And dishonesty continues to be the hallmark of AL and its paladins...
I only became aware yesterday of the truly unnoticed 'defense' [it never made it to PewSitter of Canon212's news summaries] back in
February by one Stephen Walford of Pope Francis and his Magisterium, such as it is, and I did not realize that Steve Skojec had replied
to the Walford article yesterday. Which is why, in the following article, Oakes Spalding saves me from doing the necessary backgrounding
and cuts to the heart of all dishonest 'defenses' of AL and consequently of the pope who signed it...I am availing of his article
to take
a shortcut by linking only to the Walford and Skojec articles instead of posting them here.
More than just a footnote on
the Walford-Skojec-Ivereigh
melee over the accursed AL
by Oakes Spalding
June 23, 2017
Steve Skojec just wrote a post at OnePeterFive,
Is Amoris Laetitia an Expression of the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium,
https://onepeterfive.com/is-amoris-laetitia-an-expression-of-the-ordinary-and-infallible-magisterium/
where he critiques an article of a few months ago on Amoris Laetitia.
The original article in
Vatican Insider, "The Magisterium of Pope Francis: His Predecessors Come to His Defence" by Stephen Walford,
http://www.lastampa.it/2017/02/07/vaticaninsider/eng/the-vatican/the-magisterium-of-pope-francis-his-predecessors-come-to-his-defence-x5jzE4YtghvlnRvSvcolGM/pagina.html
was little noticed at the time, but yesterday on Twitter, Pope Francis apologist Austin Ivereigh threw down a sort of late gauntlet
to prominent opponents of Amoris Laetitia, daring them to refute the article.
Stupid is as stupid does! Absolute papolatry does that to you.
Essentially, Walford argues that papal exercises of the ordinary magisterium - papal teaching authority expressed at a lower level of authority than infallible ex-cathedra pronouncements - still demand our assent. Or to put it another way,
when a pope intends to teach as pope on a question of faith and morals, he cannot err, even when speaking non-infallibly.
Walford argues that the statements of previous popes support this, in sources as varied as private letters, public audiences and encyclicals. Thus, the claims of Amoris Laetitia - among them, that communion should now sometimes be allowed for people living in irregular marital situations - must be accepted. [Yes, but none of the previous popes he cites ever stood up for anything that was clearly off the Catholic reservation!]
Or to put it even more simply or directly:
What Pope Francis says in Amoris Laetitia must be true because he, the Pope, said it. Previous popes would agree. [Previous popes would NOT agree - because the crux is not who says it but what is being said.]
Skojec does a great job of demolishing Walford's argument, and, thus, meeting Ivereigh's challenge. If you haven't already read both pieces - Walford's original and Skojec's response - I highly recommend doing so. Not only is the debate obviously relevant to Amoris Laetitia - the most contentious papal document in at least two generations - but
it is also useful in understanding the general question of papal authority. Can a pope ever be wrong? Under what conditions? What is the ordinary (or universal) magisterium? And so on.
One problem is that while Walford's argument can be literally summarized in a tweet, the counter-argument cannot. And this is annoying.
Or worse than annoying.
Some would argue that throwing dust is how the devil often operates. By the time you put together a complex refutation of his mix of lies, half truths and, yes, truths, your audience has fallen asleep, or stopped listening because the whole thing is too complicated to follow.
Not that Walford is the devil. For all I know, he's a fine fellow. But
he's literally doing the devil's work here, whether he's aware of it or not.
Skojec summarizes the problem with Walford's argument in the final paragraph of his post. The summary is a bit longer than a tweet:
That the Church’s ordinary magisterium is infallible is indisputable. That Amoris Laetitia is an expression of it — particularly where it contradicts or calls into question the magisterial teaching that came before it — is anything but.
That's exactly right, of course, and as good a summary as any.
My contribution to the discussion - a "footnote" - will be to make one observation about
Walford's disingenuous use of sources [But he's only following the brazen dishonesty of AL in misusing Thomas Aquinas, John Paul II and a Vatican II document by the simple trick of truncation - and not indicating so by ellipses, as Spaulding argues here.] Skojec didn't point it out (he couldn't point out everything - his post was quite long, as it is). It's the first thing that I noticed, and, indeed, the only thing that I noticed before I stopped looking, after Skojec had published.
Walford begins by using a quote from John Paul II, given at a general audience on March 17, 1993:
St. John Paul II described it as the “charism of special assistance” explaining further: “This signifies the Holy Spirit’s continual help in the whole exercise of the teaching mission, meant to explain revealed truth and its consequences in human life. For this reason the Second Vatican Council states that all the Pope’s teaching should be listened to and accepted, even when it is not given ex cathedra”.
