Is ‘Amoris Laetitia’ being twisted in such a way that real blasphemy results?

The moderation queue is definitely ON for this one.

Initial notes.

Blasphemy involves words or gestures, also thoughts, which show contempt for God or dishonor God regardless of whether the person intends that contempt or dishonor or not.  Blasphemy is against the virtue of religion and a mortal sin.  Blasphemy is direct when it is aimed at God.  It is indirect when aimed at Holy Church or the saints or any sacred thing or person or place.   A deadly sort of blasphemy concerns the Holy Spirit (cf. Matthew 12, 31-32).  This  ghastly sin denies to the Holy Spirit the power or will to purify, forgive, lead to penance, etc., resulting in final impenitence and hardness of heart.  That sort of sin, the “unpardonable sin” cannot be forgiven because the person rejects forgiveness.

Fr Hugh Somerville-Knapman OSB,  a Benedictine monk and priest at Douay in England, writes a blog called Dominus mihi adiutor (the motto of Douay Abbey from Ps 117:7).  He put his finger on something that I have worried about constantly since the ongoing controversies erupted over the objectively unclear content in Amoris laetita concerning Communion for the divorced and remarried who seemingly have no firm purpose of amendment.

There is an antinomian wind ripping tornadically through the Church.  There is a lot of dangerous talk about exoneration by a “conscience” not formed in harmony with Natural Law and the Church’s teachings that yawns like a sink hole under the Church’s law and doctrine.

“What has been proposed about matrimony is an ideal!  It’s impossible!  We have to be merciful to those who can’t live according to some pie in the sky ideal!”, some of the turncoats say. “Laws are unmerciful and papal teachings that are over thirty years old are lacking in compassion!”

One of the things that has bothered me greatly is that this debate over Communion threads back to other matters central to the Church’s very identity, indeed Christianity’s core beliefs.  For example, if Christ was wrong about marriage and remarriage and adultery, then He isn’t God.  If Christ isn’t God, then we are idolaters and we are in a very bad way indeed.

Fr. Hugh has another approach which is like to mine.  He points out that they commit blasphemy who say that the ideal of marriage as proposed by Christ can’t be lived by ordinary people.   It is tantamount to saying that, not only was Christ wrong, but that burdens were placed on people but the graces to live the vocation were not given.  This is a variant on the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit.

Let’s see some of the post that Fr. Hugh offered… I’ll cut to where he really gets to it.  My emphases and comments:

[…]

So when some start twisting the admittedly woolier and imperfect parts of Amoris Laetitia to make the case for allowing civilly divorced and remarried Catholics to continue in a state that Christ calls adultery, and to allow them at the same time to receive Holy Communion, surely they commit a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? Implicit in their approach is the assertion that some baptised and confirmed are somehow unable to live as Christ commanded, and that these people form an exception that charity, yea mercy, must accommodate. If some, then potentially all are unable. Christ is made at best a liar, and at worst a tyrant in imposing on all humanity a precept some, apparently, cannot obey.

Do you see the blasphemy? Christ’s law on marriage is beyond us, even a burden to us, and so God is denied the good that he has done, and implicitly we attribute to God responsibility for the failure of some to live up to the teaching, because their natural state and even their re-created state after baptism and confirmation is still not able to live up to Christ’s commandments. So if that is how he has made us then we cannot be responsible for our failings. The gift of the Holy Spirit is not, then, really the gift that it is made out to be.

The blasphemy is compounded when those in such adulterous unions are effectively encouraged to remain in adultery, without the necessary requirement that they live as brother and sister, and yet still receive Holy Communion. Given St Paul’s inspired teaching on Holy Communion in 1 Corinthians 11, such an indulgence is an atrocity. It encourages such unhappy sinners to eat and drink judgment upon themselves. In effect, the libertines would have the adulterous eat and drink what would be for them only poison for their souls.

It is hard to see how those such as the two bishops of Malta have become anything other than abetters of spiritual poisoning and blasphemers against the Holy Spirit. Our Lord’s judgment on those who persist in such a sin is clear. It is still hard to believe that they have one so. However, it seems they have.

Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.
Mark 9:42

Not my words, but Christ’s. But they still have to time to repent. So do we. Best not to waste it.

