ASK FATHER: Can the pastor force me, a priest, to wash women’s feet on Holy Thursday?

Posted on 13 March 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

B16 foot washingFrom a priest…

QUAERITUR (edited):

Emboldened by the Pope’s new legislation last year, my pastor is determined to force the small parish which I primarily serve  in the cluster to introduce women into the Holy Thursday footwashing rite.  [This old thing again… sigh.]

As the celebrant of the small parish’s Triduum, I have wrestled with what to do: Should I quietly omit the mandatum? Or maybe I might refuse vocally and on principle. The bishop himself cannot compel or forbid me from legitimate options, yet, I truly love my bishop and honestly do not want to grieve him.

Or should I grudgingly obey

Please advise.

This is the plight of the assistants.  Assistants, or “parochial vicars” as they are sometimes called, have the right to a Christian burial and that is about it.

I ran this by a some trusted priests, one a canonist, a pastor, a vicar general whom I know.  They are rock solid and celebrate the TLM.   We concur.

You are right: you can’t be “forced” to wash women’s feet. It’s sad that the pastor is trying to push this through onto a community that seems not to want it, and especially through the instrumentality of his assistant who is also opposed to it.

The cleanest option is to drop the optional mandatum rite.  That will no doubt get back to the pastor. The effect will be: you “disobeyed,” you are rigid, disobedient, backwards.  The pastor, during the last few weeks of your assignmment, might treat you with disdain and talk about you at future clergy gatherings.  You could be a faithful hero in some circles, trad scum in others.

Talk to the pastor first.

“Listen Dick, I know you want me to wash ladies’ feet at St. Amphilocius on Holy Thursday, but in conscience I just can’t do it, and here’s why: … I know we disagree on this, and you probably think I’m a horrible, rigid person for sticking to my beliefs, but I hope that you can at least respect my disagreement with you on this matter. Please, respect the integrity of my beliefs and allow me the decency of letting my actions be in conformity with my beliefs. More scotch?”

Respectfully voice your concern and objection privately to the pastor and perhaps also the bishop.  State your preference to omit the optional foot washing.  Don’t make a public issue of this, however.

If the pastor or bishops insists that you do it, then I think you have to go along with what the pastor decides.

Hang on and be prudent.  You will be a pastor of your own parish one day.  Learn from this how not to be a pastor, how to be a good pastor, and how to work well with assistants.

Finally, thanks for wanting to do the right thing and in the right way.

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Wherein Fr. Z is sore tempted – UPDATE

Posted on 13 March 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

UPDATE 13 March:

I am delighted that one of my priest friends is able to come to help with our Triduum!  However, I really would like to have one more priest come.

So, I’ll give in to the temptation.  Fathers?

___

Originally Published on: Mar 7, 2017

I am having a temptation.   I am tempted to put out a notice to any priests out there who would like to have an experience of serving as a sacred ministers (deacon, subdeacon) in the Triduum in the traditional rite.

Were I to do so, I would probably put out a note on this blog and ask priests to write to me.  Such a priest would, of course, have to have traditional interests, strong singing skills and would need to be able to work with Latin… and he would have to come to Madison, of course.  That would mean suitability letter, etc.

HA!  What a thought.   As if there would be any priests not already engaged.

 

 

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“O you who come to this abode of pain…”, thoughts on ‘Amoris laetitia’

Posted on 13 March 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

“O you who come to this abode of pain. . .beware how you come in and whom you trust. Don’t let the easy entrance fool you.”

Today at The Catholic Thing Robert Royal has a short and suggestive piece about sex and deception. Dante – Il Poeta  – gives him a lift.

Royal recounts teaching Dante’s Inferno, the first part of the Divine Comedy,  to students.

One of the more famous bits in Inferno is the hellish plight of Paolo and Francesca, adulterers, destined eternally to lash about twisting in the whirlwind as they cling to each other.  Oh, the pathos!  Oh, the sympathy as they recount their deeds, which lead to their deaths and this doom!

