is playing faux-naif, or bending too much backwards to be charitable. JMB already made it clear that Schoenborn is his chosen surrogate for all things AL. So when Schoenborn speaks - and says exactly what JMB himself would say if he did not have to hedge himself against the appearance of clear and open 'discontinuity' with the Church teaching of 2013 years - of course, he would be silent.
Schoenborn is only doing what his master wants him to do, and speaking with his master's voice about things which Bergoglio, the energizer-bunny talk machine, cannot say as clearly. Because if he could, he would have done so in AL, that masterpiece of casuistic hedging, and we would not have this near-farce at all of asking him to speak out clearly or rescind whatever erroneous statements he has made).]
Additionally, the cardinal has also claimed that AL “put marriage on the same level as concubinage and adulterous and homosexual couples” and “many have to believe that this papal silence concerning this interpretation signals a papal consent.”
[In which once again Schoenborn was merely articulating an obvious conclusion that the 'irregular situations' referred to in AL includes practising homosexuals and unmarried cohabitators, since these two categories were formally introduced to the two Bergoglian family synods by his minions who drafted sections of the Final Relatio in both synods to address the problems of these Bergoglian special-privilege groups.]
Another indication of this seeming papal approval can be seen in the fact that Pope Francis just recently appointed Archbishop Cupich to be member of the Congregation for Bishops, a prelate “who publicly gives out the Sacraments of the Holy Eucharist to politicians who have been automatically excommunicated due to their support of abortion,” and who also calls AL a radical “rule-changer.”
[Seifert omits that Cupich has also suggested that Catholics can seek forgiveness at communion, as if confession were not necessary at all before going to communion. But then Cupich is the type who would always be more popish than the pope if the pope happened to be someone like Bergoglio, so he would probably extrapolate AL's statement that couples in irregular situations may be not only not sinful but also in a special state of grace, to mean that no one needs confession at all, really - just go to communion, and avail of two sacraments for the price of one.]
In the face of such grave developments, Seifert reiterates his call to all Catholics to
urgently plead with the Holy Father, in the name of God and of those souls deceived by such scandalous interpretations of AL, that he may very soon make such a clear statement in order to avoid a spiritual catastrophe and sacrilege without limits in the Sanctuary of God and to possibly undo a total confusion among priests and faithful alike.
Seifert, in his sequential discussion of the two last possible answers to the question as to who are these couples which might now be admitted to the Sacraments, rejects both.
He neither sees it fit that a single priest would become the judge as to whether a person is subjectively incapable of seeing the sin he is committing, nor does he see fit the idea that there are couples who might follow their own conscience in determining whether their first sacramental marriage was valid or not.
Both cases would lead to subjectivism, public scandal and chaos. Seifert holds firmly to the Catholic teaching that remarrried divorcees [in order to receive absolution at confession and be able to receive communion] must abstain from sexual relations [until their marital situation is regularized within the Church].
Professor Seifert is deeply concerned that
AL “never, not even with one word, warns of the real danger to commit a sacrilege when adulterous, bigamous or homosexual couples receive Holy Communion.”
Why is there no mention, in 260 pages, of the words of Holy Scripture, according to which “no adulterer will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven”? In this context, why is there also no word to be found confirming what Saint Paul says, namely, that he who “eats and drinks the Body and Blood of Christ unworthily, eats and drinks his own judgment”?...
Would it not be merciful to remind these “irregular couples” of this truth, instead of telling them that they are “living members of the Church”? When a change of the Church’s sacramental discipline now allows that couples – who are living objectively in such a grave sin that they would have been excommunicated until recently – may receive the Sacraments, then the total silence concerning the real danger to “eat and drink one’s own judgment by an unworthy reception of the Eucharist” is not understandable...
And when the words of Holy Scripture say that such a danger for souls exist – not to mention it with one syllable, or even to deny it straightforwardly - is to directly invite these couples which live in an objective contradiction to the Church to remain in that contradiction.
And if one then additionally assures them that “nobody is condemned forever,” then this constitutes, in my eyes, not an act of mercy. What else could it be but an act of cruelty?
Professor Seifert reminds us that, if one lives in a state of mortal sin, one has cut oneself off from the Church and is, thus, not any more a living member of the Church. He adds: “If he [the sinner] does not convert, the same word of the father about the lost son applies to him: ‘Your brother was dead,’ even though the path to confession and penance will be always open for him. And for him who chooses that path, the word applies: ‘Your brother lives.’”
After the profound and important discussion of the question of the “irregular couples” with regard to the Sacraments, Professor Seifert goes on to discuss some other very troubling themes of AL.