You see, dear readers, there is more, far more, to this debate than whether a really rare, heart-string pulling case about abandonment and “luv” and divorce and a remarriage that’s really great and all manner of sentimental stuff can be scraped up to fling into the faces of those who uphold the Church’s teachings rooted in the Deposit of Faith going back to the Lord and the Apostles.  The ramifications of being able to go to Communion without a purpose of amendment about any sin, because ideals are tooo haaard, undermine Christology, Sacramental Theology, Ecclesiology… the whole ball of wax, the whole nine yards, the whole… you know.

By the way, the whole of Ps 117:7 is: Dominus mihi adiutor et ego despiciam inimicos meos.

 

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

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39 Comments

  1. excalibur says:

    Yes, yes, much deeper. It is the renunciation of Christ as God. What did He say, what did He know, it was 2000 years ago, and we have become knowledge itself.

    It is 2017, we move closer to one, grand, world religion, and we can’t have the words of Christ interfering with that.

    Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

    JMJ

  2. Lucas Whittaker says:

    Agreed! Faith demands, at its heart, that we follow Christ. “Following Christ demands the personal risk of searching for him, of walking with him, but at the same time it means ceasing to build a wall around oneself, giving oneself over into the unity of the ‘whole Christ’, the ‘totus Christus, as Augustine beautifully puts it. Having a personal relationship to Christ means emerging from the confinement of the ego. Out of the belief that we have become a new man in Jesus Christ grows the demand that we allow the self-assertiveness of natural egotism to break up into the common interest of the new man Jesus Christ. That does not happen without a deep personal relationship to him, without listening to his word, without seeking his way; it happens only by believing along with the Church, with the saints, in whom the true face of the Church becomes recognizable in every age” (Pope Benedict, Dogma and Preaching).

    Faith is at heart Christocentric. Pope Benedict states that the following statements can be formulated because of this fact. “Christocentrism presupposes the event of God becoming man and is, therefore, at bottom nothing more than Theocentrism. It assumes the presence of the Risen Christ in the Church and, therefore, demands very personal obedience to Christ just as much as it requires unity with the faith, prayer, and liturgy of the Church.”

    Benedict points out in the same book that the immediate argument against this is that Jesus’ own preaching was not christocentric because it revolved “entirely around the announcement that the ‘reign and kingdom of God’ was near.” The Emeritus Pope immediately points out that Origen answered this argument with the now-classic expression that the Lord himself is the coming of God’s kingdom already begun in our midst (Origen, commenting on Mt 18:23; ‘in Mt tom XIV 7’).

    When we speak about transformation in Christ we speak about a lifelong process, to be sure. But it is a universal call that is born out of the precept of charity, the call to be perfect as God is perfect and changeless. To speak, instead, about a different interpretation of faith for modern man is to deny the love and mercy of God, which apply to us only when we are not guilty of turning away from the obedience to Christ that faith demands. As St. Peter puts it, God otherwise deals patiently for our sake “not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance” (2 Pt 3:9). Carnal desires war against the soul (1 Pt 2:11). God made us to grow unto salvation: to taste that the yoke of the Lord is sweet. To believe otherwise is to twist the reality of Christian history, and the true meaning of tradition.

  3. Chris in Maryland 2 says:

    Cdl. Kasper teaches heresy: “The God who sits enthroned over the world and history as a changeless being is an offense to man.” (Kasper, God in History, 1967)

    It is also the case that Kasper rejects numerous Gospel accounts of Jesus’ power over nature, sickness and death.

    I will stop there – though people suggest there is more than the above.

    We can conclude from this that Kasper over-rules the apostles (James 1: 7) and the great Councils (Nicea) which in turn assert the immutability of God, and condemn the Arians who reject the this doctrine.

    So if God must change to be acceptable to Kasper, and Kasper can over-rule an apostle, the gospel and the Councils, then Kasper can over-rule Jesus’ words in the Gospel commanding that marriage is indissoluble.

    What is over-ruled is Jesus, the evangelists, the apostles and the Councils. What is left is Kasper.

    That is a new “religious” identity – it is post-Christian.

  4. Benedict Joseph says:

    This is why I have been saying more frequently than I can bear to acknowledge that Roman Catholic theological study has devolved into speculation at best, but in reality nosed dived into deism, if not outright atheism.
    It is doubtful there are presently a sufficient number of millstones in existence.
    This vile reality need be acknowledged and the nasty business of setting it right is not going to easy. One wonders if the task will be ever undertaken if not fueled by absolute outrage.
    “With zeal I have been zealous for the Lord.”