How unfair it all seems for such a little transgression, right?  After all what’s adultery in the face of eternal punishment.  Right?

Royal makes an important point. Before we – with Virgil and poetic Dante – reach Paolo and Francesca, we are warned against deception.  Minos, judge of the underworld…

“…  tells them: “O you who come to this abode of pain. . .beware how you come in and whom you trust. Don’t let the easy entrance fool you.”  [Because in Hell, the damned will lie to you.  Don’t believe everything you here.]

Virgil, a smart pagan, thinks Minos is just trying to block their way. But that’s not what he said or did. He’s warning them about infernal deception, especially how easy it is to find yourself entangled in it. It may, thus, be something that even Virgil’s pagan wisdom doesn’t see clearly on its own. And since what follows is two adulterers presenting a touching and almost beautiful picture of their sin, maybe the pagan poet, for all his wisdom, is not the best guide in this particular case.”

I turn now the reader’s attention to the arguments that have been offered for giving absolution to those who do not have a firm purpose of amendment and then admitting them to the reception of Holy Communion.

For example, stories as plaintive and touching as the tale of Paolo Malatesta and Francesca da Rimini are described in defense of admitting the divorced and civilly remarried to the sacraments of penance and the Eucharist, even though they do not intend to amend their lives.   Oh, the pathos!  Such dire circumstances these (adulterers) are in!  Is it really so bad what they are doing?  After all, they are in love.

Can the warning of Minos serve to sober us up a bit?

I’m sure it never entered Prof. Royal’s mind to suggest a link between the scenario of Inferno Canto V and Amoris laetitia.

Read the whole thing over there.

Anthony Esolen, by the way, translated Dante’s Divine Comedy into English and did a great job of it.

If you have never read the Divine Comedy, you should.  It is perhaps the greatest work ever written, saving Holy Writ.  You could start with Esolen (Part 1, Inferno- US HERE – UK HERE) or perhaps with the late, great Inkling Dorothy Sayer’s fine version (Part 1, Inferno, US HERE – UK HERE).  There are many renderings to choose from.  I would very much like to teach on Dante someday.  Maybe it’ll happen.

When you make the excellent choice to read the Divine Comedy, here are a couple tips.  First and foremost, make the decision that you will read the whole thing.  Don’t read just the Inferno.  The really great stuff comes in Purgatorio and Paradiso.  Also, be smart in your approach to Dante.  Read straight through a canto to get the line of thought and story and then go back over it looking at the notes in your edition.  Sayers has good notes.  Dante was, I think, the last guy who knew everything.  Hence, every Canto is dense with references.  You will need notes to help with the history, philosophy, cosmology, poetic theory, politics, theology, etc.  Really.  You will need help.  Take it.

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‘Monday Vatican’ analysis of the state of the pontificate

Posted on 13 March 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

In the wake of last week’s cover of the Rolling Stone, Andrea Gagliarducci in his Monday Vatican offering does some analysis of the status quaestionis, the present state, of the pontificate of Pope Francis, especially in view of the MSM.

Read the whole thing, which is well reasoned.   Here are some tidbits:

Is Pope Francis really a “pop Pope”?

[…]

After four years, however, things might have changed. The Italian Rolling Stone cover is perhaps why some say that Pope Francis’s honeymoon with the media is coming to an end, or at least that his image is undergoing decline. But at the very least, the cover shows the secular world’s determination not to see what really happens around Pope Francis.

[…]

Likewise, the several commissions established during this pontificate came about out of sentiment. Joking (but not too much), Pope Francis once said that when someone does not want to accomplish something, he establishes a commission.  [Right.  Like the deaconette commission.]

Commissions and external consultants represent a risk: that they use their position to collect information and later destroy the Vatican system from within.

But the biggest risk that lies behind the appointment of commissions comes from a certain mentality. The risk is that people will eventually think that “new is good, old is bad,” without making any judgment between the harvesting of fruits and the ability to produce them. This is the risk of this pontificate, and the media helps to emphasize the “new is good” issue.  [That’s an important point.]