He says that he is convinced
"some statements of AL are wrong and even (in some cases) objectively heretical and that they have to be rescinded by the Holy Father himself, who is responsible before us all for the welfare of the Church and for the preservation and protection of the unmeasurable treasure of the irrevocable and infallible teaching of the Church.”
Since Pope Francis has not consequently and continually, much less solemnly, presented these wrong (or even heretical) judgments, Professor Seifert himself does not consider him to be a “heretical pope” or even an illegitimate pope. He still trusts the pope when he says:
I am thus full of confidence that, as true pope and successor of Saint Peter,should Pope Francis find a contradiction between his statements and the teachings of the Church, he would immediately rescind his theses.And I hope he will do so with regard to the following cases.
[I wish I had Prof. Seifert's charity, but IMHO, no amount of 'trust and hope' expressed in JMB will cause him to 'rescind his theses' because, he will say, he does not "find any contradiction between his statements and the teachings of the Church". Go tell him otherwise, and he will merely refer us to the infallible theological opinions of Cardinals Kasper and Schoenborn.]
In the following, Seifert specifically shows which claims of AL he considers to be problematic, or even objectively heretical.
It is hard to deny that AL contains teachings or at least uses formulations which in their verbatim and obvious sense are in direct contradiction to the Gospels, to Veritatis Splendor and to the unchangeable tradition of the Church, and thus do not merely need to be clarified, but, rather, to be revoked.
Some passages, though in the tone similar to some of the words of the Gospels, give some of the most beautiful and merciful words of Jesus a completely different sense in detaching them from the strict admonitions of Jesus.
Others seem – at least at a first glimpse – to reject some eternal and unchangeable parts of the doctrine and of the sacramental discipline of the Church. Therefore, there is in my opinion a great danger that an avalanche of very destructive consequences for the Church and for souls could be broken off because of these very sentences.
In this context, Seifert presents as an example the claim of AL, that it would be advisable for a couple of divorced and “remarried” partners to preserve sexual relations in order thus to avoid a possible infidelity on the part of one of the partners.
Another example quoted is that AL indicates that a new relationship between divorced and “remarried” partners might even be willed by God “as if it ever could be the Will of God that divorced and remarried (without the Church’s declaration of nullity) continue to sin and to maintain their adulterous relationships” as implied in Paragraph 303 of AL. This claim – i.e., “that an adultery might be God’s Will” – “is clearly in contradiction with some Canons of the Council of Trent.”
With reference to the woman about to be stoned – to whom Jesus Christ says “I, too, do not wish to judge you” – the 71-year-old philosopher points out that Christ then added the words: “Go and sin no more!”
[An omission that constitutes Bergoglio's most objectionable distortion of the Gospel, after his distortion of the First Beatitude and the rest of the Sermon on the Mount. And yet they are distortions that are systematically and habitually made by the Vicar of Christ himself. This offense is unacceptable because it is worse than merely erroneous exegeses of the Gospel.]
“However,” adds Seifert,
“Pope Francis as His Vicar on earth, says to the adulteress – with reference to the Synod [of Bishops on Marriage and the Family] – that she may in certain situations continue to sin and that she should not only not feel excommunicated, but, rather, regard herself as a ‘living member of the Church’ – yes, she could even perhaps recognize as God’s Will that she is sinning: [
here he quotes AL 299].”
Very important that Professor Seifert points out
how it was only with Code of Canon Law revision of 1983 that remarried divorcees are no longer excommunicated for entering into a new civil “remarriage.” But even the revised Code still considers them bigamous. Prof Seifert comments:
If the quoted words from AL mean – as many interpreters assume – that remarried and divorced couples can know that their deed is adultery and a grave sin and yet at the same time can live in a state of grace – then this would contradict Holy Scripture and the dogmatic teaching of the Church.
According to Seifert, another AL statement which contradicts traditional Church’s teaching is the claim that “the Divine Laws against adultery are mere ideals and aims which not everybody can fulfill.” And yet, Seifert points out that “the Council of Trent had taught dogmatically that each Christian, with the help of Grace and of the Sacraments, receives the strength to fulfill God’s Commandments.”
By the way, it is truly impossible that the pope can teach heresies that had been condemned by the Council of Trent. However, it is nearly impossible to interpret his words in a different way; that is why I think that it is absolutely necessary to revoke these sentences of AL.