  5. Unwilling says:

    But “they” are immune to reasoning (if you say X then you are committed to obviously false Y). They will cheerfully embrace Y (St Paul was being rigid about unworthy participation in the Eucharist). You should not take Jesus at his exact words re divorce AND you should not take Paul at his exact words about Communion. As the manuals used to say: From an absurd proposition, everything follows.

  6. Traductora says:

    AL was born twisted. You actually have to twist it only if you want to make it seem even slightly orthodox.

    I have thought from the very beginning that the big problem was not only the specific issue of marriage, but the fundamental premise of the whole thing, which Fernandez practically announces at the very beginning of the document. I think it’s taken this long for people to respond to it as they should simply because most people could not believe that so much error and – yes – blasphemy was being so matter of factly set forth in a papal document.

  7. Atra Dicenda, Rubra Agenda says:

    Old Errors, New Labels.

    THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
    Session VI – Celebrated on the thirteenth day of January, 1547 under Pope Paul III

    Canons Concerning Justification

    Canon 12.
    If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in divine mercy,[117] which remits sins for Christ’s sake, or that it is this confidence alone that justifies us, let him be anathema.

    Canon 14.
    If anyone says that man is absolved from his sins and justified because he firmly believes that he is absolved and justified,[118] or that no one is truly justified except him who believes himself justified, and that by this faith alone absolution and justification are effected, let him be anathema.

    Canon 18.
    If anyone says that the commandments of God are, even for one that is justified and constituted in grace,[121] impossible to observe, let him be anathema.

    Canon 19.
    If anyone says that nothing besides faith is commanded in the Gospel, that other things are indifferent, neither commanded nor forbidden, but free; or that the ten commandments in no way pertain to Christians, let him be anathema.

    Canon 20.
    If anyone says that a man who is justified and however perfect is not bound to observe the commandments of God and the Church, but only to believe,[122] as if the Gospel were a bare and absolute promise of eternal life without the condition of observing the commandments, let him be anathema.

    Canon 21.
    If anyone says that Christ Jesus was given by God to men as a redeemer in whom to trust, and not also as a legislator whom to obey, let him be anathema.

    Canon 27.
    If anyone says that there is no mortal sin except that of unbelief,[129] or that grace once received is not lost through any other sin however grievous and enormous except by that of unbelief, let him be anathema.

    Canon 33.
    If anyone says that the Catholic doctrine of justification as set forth by the holy council in the present decree, derogates in some respect from the glory of God or the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, and does not rather illustrate the truth of our faith and no less the glory of God and of Christ Jesus, let him be anathema.

    We are not justified by simply trusting in Divine Mercy alone. We are not absolved by simply believing we are. It is not impossible to follow the commandments of God for every Christian, regardless of their subjective state. The Commandments and laws of the Church matter. You have to follow the laws and commandments. Christ is a legislator we have to obey. Christians can mortally sin, even if they have belief.

    To re-emphasize: it is not impossible for Christians to follow God’s commandments. He would be an evil God if he demanded things we were unable to do. Why are prelate saying it is impossible? They seem to have no supernatural Faith.

    Why do we have to argue this anymore???

  8. quamquam says:

    Fr Z, with due respect, I don’t think that this escalation is a fruitful way to go. One could find a way to use it in almost any theological debate. [Not really, no.] Each side would end up flinging accusations of blasphemy at the other. (So one might imagine supporters of Amoris accusing its opponents of the blasphemy of saying God was not truly merciful – which blasphemy, they could say, is implicitly despair of his mercy, one of the sins which blasphemes against the Holy Spirit.) [Sure they could. But not all debates are equal. No. His reasoning was sound.]

    Or, one might accuse all non-Catholic Christians of blasphemy, as (even if they protest otherwise) they are ‘objectively’ in rebellion against what is in fact Christ’s manifest will to make Peter the rock foundation of the Church – thus implicitly denying his right as God to make this choice.

    Or really, any sin, even what appears only venial, could be interpreted as blasphemy, since at the moment of sin we are implicitly saying that we know better than God what will make us happy – making ourselves the standard of good, not him. To raise the escalation still further – someone who did this would surely be a follower of Satan, not Christ!

    Or, someone might say that those who contradict themselves are implicitly denying thereby the very principle of non-contradiction, overthrowing all reason and thought.

    But in all these cases, the remote conclusion that we are drawing out, is not really what is going on. And likewise, supporters of Communion for the divorced and remarried are not (as a general rule) denying Christ’s divinity, or intending to do so, and nor is such denial a likely actual outcome of their position.