It is noteworthy that media pervasiveness and the continual flow of news prevent a lucid and detached analysis. Reading back the articles published at the beginning of the pontificate, it becomes evident that the words most used are “revolution”, “Pope Francis’s style” and “new Church”. These formulas are used by the media to generate readership, but also to give the readers the notion of a Church that is going to change completely. The Church, however, does not change suddenly, and Pope Francis is always a priest with a traditional deposit of faith – no matter how he eventually denies it.

So, there probably was an agenda at work behind Pope Francis’s back, but the fact is that this effect was also a media invention to sell more newspapers and to attract readership. That is part of how the market works.

[…]

This is his way of doing things. And it is typically Jesuit: no possibility is excluded a priori, everything must be discussed, reasoned, in a never-ending dialogue with the world that the Pope wants to develop within the Church.

Even within the Church, Pope Francis shows his traditional roots, yet they are filled with the notion of pueblo, and this Latin American populism has some hidden Marxist categories in it. The Pope is traditional when he speaks about “Holy Mother Hierarchical Church.” He is also traditional when he centralizes powers: Pope Francis listens to everyone, and then makes his decision, sometimes without regard to any particular suggestion he had been given. This behavior underscores the fact that Pope Francis is often alone in command. Simply put, people wait for clarity, with the understanding that a different opinion can be argued by opponents.  [Yes, Gagliarducci mentions the Five Dubia of the Four Cardinals™.]

This entire situation must be carefully addressed, because any claim of normality in Pope Francis’s pontificate is strongly targeted. The Pope is the Pope: he places trust in the people he wants, he has his personal spoils system, and he also has an inner circle of counsellors that counts more than the Curia. That is normal. But the narrative wants the Pope to be collegial, open to the world, synodal. Above all, the narrative wants the Pope to be “pop”, and any time this image is debated, the reaction is harsh. In his biography of Pope Francis, Paul Vallely recalls that after the years of his provincialate in Argentina, Bergoglio left a Society of Jesus divided in “pro Bergoglio” and “anti Bergoglio” camps. The same is happening in the Church.

[NB] How much Pope Francis is intentionally creating this division is yet to be assessed. Looking attentively at his moves, it seems that he does not opt simply for the right or the left. The final goal seems to be a sort of revenge of the South and of the pueblo, that is, the people in the positive sense in which Pope Francis interprets the term. This revenge is attested by an increased representation of the globe in the College of Cardinals, by his meetings with popular movements, by his insistence on the profile of priests with the smell of sheep.  [Pope Francis seems to ascribe to a special brand of “liberation theology” that stems from the pueblo and popular devotions, etc.]

[…]

There is quite a bit more. Read the whole thing there. These are just a few samples intended to hook you.

Andrea’s Monday offerings can be longish, but, as he states in this week’s piece: media pervasiveness and the continual flow of news prevent a lucid and detached analysis.

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ASK FATHER: Uncle married his niece… is that okay?

Posted on 12 March 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader…

My mother in law married her much older uncle after abandoning her children. Why does the Catholic Church approve of this?

Hang on.  Before you make all sorts of assumptions, let’s drill in.

The Code of Canon Law is clear, except where it isn’t.

Canon 1091 establishes that marriage is invalid between persons related in the direct line and in the collateral line up to and including the fourth degree. Canon 1078 declares that dispensations are never given for marriage in the direct line or the second degree of the collateral line. There. That clears it up. So, much for your accusation.