My translation says, "heard and welcomed" as opposed to "listened to and accepted," but no matter. More to the point is how the excerpt ends.
Due to the fact that in this instance Walford seems to have a preference for Chicago style (which eschews ellipses in certain cases) over MLA style (which requires them in those cases), it's not clear that the excerpt actually ends in mid-sentence.
['Chicago style' and 'MLA style' refer to the two most common formats for written documents like college papers and articles for publication. Their main difference is in how sources used in the document are cited. MLA (for Modern Language Association) requires the use of in-text citations, written directly after the information to be cited. The Chicago style uses two forms of citations: Footnotes, where the citation is placed at the bottom of the page, and end notes, where the citations are placed at the end of the paper on a separate page.]
Let's re-do the last part in MLA style:
"For this reason the Second Vatican Council states that all the Pope’s teaching should be listened to and accepted, even when it is not given ex cathedra..." [1].
Note the three dots that indicates an ellipsis or omission in the quotation.
It turns out that the part that follows our ellipsis is actually crucial for understanding John Paul II's claim. Unfortunately, Walford breaks off the excerpt in the middle of a sentence. I wonder why.
Here's the second part of the sentence that he does not quote:
...but is proposed in the ordinary exercise of the magisterium with a clear intention to enunciate, recall, reiterate Faithful doctrine.
And now, the full sentence from John Paul II:
For this reason the Second Vatican Council states that all the Pope’s teaching should be listened to and accepted, even when it is not given ex cathedra, but is proposed in the ordinary exercise of the magisterium with a clear intention to enunciate, recall, reiterate Faithful doctrine.
There's the rub.
Whether or not Francis had a "clear intention to enunciate, recall (or) reiterate Faithful doctrine" is the question.
Since many have argued persuasively that the controversial passages of Amoris Laetitia
actually contradict Church doctrine, including Church doctrine as reiterated by John Paul II himself in
Familiaris consortio and
Veritatis Splendor, among other places, we cannot reasonably say that he did.
That he will not "answer the dubia," affirming that he did, is indeed, good evidence that he did not.
I take back some of what I said about Walford.
He's a man with an agenda, and nothing will stop him from trying to persuade people of the truth of that agenda, even if it's cutting sainted popes off in mid sentence to further his case. That's not exactly innocent. Yes, what he did was dishonest. And that's merely what happens in his second paragraph with his first source. It doesn't bode well.
But in fairness to Walford, he's not unique. Defenses of Amoris Laetitia are riddled with this type of thing.
Indeed, Amoris Laetitia itself is riddled with this type of thing, selectively quoting documents from, say, John Paul II or Benedict XVI to attempt to bolster the case, even when in some instances, other parts of the documents or even other parts of the same sections or even paragraphs in those documents contradict the case.
But Walford takes the cake by doing it within a sentence.
Give them their due. They have chutzpah.
More on the DUBIA and some gleanings from Jorge Bergoglio's recent loquacities and his latest indirect circumlocutory non-answers to the Four Cardinals' DUBIA - he never really misses a chance to strike at them to underscore his absolute intransigence on AL and its untruths and deceptions. BUT of course, he will never be caught saying a simple YES or NO to the DUBIA.
I have come to think of this pope as someone who could not possibly take the oath required for any person taking public office in the USA or joining the US military, because how can he possibly take an oath that commits him to saying and doing things "without mental reservation or purpose of evasion". But that is exactly what all of his loquacities are shamelessly made of - MENTAL RESERVATIONS AND CLEAR PURPOSE OF EVASION... almost as if everytime he opens his mouth, one can be sure that in all that verbiage, he will be telling a lie, white or otherwise, at least one but likely to be much more than one.
Bergoglio really thinks he has answered the DUBIA
so why do the cardinals insist on a reply and/or an audience?
[Just that his vocabulary does not include YES or NO -
and in this case, that's all we need!]
by Louie Verrecchio
June 22, 2017
Cardinal Bagnasco has since been replaced as CEI President by Cardinal Bassetti.
Addressing the opening of the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI) General Assembly on 22 May, Francis implored the gathering:
“The first of these gifts [of the Holy Spirit] is already in the convenire in unum (coming together in unity), willing to share time, listening, creativity and consolation. I hope these days will be crossed by open, humble and frank confrontation. Do not fear the moments of opposition: entrust yourselves to the Spirit, who opens to diversity and reconciles what is different in fraternal charity.”
