divorced and remarried

Proper Liturgy Needs Doctrinal Truth

“This is why respect for truth is ultimately inseparable from what we call worship. Truth and cult are inextricably united—one cannot exist without the other, however often history may have separated them.”  ∼ Joseph Ratzinger (1982) Liturgical thought today seems to downplay the importance of doctrine while elevating the significance of practice. The harmony of lex orandi … Read more

Are Moral Absolutes Unfair to Individuals in Difficult Cases?

Adultery is sinful, marriage is indissoluble, and divorce is forbidden. Let us assume that we accept the validity of these precepts in principle—but is it possible to apply them in practice, without committing a serious injustice to individuals in difficult cases? Every statement only covers a limited part or aspect of reality, and in this … Read more

Some People Have No Clue What Marriage Is

Listening to a recent morning radio show, I had the opportunity to hear a woman named Michelle Afont plug her recent book, The Dang Factor. In a nutshell, she describes it as “inspiring and motivating women everywhere to evaluate the state of their love life and make the changes necessary to find, restore, and keep passionate … Read more

The Consequences of Changing Church Teaching

The underlying premise of conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat’s recent book, To Change the Church, is that the Catholic Church is conservative because her claims and demands only make sense if there is 1) a core and agreed-upon set of doctrines and 2) a clear link to New Testament teachings and to the early … Read more

What About the Rest of It?

The disgrace of Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, credibly accused of having for many years groomed and abused teenage boys, seminarians, and priests, sometimes with a measure of consent and sometimes without any consent at all, gives us a rare opportunity to survey the whole miserable scene as regards both the Church and what, for want of … Read more

German Bishops Employ Lutheran Subjectivism for Marriage Agenda

The German bishops’ conference is hardly alone in exploiting, for “pastoral” reasons, the implications of Amoris Laetitia’s (AL) betrayal of objective moral truth. At the same time, the larger context of its recent decisions to admit select Lutherans, and select divorced and “remarried” Catholics, to Holy Communion seems to point also to a source of … Read more

Amoris Laetitia in Light of Theology of the Body

Pontificates are hard things to peg. When they begin, we can never be sure how they are going to turn out. In 1978, a Polish cardinal who had been an active participant at the Second Vatican Council was elected the 263rd Successor of Saint Peter. He was following an Italian (Albino Luciani) who had died just … Read more

Close at the Ear of Eve

Conscience is one of the ecclesiastical words of the day. It is the king if not the ace of trumps, to be slapped on the table to take the trick and surprise the conventional and inattentive opponent. I wonder whether people who believe in the power of that card have considered how versatile man’s reason … Read more

Hünermann’s “Way Forward” is a Dead End

The aged German theologian, Peter Hünermann, is no stranger to ecclesial conflict. His name has arisen once again, now in regard to the recent Vatican media scandal, where Monsignor Dario Edoardo Viganò publicized a fragment of a personal and confidential letter by Benedict XVI to Pope Francis in such a way as to falsely suggest … Read more

What “Accompaniment” Really Means

These reflections are written against the background of the way in which many activities, once treated under the natural law, came to be considered human “rights” under civil law. A couple of decade ago, it became clear that the subversion of natural law would be carried out under the aegis of “human rights” as understood … Read more

Invite Children of Divorce to Cupich’s Amoris Laetitia Seminars

I see where Cardinal Cupich is planning a series of seminars on Amoris Laetitia. According to a letter obtained by the Catholic News Agency, the “New Momentum Conferences on Amoris Laetitia,” will “provide formative pastoral programs.” As someone who has listened to many victims of the Sexual Revolution, I am eager to learn about the “pastoral … Read more

How Amoris Laetitia Reduces Moral Culpability for Sin

In June 2016, the distinguished Austrian philosopher and friend of Pope John Paul II, Joseph Seifert, published a highly critical yet charitable essay on Amoris Laetitia (AL) that led to his dismissal from a teaching post at the seminary of the Archdiocese of Granada, Spain. In his essay, Seifert argued that the view of conscience expressed … Read more

Does God Command the Impossible?

Question: What do the push to admit those with irregular marriages to communion, the effort by Fr. James Martin to bless same-sex relationships, and the movie Silence have in common? Answer: They all assume that the demands of Christianity are too hard for ordinary people to live out. In the movie Silence, which is based … Read more

Heretical Praxis

Reviewing Correctio filialis, I found that I was in substantial agreement about the theoretical problems related to the exhortation Amoris Laetitia, but I regretted that the contradictions of its pastoral implications were not made more explicit. I have two examples of cases that are to the point here. The first is of a couple I met … Read more

A Cardinal’s Implausible Defense of Amoris Laetitia

Many of Pope’s Francis’ closest allies have presented vindications of his troubling apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia. Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, who is the President for the Pontifical Office of Legislative Texts, stepped forward last year with a booklet concentrating on the controversial claims of Chapter Eight. This guided reading is now accessible in English thanks to … Read more

Fornicating in Self-Defense

When is fornication not really fornication? Well, if reports are accurate, according to Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernandez, dubbed by some as Pope Francis’ “closest theological adviser,” if a sexually active, unmarried couple lives together, he says it is “licit to ask” whether such sexual activity “should always fall, in its integral meaning, within the negative … Read more

Is a “Winnipeg Statement” Lurking in Amoris Laetitia?

Hey, Amoris Laetitia, the 1968 Canadian bishops phoned and they want their strategic ambiguity back. That line may not mean much to anyone who isn’t familiar with the Canadian Conference of Bishops’ statement in response to the birth control encyclical Humanae Vitae. Dubbed the “Winnipeg Statement” for the last 49 years, it represents in the … Read more

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