Holy Church has long been interested in parsing the family tree for marriage purposes. Early in the life of the Church, we faced a world where incest was rife. The famous Cleopatra (Cleopatra VII) was married, sequentially, to her two brothers, Ptolemy XIII and XIV, before putting the moves on Julius Ceasar. On the Roman side of things, I, Claudius is a good place to start in trying to figure out the complexities of marriage and family in the Roman upper classes. To all of this, the Church, drawing on Her Jewish roots and divine revelation, said, “Hold on a minu

Breaking relations in consanguinity (blood relations) and affinity (relatives by marriage) and then into the direct line (grandparent, parent, child, grandchild) and the collateral line (sibling, aunt, uncle, cousin), the Church has always forbidden marriage between those related in the direct line, no matter how many degrees (generations) separate them. In the collateral line, degrees have been counted in different manners. Today, the best way to count degrees is to count up the relatives and subtract the common ancestor – thus a brother and sister are in the second degree of consanguinity – brother, sister, parent, minus the parent gives us two. Cousins are in the fourth degree – cousin, cousin, parent, uncle, grandparent, minus the grandparent. Uncle and niece are in the third degree – niece, parent, uncle, grandparent, minus grandparent.

Now, the Church is clear that the prohibition of marriage in the direct line is divine law – the divine law is not dispensed. In the collateral line, especially beyond the second degree, it’s understood that this is ecclesiastical law, and therefore subject to a possible dispensation.

On occasion, in those jurisdictions where it is civilly legal, I have heard of cases of bishops dispensing from the prohibition against the fourth degree of consanguinity – first cousins marrying. Usually, care is taken to make sure that there is no danger of children being born with debilitating birth defects, and that the marriage will not cause problems in the family or scandal among the faithful. I can’t say that I have ever heard of a bishop dispensing from the impediment of consanguinity in the third degree. It’s difficult to comment on a situation without knowing all the particulars, but this situation certainly does seem highly unusual. Ask either the priest who married this couple, or the local bishop for clarification.

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Tinkeritis: Screwing around with, screwing up, liturgical translations

Posted on 12 March 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Christine Mohrmann

You may have heard that there is an initiative underway to “review” or “study” vernacular translations of the texts of Mass and the norms according to which they are to be prepared as given in Liturgiam authenticam.   This would be nuts, of course, and, hence, I think they will do it.   Tinkeritis is rampant these days.  This is one reason why the older, traditional form of the Roman Rite must be expanded as much as humanly possible.

I suspect that, while this “study” initiative is an attack on the norms of LA and the translations it has already produced, it’s really an attack on Pope Benedict’s determination that all vernacular translations of the consecration for the Precious Blood had to say “for many” for Latin pro multis.

We Catholics ought to believe that, while Christ died for all, not all will be saved.  Some will not be saved.  Apart from that, pro multis in Latin means “for many” and not “for all”.  Spectacular and risible philological fan dances have been done in the past to force “multis” to mean something that it has never meant in the history of the Latin language.  This will return in spades now.  If the attack on LA goes forward, and I think it will, it may result not in a total overturning of the present translation.  Rather, even more options will be introduced: alternative translations, the option to say “for all” rather than “for many”.   As you have already figured out, this will produce even more confusion and disunity than there is now… among Catholics, that is.

It might make what liberal priests do more promote unity with the teachings you hear in Protestant churches, although they might express them better.

Over at Mutual Enrichment, Fr. John Hunwicke has rightly invoked the name of the great scholar Christine Mohrmann.   She demonstrated that the Latin used for liturgical worship in the early Church was not the lowest common denominator speech of the man on the street.  Rather, it is stylized and elevated.

For 12 years I wrote a weekly column for The Wanderer in which I drilled into the translations of the orations of Holy Mass both before and after the introduction of the current ICEL version.  Week after week I showed how the Latin reflected technical terminology and specialized vocabulary (i.e., military, agricultural, mercantile) and concepts from Neo-Platonic and Stoic philosophy.  The man in the street would have had to stretch for the content, much as these days Joe Bagofdonuts would have to work hard to follow the first scenes of a play by Shakespeare.   Mind you, Shakespeare is not out of reach!  Most people these days must stretch.  However, the unaccustomed ear eventually adjusts to the Shakespearean sound, especially when the novice is at the play and not just listening to a recording.  With repetition, it becomes easier and you become – let it be said – smarter.   The same applies to liturgical language: it must not be pedestrian.  Our faith is shaped by how we pray.

