The prophetic voice of the four cardinals was not heard
It was the four cardinals: Cardinal Meisner, Cardinal Brandmüller, Cardinal Caffara and Cardinal Burke, who felt called to clarify some points of the Pope’s Apostolic Letter. They therefore asked the Pope five questions, which he was to answer with yes or no, a procedure that is customary in the Church.
They explained their motivation in a letter:
„We have noted a grave disorientation and great confusion of many faithful regarding extremely important matters for the life of the Church. We have noted that even within the episcopal college there are contrasting interpretations of Chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia.
The great Tradition of the Church teaches us that the way out of situations like this is recourse to the Holy Father, asking the Apostolic See to resolve those doubts, which are the cause of disorientation and confusion“.
In these Dubia (“doubts”), formulated by the Cardinals, precisely those points were raised which worried Catholics loyal to the Magisterium, since they could not be recognized to be in accordance with the previous teaching of the Church.
The non-response of the Dubia
Unfortunately, to this day, the Dubia have not been answered, and the Pope did not grant an audience to these cardinals, through which they would have been able to express their sorrows to him personally.
The concern among Catholics has been increased by this, because these justified questions have not been answered to this day and the doubts have not been dispelled.
Further voices were raised questioning the teachings of Amoris Laetitia. Theologians and other believers turned themselves to the Pope asking for a clear word and to clarify doubtful statements. Signature lists were created and sent to the Vatican. But Pope Francis did not respond directly to the requests of the faithful.
In the meantime Cardinal Meisner and Cardinal Caffara, two of the four so-called Dubia Cardinals, have passed away.
The non-response of the Dubia weighs heavily on this pontificate, because the Cardinals, as advisors to the Pope, must raise their voices when they see that the course is being set incorrectly or that there are errors. The four Cardinals have been accused of having gone public and not clarified the problem internally. However, they only did so after the Pope had not replied to their letter for two months. They were convinced that the matter was very serious and could represent a danger for the Church and souls. For this reason, and because many requests were addressed to them in this regard, they informed the faithful.
The following two quotations from Church documents show why this prophetic ministry of the Cardinals was correct:
In making a public appeal to the pope, bishops and cardinals should be moved by genuine collegial affection for the Successor of Peter and the Vicar of Christ on earth, following the teaching of Vatican Council II (cf. Lumen Gentium, 22); in so doing they render “service to the primatial ministry” of the Pope (cf. Directory for the Pastoral Ministry of Bishops Apostolorum Sucesores, 13).
“When there is a danger for the faith, subjects are required to reprove their prelates, even publicly. Since Paul, who was subject to Peter, out of the danger of scandal, publicly reproved him. And Augustine comments: ‘Peter himself gave an example to superiors by not disdaining to be corrected by his subjects when it occurred to them that he had departed from the right path’” (Summa theol., II-II, 33, 4c).
In summary, with Amoris Laetitia, the Church has left the safe path of following the appropriate pastoral paths from the perspective of objective truth. With regard to an understanding of the needs of the affected persons, the following word of Pope Benedict XVI gives an authentic direction:
”It can happen that pastoral love is sometimes disturbed by attitudes that want to approach people. These attitudes seem to be pastoral, but in reality they do not correspond to the good of persons and of the ecclesial community; because they avoid confrontation with the saving truth, they can prove downright counterproductive to the salvific encounter of each person with Christ. Today, unfortunately, we must note that this truth is sometimes obscured in the consciences of Christians and people of good will. Precisely for this reason, the service offered to the faithful and to non-Christian spouses in difficulty is deceptive when it reinforces, perhaps even implicitly, the tendency to forget the indissolubility of one’s own marriage. A fundamentally necessary accompaniment on the part of the Church is the formation of awareness through clarity according to the Word of God in doctrine and practice”.
The Pope in contradiction with himself?
Still in 2004, Cardinal Bergoglio, then Archbishop of Buenos Aires, at a congress, firmly supported the binding truth affirmed in Veritatis Splendor. At that time, the current Pope said among other things, that
”only a morality that recognizes valid norms without exception, always and for all, can ensure the ethical foundation of social coexistence, both nationally and internationally.”
He went on to say that understanding human weakness “can never mean compromising and falsifying the criterion of good and evil, as if to adapt it to the circumstances of individuals and groups of persons”.
He also described it as a “grave temptation” to think that it is impossible for a sinful person to obey the holy law of God and “to want to decide for himself what is good and what is evil”.
Today, in 2019, Pope Francis answers a journalist’s question on how Catholic pastors should deal with remarried divorced people as follows:
“I could answer you in two ways: in a casuistic way, which is not Christian, although it can be ecclesiastical. Or according to the Magisterium of the Church, as written in the eighth chapter of ‘Amoris Laetitia’. There it is a matter of following a path of accompaniment, to find solutions in spiritual choices”.
The contradiction of these statements cannot be overlooked, and for a faithful Catholic it is not understandable that an ecclesial way could at the same time not be Christian if it agrees with the Gospel and the authentic teaching of the Church.
Amoris Laetitia, with its deviation from the previous path of the Church, represents a serious interference in the life of the Church. Resistance must be formed by the pressure already exerted to accept and practice this new path, since a path recognized as an error cannot be accepted. This is especially true for priests, who may be compelled by their Bishops to implement the new way and thus contribute to confusion.
At the end of this second part, a text by Familiaris Consortio (n. 84) makes it clear once again what the binding Church teaching tells us:
“However, the Church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried. They are unable to be admitted thereto from the fact that their state and condition of life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and the Church which is signified and effected by the Eucharist“.
“Besides this, there is another special pastoral reason: if these people were admitted to the Eucharist, the faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the Church’s teaching about the indissolubility of marriage.”
In a third part, we will consider in conclusion the consequences which this new path brings with it.