  9. Joe in Canada says:

    A common criticism of Confession was and is that you can go to Confession and then go and sin again. To which Catholics would say “Confession requires an honest act of contrition and the virtue of prudence. To ‘sin no more and avoid near occasions of sin’ means I reflect on my past experience and plan for the future calling on God’s grace to help me achieve the good He calls me to.” The idea that not all are capable of doing God’s will and hence can sin with impunity would be a direct repudiation of the Church’s traditional pastoral wisdom. It will effect not only remarried divorcees, but all sorts of situations – homosexual activity, premarital sex, masturbation, etc

    The idea that we can be in a state of sin and still live a life of grace is perfidious.

  10. hwriggles4 says:

    What these bishops in Malta are doing (as well as the opinion of a couple North American bishops) is a slap in the face to those Catholics who took the time and went through the annulment process. Many converts and reverts went through the process (I know of some RCIA programs that won’t confirm anyone until if and when a decree of nullity is issued), and I have friends who did not begin dating again until their annulment was granted (knowing that the annulment was not a rubber stamp).

    Seriously, that’s part of the problem, particularly in the United States and Canada. Too many divorced men and women are rushing back into the dating scene without doing any thinking or healing. I was a witness in an annulment case, and healing is a part of the annulment process. I have only heard a handful of priests (by the way, I am single and in my mid 40s) advise previously married Catholics this: “You should not be dating until if and when an annulment is granted. ” Catholics I know who went through the annulment process (including an old girlfriend) said it was helpful in the long run.

  11. chantgirl says:

    These Bishops will argue themselves out of a job. If we don’t have to strictly keep God’s commandments to receive Him, why belong to the Church? Why bother trying? This is what young people will think and the pews will continue to empty.

  12. albizzi says:

    Pope Francis’ own words as they were reported by a lot of media: “It is not to be excluded that I will enter history as the one who split the Catholic Church.”
    So, Francis acknowledges that there is a high probabiliy for a schism to be on the way, of which he is the main liable one, since he himself triggered it in issuing the very confusing A.L. post-synodal exhortation.
    He knows that he is also the only one who can stop it immediately by giving a clear reply to the “dubia letter” regarding Amoris Laetitia, but he has chosen to remain silent.
    Therefore in my opinion he looks satisfied with this sad situation and he is joyfully assuming its main consequence: A schism.
    Whether Francis cares about the huge stain he is soiling his eternal soul remains a mystery.
    Am I wrong ?

  13. Kerry says:

    Also read Fr. Hugh’s post, The Marian Solution.

  14. Dan says:

    The reminds me of something that I have recently read. I have been reading “I Believe in Love: A Personal Retreat Based on the Teaching of St. Therese of Lisieux” by Fr. Jean C. J. D’Elbee,
    Excuse me while I butcher this as I don’t have the book in front of me but in the chapter on Humble confidence St Therese had stated something to the effect that the modern way of psychologists to cure misery is to teach people to ignore their sin and repress their guilt. That reminded me of another quote I had seen by Bishop Fulton Sheen, “our guilt is God calling us back to grace” (or something to that effect, I tend to butcher quotes but you get the idea) . St Therese goes on to talk about the need for us to accept our weakness and guilt to bring it before the Lord and in confession and then accept His loving mercy and in that we find our reward.

    When we repress guilt in favor of a justified conscience we reject the need for confession. When we reject the need for confession we reject Christ’s mercy, when we reject Christ’s mercy we reject his sacrifice and Christ himself, when we do that the Eucharist becomes not a source of strength but a sacrilege for we have used Christ to our own purpose and instead of finding joy in doing His will.

  15. robtbrown says:

    By definition, ideals are not concrete. That’s why I object to the word being used in moral theology. In AL it is woven into a version of the Fundamental Option, the theology of which makes distinguishing between grave and light matter very difficult, if not impossible.

    I have been working on an article on AL and the morality of human acts for some time, which, God willin’ and the crick don’t rise, will soon be finished.

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  17. KateD says:

    Regardless of the original intent of our pontiff, AL is being utilized as a Trojan Horse. Those on the inside are intent on destroying the City.

    Roll the gift of false charity back outside.

  18. robtbrown says:

    What we are discovering is that there are bishops appointed by JPII and BXVI whose faith depends on the weather.

    [It has ever been so, since The Twelve.]

  19. acardnal says:

    robtbrown, please advise when your article is published so I can read it! Thank you

  20. KateD says:

    Schism is not an option.