We must resist every effort to make our faith ambiguous, indifferent and dumb.

Fr Hunwicke has a good post.  Check it out HERE.

 

Posted in Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Mail from priests, New Translation, Pò sì jiù, PRO MULTIS, WDTPRS | Tagged , , , , ,
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My View For Awhile: Intersect Edition

Posted on 11 March 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Other than the fact that in order to enjoy a really early morning you first have to get up really early, it’s a really nice morning.

Nasty weather comes later in the week.  It is, of course, March.

It seems like a long time since I’ve been in an airport.  In itself, that’s not a bad thing.


UPDATE

This is always a welcome message.


Back in the day you had to wonder.

UPDATE

And now we just sit here.  And wait… and wait… and wait….

When you can’t be in Casablanca, just fly … wait with Delta.

UPDATE

After a curtailed layover, on my way again.  They were offering $500 for a volunteer, and I almost got it.  My penchant for avoid crowds put me a little farther from the gate agent than I needed to be.   In any case, that’ll give me addition time at my Intersect Point.

It’s Kindle time.

UPDATE

Even better than the text verification that followed immediately …

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Russian Orthodox now to celebrate more Western Saints including St. Patrick

Posted on 10 March 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

st_patrick_iconHere is some interesting East and West, both-lungs news which is also seasonal.

From blog Ad Orientem (excellent title):

St. Patrick of Ireland and other Western saints officially added to Russian Orthodox Church calendar

St. Patrick, the great enlightener of Ireland, [The Enlightener… great title] will be officially celebrated in the Russian Orthodox Church for the first time this year on March 17/30. At its March 9 session, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox, under the chairmanship of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, officially adopted St. Patrick and more than fifteen other pre-schism Western saints into its calendar, according to the report published on the patriarchate’s official site.
The decision was taken after hearing a report from His Eminence Metropolitan Clement of Kaluga and Borovsk, chairman of the commission for the compilation of the Russian Orthodox Church’s Menaion, or calendar of saints, with the proposal to include several ancient saints who labored in western lands before the Great Schism of 1054.  [NB… before 1054…]The commission, created on September 18, 2014 by the blessing of His Holiness, had been working on compiling a list of western saints guided by the following criteria: their unblemished confession of the Orthodox faith; the circumstances in which their glorification took place; the absence of their names from polemical works against the Eastern Church and rite; and their present veneration in foreign dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church and other Local Churches.

Also considered were the “Complete Menaion of the East” by Archbishop Sergius (Spassky), the report of St. John Maximovitch to the Holy Synod of the Russian Church Abroad in 1952, the articles of the Orthodox Encyclopedia and the Snaxarion compiled by Hiermonk Macarius of the Athonite monastery of Simenopetra.
The Western saints added into the calendar of the Russian Orthodox Church are: [Note the French influence…]

Hieromartyr Pothinus, bishop of Lyons, and those with him (June 2/15; c. 177)
Martyrs Blandina and Ponticus of Lyons (June 2/15; c. 177)
Martyr Epipodius of Lyons (April 22/May 5; c. 177)
Martyr Alexander of Lyons (April 24/May 7; c. 177)
Hieromartyr Saturninus, first bishop of Toulouse (November 29/December 12; c. 257)
Martyr Victor of Marseilles (July 21/August 3; c. 290)
St. Alban, protomartyr of Britain (June 22/July 5; c. 304)
St. Honoratus, archbishop of Arles and founder of Lerins Monastery (January 16/29; 429)
St. Germanus, bishop of Auxerre (July 31/August 13; 448) [nice church in Paris, which has the TLM]
St. Vincent of Lerins (May 24/June 6; c. 450)
St. Patrick, bishop of Armagh, and enlightener of Ireland (March 17/30; 451)
St. Lupus the Confessor, bishop of Troyes (Gaul) (July 29/August 11; 479)
St. Genevieve of Paris (January 3/16; 512) [at Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, also a must visit.]
St. Germanus, bishop of Paris (May 28/June 10; 576)
St. Procopius, abbot of Sazava in Bohemia (September 16/29; 1053)

Also approved and recommended for Church-wide liturgical use was the texts of the service to the Synaxis of Saints of Diveevo, the service to St. Hilarion of Optina, and the troparion and kontakion to St. Adrian of Ondrusov.