As His Humbleness spoke, nearly a month had already passed since he had received a letter written on behalf of the four Dubia Brothers formally requesting an audience to discuss the ff:
Request for clarification of the five points indicated by the dubia; reasons for this request... [and the] Situation of confusion and disorientation, especially among pastors of souls, in primis parish priests.
In spite of this pope's repeated
appeals for honest and frank confrontation and openness toward opposition, the aforementioned request for an audience had been met with nothing but silence from Francis.
The author of said letter, Cardinal Carlo Caffara, the retired Archbishop of Bologna, was present in the assembly that day, and there can be no doubt that he, more than anyone else, marveled at the magnitude of hypocrisy on display at that moment.
It is also quite likely that Cardinal Caffara understood very well that certain portions of Francis’s address were aimed directly at himself and the three other troublemakers-in-red who had joined him in co-authoring the Dubia.
For instance, His Hypocriticalness declared:
“The Synodal breath and step reveal what we are and the dynamism of communion that animates our decisions. Only in this horizon can we truly renew our pastoral program and adapt it to the mission of the Church in today’s world; only thus can we address the complexity of this time, thankful for the course accomplished and determined to continue it with parrhesia.”
For those with ears to hear, Francis is essentially saying:
- Amoris Laetitia is a fruit of the “Synodal” process, which itself is a manifestation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit!
- This is what animated the decision to effectively abrogate mortal sin (AL 301), to declare the Divine Law too lofty for some to keep (AL 301), and to accuse God of asking us to persist in adultery (AL 303); thus addressing “the complexity of this time.”
- Therefore, let us be “thankful for the course accomplished and determined to continue it with parrhesia.”
Parrhesia – open and candid speech.
[Yet the punctiliously studied ambiguities of AL are anything but!]
In other words, Amoris Laetitia is a done deal. The only dialogue worthy of having concerns how to implement its “pastoral program.” As such, do not expect an audience ordered toward derailing the effort; it’s too late for that now.
From there, Francis continued his address to the bishops (and one wonders if perhaps he even made eye contact with Cardinal Caffara) as he said:
“In reality, this path is marked also by closures and resistances: our infidelities are a heavy mortgage put on the credibility of the testimony of the depositum fidei, a much worse threat than that which comes from the world with its persecutions.
NB: In this,
Francis is suggesting that Amoris Laetitia – the origins of which can be traced back through the Synods directly to the Holy Ghost – belongs to the deposit of faith!
[Of course, he never heard of the principle of non-contradiction, or if he did, he certainly thinks it doesn't apply to him. This is the line Walford takes when he says that since Catholics accept Tradition, they must therefore accept anything Bergoglio says, because, Walford implies, it automatically becomes 'Tradition' - or in Bergoglio's words, part of the deposit of faith - just because he said them. Never mind that they contradict everything that went before him, including the words of Jesus himself! That is the tragic blind spot in the hubristic logic of Bergoglio and his followers.]
As such, men like the Dubia Cardinals and those who support them, he insists, are guilty of nothing less than infidelity, and this for merely asking five simple yes/no questions that an adolescent should be able to answer!
Following are just a few of the remaining comments offered by Francis that are clearly intended as a response to both the Dubia and the request for an audience submitted by its authors:
– “If we keep our trust in God’s surprising initiative, the strength of patience and the fidelity of Confessors: we do not have to fear the second death.” [Note: This seems to refer to those “Confessors” who now – surprise! – have the authority to declare persons inculpable for the mortal sins they are determined to continue.]
– “Let us learn to give up useless ambitions and our obsession in order to live constantly under the gaze of the Lord…” [A reference to both the “God of Surprises” and those ambitious Dubia cardinals.]
– “We are exposed to the temptation to reduce Christianity to a series of principles deprived of concreteness…” [“Concrete,” as in immutable doctrinal truths.]
– “Let us open the heart to the knocking of the eternal Pilgrim: let us have Him enter, let us dine with Him.” [The “Pilgrim” Christ who is evolving right along with us!]
It should be eminently clear that Francis has answered
- evasively and with full mental reservations - every doubt, every question, and every request that has come his way relative to the blasphemies and heresies put forth in Amoris Laetitia.
The only step that remains is for God to raise up men among the cardinals with the mustard seed’s worth of Catholic faith to declare what has taken place:
Jorge Bergoglio has revealed himself to be a pertinacious heretic; thus no member of the Church, much less her head. [It's so much simpler and more accurate to just call him an APOSTATE!]
Could it be that the letter of Cardinal Caffara was made public, not in a last ditch effort to pressure Francis into responding as some have alleged, but
to set the stage for making the case that he already has?