    Children should never consider being driven out of their Father’s House by the false smoke of Satan. The devils would be wise to make amends before they are confronted by the Lord.

    Are they out of their minds?

  21. Ave Crux says:

    Father, this has helped me ENORMOUSLY. I am going to bookmark it and read it again and again.

    No one wants to fail in Love and mercy; and so, AL – together with Pope Francis’s repeated, withering condemnations of “rigid” Catholics as “Pharisees” – can throw one into confusion, disorientation and self doubt.

    Here Father Hugh has offered a powerful light and guide to the intellect, so that one can understand and repudiate as blasphemous the assertion that it is unmerciful to think that God’s grace is immediately offered to all to rise from ones moral disorders and live according to the clear teachings of Christ and His explicits words and example in the Gospel, as codified in the Ten Commandments and 2,000 years of the Church’s moral and theological teaching.

    The fact that the 10 Commandments expressly state “Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery” should suffice, but the Pope, AL and other members of the hierarchy make us think there’s some sort of “grace period” (pun unintended) that ought to be granted for those not ready to obey as a matter of “mercy”.

    The teachings of Christ, His owns words, make it clear what adultery is, and He repeatedly counsels “Go and sin no more”, but our Pope tells us we are unmerciful if we think and say the same.

    Thank you so much for this post, Father. It gives the intellect and conscience the foothold it needs amidst the present “diabolical disorientation” which Sister Lucia of Fatima declared had invaded the Church, in particular in the “decisive battle” which she said Satan would wage against the family.

  22. gsk says:

    One ironic aspect of the conundrum concerns the Real Presence. Those who wish to receive Holy Communion because they want to be close to God fail to connect the dots. The same authority that allows a validly ordained priest to confect the Eucharist is that which stands behind the marriage tribunals. The person who says: “I know best about the state of my prior bond (and soul)” and then approaches the Eucharist says “Amen” before receiving is guilty of a gross inconsistency. One cannot pick and choose when it comes to authority.

  23. Kathleen10 says:

    I think I agree with Hillary White, whose position has been we should be thankful for this papacy, because basically, now we know and no one can sit on the fence anymore, although we may certainly miss those days.
    Speaking as a layperson, just one of the smelly sheep, it does not seem possible that we will ever look at the church the same way, nor our Cardinals, nor our Bishops, nor the papacy. As you have said, Fr. Z., once you start tampering with fundamental truths, it can all unravel pretty rapidly, and it ends up causing a crisis of faith. How can it not? We are only human, and when it appears the gates of Hell have prevailed…or you are even wondering if the gates of Hell have prevailed…you’re in a bad place.
    There was a very rapid ascendency of Barack Hussein Obama, very rapid, considering his petite career beforehand. We see European leaders who all seem to be doing the exact opposite of what seems prudent for their own nations and people, as Obama did. We see the USCCB promoting open borders, increased immigration, and Leftist politics, while obviously downplaying truth and tradition. And amazingly, we see what we see in this papacy, our Vatican, the Cardinals, and our Bishops, which cannot be denied as anything other than a departure from the Gospel and Catholic teaching and tradition.
    Can anyone imagine this is all just coincidental, all of these forces rising at the same concurrent time, all headed in the same direction? It does not seem likely. It is hard to deny there is a good argument for some form of globalism, some collective effort on the part of all these players.
    It will take divine intervention to uproot these men.

  24. ChgoCatholic says:

    Brilliant! Fr. Hugh’s logic is spot on here. The rejection of logic among a number in leadership has us at the point of concluding none other than that by their words and actions, they inherently call Christ a liar.

  25. scotus says:

    You do not allow us to be tempted beyond our limits:
    strengthen the weak, raise up the fallen.
    (Evening Prayer, 24th January 2017)

  26. JARay says:

    How dare anyone claim that the teaching of Jesus as regards marriage is “too hard”? I am a supporter of Veri Catholici and what they have said to the Bishops of Malta…and that includes any who would support the reception of Holy Communion by those who are living in “irregular unions”.

  27. OldLady says:

    Have just started reading In Sinu Jesus published by Angelico Press about Christ’s plans for a renewal of the priesthood. Few books have affected me so deeply from the very first pages or filled me with so much hope as this one. The Rosary, contemplation of the Holy Face and Eucharistic Adoration. The battles we see coming will be won no matter what the Enemy throws at us inside or outside the Church if priests and the faithful spend time at Eucharistic Adoration and the Rosary.