Source.

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WDTPRS – 2nd Sunday of Lent: purify your “spiritual view”

Posted on 10 March 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Transfiguration_by_fra_Angelico_(San_Marco_Cell_6)Here is the Collect of the 2nd Sunday of Lent, a new composition for the Novus Ordo based on a precedent in the Liber Mozarabicus Sacramentorum:

Deus, qui nobis dilectum Filium tuum audire praecepisti, verbo tuo interius nos pascere digneris, ut, spiritali purificato intuitu, gloriae tuae laetemur aspectu.

Used by early Latin writers such as Sts. Hilary of Poitiers (+c 368), Ambrose (+397) and in liturgical texts, gloria is more than fame or splendor of appearance.  Our Latin liturgical gloria is the equivalent of biblical Greek doxa and Hebrew kabod.   Romans translated these concepts also with words like maiestas and claritas.  Gloria has to do with man’s recognition of God as God.  Gloria is a characteristic of God which He will share with us so as to transform us throughout eternity.

The vocabulary of the prayers reinforces that this covenant we are in with God is not a contract between equals: He is Almighty and eternal, we are lowly and mortal.  We do well to beg as supplicants before His Majesty, not as cowed slaves terrified of a harsh master, but with the reverential awe of children looking at authority with the eyes of truth.  Our orations during Mass help us to see who we are and who we are not.

LITERAL RENDERING:

O God, who commanded us to listen to Your beloved Son, deign to nourish us interiorly with Your word, so that, once (our) spiritual view has been purified, we may rejoice in the sight of Your glory.

OBSOLETE ICEL (1973):

God our Father, help us to hear your Son. Enlighten us with your word, that we may find the way to your glory.

NEW CORRECTED ICEL (2011):

O God, who have commanded us to listen to your beloved Son, be pleased, we pray, to nourish us inwardly by your word, that, with spiritual sight made pure, we may rejoice to behold your glory.

Note the senses of hearing (audire) and of seeing (intuitus, aspectus), both physically and also inwardly, spiritually.  The voice of God the Father spoke at the Transfiguration commanding us to listen to His beloved Son (Matthew 17:5).  We listen to Jesus and look at what He does, both in the pages of Scripture and in His continuing work through Holy Church.  Christ’s words which we hear and His deeds which we see both save us and teach us who we are (cf. GS 22).

Aspectus has both active and passive connotations, that is, the sense of sight, the act of seeing a thing, and the appearance of the thing itself.  Aspectus can mean, “mien, countenance”, how something “looks”.  Think of Henry V in Shakespeare’s homonymous play inciting his soldiers before battle to “lend the eye a terrible aspect” (III, i).  Intuitus (from intueor) means “a look, a view; respect, consideration.”  You know intueor from a verse of the hymn of St Thomas Aquinas Adoro Te Devote: “I am not looking (intueor) at the wounds, like Thomas; I am nevertheless professing faith that you are my God; make me always more to believe in you, have hope in you, love you.”  That hymn also sings “ex auditu solo tuto creditur’, only “by hearing” is the doctrine of the Eucharist believed “safely”.  Sight, touch and taste can deceive us.

Our intuitus spiritalis could be our own ability to see clearly into the state of our soul. Our intuitus (“insight”, “view”) is that spiritual lens which must be cleansed so that we can have a more perfect “view”.  Otherwise, intuitus could be the spiritual landscape within us, the “view” God sees, how we “look” to Him.  “View” picks up both views of intuitus (the power to see and that which is seen).  “Insight” would favor just one possibility.  The cognate “intuition” suggests the wrong connotation from common usage, that is, “sudden insight” or “good guess”.