Let us hope and pray and offer sacrifices that grace will abound among all concerned; that this scourge upon the Church may soon be mitigated according to God’s holy will.
Let me end this post with this short but very cogent commentary on Bergoglio's obstinate refusal to deal with the DUBIA once and for all. The former president of IOR has always had a gift for expressing himself on matters of the faith with a remarkably effective economy of words. He proves this again here...
The pope's silence in the face of the DUBIA
is a bold denial of objective truth
by Ettore Gotti-Tedeschi
Translated by Dorothy Cummings McLean for
from
June 23, 2017
I see two implicit messages in the Pope’s failure to answer the DUBIA.
The first implicit message is “I can contradict myself if I want to.” At the start of the first ‘family synod’ in October 2014, the Pope invited the cardinals to speak openly and frankly, without fear of embarrassing the Pope (the famous parrhesia). And yet for months, the Pope has refused to respond privately or publicly to the dubia expressed by four cardinals who represent a large part of the faithful.
The second implicit message seems to be a declaration of the intent to impose a “New Catholic Morality.” This would be founded on the awkward circumstances of the new ethical demands (or requirements) of new situations created by the secularized world, instead of a morality based on the Commandments, the Catechism and the Magisterium, as invoked by the “obsolete”
Veritatis Splendor.
In the past, the Church’s concern was to keep the faithful “strong in the Truth” in order to conserve the faith. She therefore discouraged a disposition to interpret doctrine and the magisterium in a subjective and dangerously misleading manner. Indeed, back then the task of pastors was to confirm the certainties of faith by “teaching,” not just by “listening.”
Today, it could be said that you should have subjective and unresolved doubts to demonstrate that you have an “authentic faith.” You must not try to resolve them or seek answers to questions on points of ambiguous interpretation because that would be insolent and arrogant.
Doubts are necessary because it seems that we don’t want to affirm a single, absolute and objective truth. A pluralist and dialectical truth has taken its place because this latter truth, a truth based on the conclusions of a “self-taught” individual conscience, has replaced doctrine as the judge of actions (praxis).
One might say that traditional morality has been overridden by circumstances (not the ideal), and since we should no longer judge (that is, objectively evaluate circumstances), the Church seems to want to renounce the possession of the truth and its teaching (unless it concerns the environment, poverty and immigration)
[about which, however, the church of Bergoglio and its secular ideological colleagues persist in purveying half-truths if not outright lies].
Thus, a failure to respond to the dubia confirms that
doctrine is abstract and that it is of no use to salvation because truth is transitory, subjective and open to differing interpretations. It is better to dialogue, then, than to teach something that is no longer eternal.
For months, theologians have been forced, or have been obliged, to highlight only a few parts of Amoris Laetitia, neglecting the parts that leave doubts and generate subjective interpretations. This means that AL does not seem to be as “objective” as some assume.
But the controversial points aren’t so marginal, minor or irrelevant to the good parts. I suggest that readers read for themselves the articles in question (AL 297, 299, 301, 305, 329 … ) and ask themselves the questions posed by the four cardinals and Catholics who refer to the Catechism, the Gospel and the specific Magisterium (Casti Connubi, Veritatis Splendor, Familiaris Consortio … ).
The dubia are concerned with what is a grave (mortal) sin here: the possibility of the reception of sacramental absolution and the Holy Eucharist by those who live illegitimately as husband and wife and don’t want to stop. The dubia ask what marital chastity is, and if situations exist in which we must sin because there are temptations greater than our strength. They ask if situations exist in which a form of ignorance justifies sin.
Dear readers,
the dubia ask if a new morality is or is not being proposed, and if the help of God, which never fails, aims to keep us from sinning or to keep us from feeling guilt after having sinned. The dubia are not a bizarre and spiteful showing off by four cardinals.
Beware!
In the Gospels, Jesus says 15 times that there is a risk of eternal damnation if someone persists in a grave sin, while Amoris Laetitia 297 claims that no one can be condemned forever because it is not the logic of the Gospel. Thus, eternal damnation would seem to have become a heresy.
However, AL 304 says also that the general norms in its formulations cannot embrace all particular situations, implicitly admitting the existence of so many doubts left to subjective and dangerous interpretation.
The Pope’s failure to answer the dubia would illustrate that doubts must be resolved subjectively because Truth is no longer objective. Thus, the Church today seems to be declaring that she does not want to have a doctrine to propose to the world. She believes that circumstance determines doctrine, rather than the contrary. Therefore, the new Church seems to want to give moral suggestions but without precepts, without laws. It is useless to ask if this is so.[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 24/06/2017 02:49]