  28. JPK says:

    To say married Christian couples cannot abide by the 6th Commandment defies history. My grand parents remained married for 40 and 70 years respectively. Only death intervened. They survived the Great Depression, continued to have children through the worst years of the Depression, and quietly lived their lives. Neither my maternal nor paternal grand parents divorced. My maternal grandfather was a simple laborer. He and his wife raised 6 children. My paternal grand parents raised 4.

    We should give praise to all of our ancestors, who while far from perfect, remained faithful to the bitter end.

  29. robtbrown says:

    robtbrown says:

    What we are discovering is that there are bishops appointed by JPII and BXVI whose faith depends on the weather.

    [It has ever been so, since The Twelve.]

    Yep, but the expectation is that bishops appointed by JPII & BXVI are more doctrinally oriented vs those by Francis.

    [It was hit and miss.]

  30. Rod Halvorsen says:

    Right on, Father, the problem with AL really isn’t restricted to matrimony.

    The problem is far less about footnotes toward the end of the document than it is about a statement in the body of the document at the beginning, in paragraph 3:

    “…I would make it clear that not all discussions of doctrinal, moral or pastoral issues need to be settled by interventions of the magisterium.”

    Now let us ponder that, for the “divorce” that SHOULD be garnering the most attention isn’t merely the one involving spouses, it is the one involving Truth ITSELF.

    For the Pope has just said that DOCTRINE AND MORALITY CAN BE DIVORCED FROM THE MAGESTERIUM. Yes, he did, and THIS is the real threat to the faith; the notion that truth itself can lie outside the teachings of the faith, that the words of Christ, in fact the Word Himself, can reside outside, separate from and in fact even in opposition to the revelation of Truth He has given us in the Church and the Magesterium.

    Why THIS then isn’t the main thrust of all the efforts at clarification I really don’t know unless this expression, this thought, these thoughts are so hideous that no one wants to even conceive and certainly doesn’t want to suggest that a Pope could put them down on paper in black and white…as in fact he has done for all to see. It is a tragedy for souls that many of his sayings seem to support the gnawing suggestion that this statement is not a typographical error but rather a foundation of his thought.

    Taking the Dubia in hand and studying them, it appears possible that the 4 Cardinals have in fact seen and digested this issue but have decided to take a roundabout route to get to it, in that the questions they have placed before the Pope do not merely address issues pertaining to matrimony but rather depending on the answers to them open up not just the possibility that the man has fallen into heresy, but rather that the man has fallen into apostasy.

    I make no accusation, I merely point to public document and the plain words of the Pope’s own hand.

  31. comedyeye says:

    This whole thing is like a ball of yarn unraveling. To continue headstrong on this path
    would basically collapse the Church. Since Christ promised protection to His Church
    that will not happen. This will be resolved via future pope or council just as these problems have been resolved in the past.

  32. StephenB12 says:

    Why, when there is a threat, do people say; the gates of hell will not prevail, as if that means the Church has God’s protection from an attacking enemy? I’ve never seen ‘gates’ attack anyone. When I think of gates, I think of keeping something protected, keeping out trespassers. Isn’t it more likely to mean that we are to be on the attack against it?

    In my own experience, understanding that passage in the former way has excused many of us from doing God’s will.

  33. Rod Halvorsen says:

    ???????????????????

    robtbrown says: “Yep, but the expectation is that bishops appointed by JPII & BXVI are more doctrinally oriented vs those by Francis.”

    Uhhh…

    Pope St JPII gave us………FRANCIS.

  34. tm30 says:

    How can these priests and bishops not understand, at minimum, that giving Communion to adulterers is of absolutely zero merit to them (the adulterers) whatsoever? It’s the ultimate empty gesture. And the downside is eternal damnation.

  35. StMalachy says:

    With reference to 1 Corinthians 11, verses 27-29 are excluded from the reading cycle in the Novus Ordo…

    Funny that.

  36. robtbrown says:

    Rod Halvorsen,

    Exactly my point, but under JPII/BXVI doctrinal criteria were major factors in naming bishops.

    NB: Cdl Roger Mahoney was also a JPII bishop.

  37. robtbrown says:

    FR Z says,

    It was hit and miss.

    Of course, you’re right. The intention in the past two papacies was not, however, to name bishops primarily because they were “pastoral”.

  38. Rod Halvorsen says:

    robtbrown:

    I see your point, but the first thing that comes to mind is “With doctrine like that, who needs pastoral?”

    ;)

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