Seifert makes clear that one may never do evil because one expects good to come from it; that is to say, that a couple of divorced and “remarried” persons may not continue their sexual relations in order to avoid the danger of infidelity by either of the two partners. Thus, at the end of the discussion of this aspect, Seifert reiterates his plea to all Catholics:
I think that the whole Church should, in the name of Jesus Christ, call upon beloved Francis to revoke those false interpretations of AL and those formulations which violate the Holy Words of Christ – which will never go under – and the holy teachings and Dogmas of the Church.
In the following part of his analysis, Professor Seifert discusses the claim of AL that
“no one is condemned forever.”
He points out that
Jesus Christ Himself warns 24 times explicitly and personally (and that there are also to be found twice as many of these warnings altogether in the rest of the New Testament and in the Old Testament) “against the danger of eternal damnation if we remain in grave sin.”
But
in AL 292, the pope says that “No one may be condemned forever because that is not the logic of the Gospels!” Here Seifert sees that it is “nearly unavoidable to understand this text in the sense that there is neither hell nor the danger of eternal damnation.”
Therefore, if Pope Francis does not declare this to be a misunderstanding of AL, one can barely do otherwise than seeing in this above-quoted formulation a denial of the reality and danger of hell, as it has been proclaimed in the Gospels and in the dogmatic teaching of the Church.
Seifert repeats that
there is only one interpretation of this passage of AL, namely, that it "excludes [the possibility of] eternal damnation – which would stand in direct opposition to the Gospels, and which has been rejected as heresy by different Dogmas and Canons of the Church.”
After discussing the further damaging effects of this Bergoglian claim – namely that even Faith in God and Jesus Christ is no longer necessary for salvation – Seifert writes:
The faithful expect that Pope Francis does not teach another Gospel than the one of Jesus Christ and that he says to us either in the clear words of Jesus Christ or in his own words that there exists the danger of eternal damnation and that it is not true that “no one is condemned forever”!
At the end of his very detailed, truthful, careful and unmistakably charitable critique, Professor Seifert discusses once more what now needs to be correctively done. He says:
In my view, it is not possible – as some excellent Cardinals and Bishops (for example Cardinals Burke and Müller) and laymen (such as Rodrigo Guerra and Rocco Buttiglione) propose – to interpret these few, but very clear words in Amoris Laetitia as being in harmony with the words of Christ or the teachings of the Church.
But if Pope Francis does indeed give a very different meaning to the words as they seem to have and if the pope understands his Magisterium to be in accordance with tradition and the teaching of the Church – as the above-mentioned Cardinals and laymen think – then may he please say it clearly and unequivocally and reject the false formulations and the many false interpretations of AL and explain without ambiguity that these are indeed misinterpretations!
[This is futile barking at the moon, but as I said, it must nevertheless go on record!]
Seifert adds to these very succinct requests yet another even more stringent proposal, saying that
if, however, the above-mentioned formulations and claims of AL are indeed what Pope Francis intended to write – something that Robert Spaemann saw as a breach with the Gospels, Familiaris Consortio, and Veritatis Splendor –
then we can only ask him imploringly to follow the glorious example of his predecessor, John XXII who, a day before his death, rejected and condemned with the bull Ne super his own false teachings that the souls separated from the body (the animae separatae) in the beyond before the Last Judgment experience neither the heavenly beatitude, nor the pains of hell – a teaching that has been condemned as heresy by his successor Benedict XII in the bull Benedictus Deus […]
May Pope Francis not leave it up to a successor or to a council to condemn these statements, but, rather, may he revoke them himself.
At the end of his critique, Professor Seifert addresses the question of whether a layman may criticize a pope, by giving a historical overview of examples of the Church’s history where laymen helped to fight heresies within the Church.
The pope is not infallible if he does not speak ex cathedra. Several popes (for example John XXII, Honorius I) have advocated heresies or made damaging pastoral decisions. And it is, as Saint Thomas says, our holy duty – out of love for God and neighbor and out of mercy for so many souls – to criticize our bishops and even our pope if we see them depart from the Truth or damaging the souls. This duty has been recognized by the Church since the beginning.
Seifert concludes his 28-page critique of AL - which is one of the most powerful, differentiated and stringent critiques of this papal text – with the wholehearted request that the Church of God may proclaim
“joy, love and mercy in veritate.”
To our great misfortune, Veritas (Truth) does not seem to be an important component of this Pontificate of appearances. To paraphrase logically a pet Bergoglian postulate that makes no sense ("Ideas are less important than reality"), in the Pontificate of appearances, "Image - what people perceive - is more important than reality" (or truth, for that matter). In which mercy is preached as an absolute stand-alone panacea that has nothing to do with truth and justice, nor ultimately, with the salvation of men's souls.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 10/08/2016 01:18]