Both how we see and what is seen in us, our “spiritual view”, must be purified (purificato) so that God is not offended (cf. Habakkuk 1:3)  

God and neighbor must see His image in us.  We must see His image in ourselves and others if we are going to treat them with the charity Christ commands.

St. Bonaventure (+1274) wrote about how Thomas the Apostle looked through the Lord’s visible wounds and saw His invisible wound of love.

We must with charity try to look past our neighbor’s imperfections, the wounds caused by sin, to see the intended reality.

Lent is a time for gaining a “view” of the Love who died and rose for us, thus transforming us into more perfect images of who He is: risen, living, glorious.

This necessarily requires a close examination of our lives to see and to hear what or whom we have placed at the center of our lives, Jesus Christ’s rightful place.

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List of Prelates For and Against the Five Dubia on ‘Amoris Laetitia’

Posted on 10 March 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

A week or so ago, I received a working list of churchmen who seem to be in favor of submitting (and getting answers to) the Five Dubia of the Four Cardinals™, who seem to be against the same and who seem to be neutral.   I now see a somewhat curtailed, but annotated version of the list has been posted at LifeSite.

Editor’s Note: LifeSiteNews brings you a list of bishops and cardinals who have publicly indicated their support or opposition to the September 2016 “dubia” submitted to Pope Francis by the four cardinals. This list includes high-ranking prelates whose comments relate directly to the dubia after their public release on November 14, 2016. The list does not include prelates who have merely made statements supporting or opposing the writings, decisions, and actions of Pope Francis, but haven’t commented directly on the dubia.

Cardinals who signed the dubia

Cardinal Walter Brandmüller
Cardinal Raymond Burke
Cardinal Carlo Caffarra
Cardinal Joachim Meisner

READ: Who are these four cardinals who wrote the ‘dubia’ to the Pope?

Bishops and cardinals who support the dubia

Archbishop Luigi Negri: March 06, 2017 – “Amoris Laetitia needs clarification, unfortunately, the current leader of the Church still remains silent. […] I think that the Holy Father should respond.”

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput: March 03, 2017 – John Allen: “Do you want the pope to answer the dubia?” Chaput: “Yes. I think it’s always good to answer questions, clearly.”

Cardinal Joseph Zen: February 16, 2017 – “It is a very respectful request by those bishops and cardinals to have a clear statement. I think they are right to have an answer.”

Bishop Andreas Laun: December 23, 2016 – “I have read the concerns of the four cardinals, and I agree with them!”

Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino: December 16, 2016 – “It is legitimate in terms of doctrine to turn to the pope and express an opinion – and it is also just that he would respond.”

Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes: December 12, 2016 – “With an objective tone, the four cardinals have asked for the removal of doubts about the text [Amoris Laetitia].”

Bishop James D. Conley: December 5, 2016 – “The questions being posed to the Holy Father are intended to help achieve clarity.”

Cardinal George Pell: November 29, 2016 – “How can you disagree with a question?”

Bishop Athanasius Schneider: November 23, 2016 – “The four cardinals only did their basic duty as bishops and cardinals.”

Bishop Jan Watroba: November 23, 2016 – “I myself have now been overwhelmed with many similar questions.”

Bishop Józef Wróbel: November 22, 2016 – “The four cardinals did well in asking for clarification about Amoris Laetitia.”

Bishops and cardinals who oppose the dubia

Cardinal Vincent Nichols: February 23, 2017 – “I think the Pope’s patience and reserve about this whole matter is exactly what we should observe.”

Cardinal Gerhard Müller: January 8, 2017 – “The Pope is basically forced to answer with ‘yes or no.’ I don’t like that.”

Cardinal Walter Kasper: December 22, 2016 – Amoris Laetitia is “clear. … These dubia … do not exist.”

Cardinal Reinhard Marx: December 21, 2016 – “The document [Amoris] is not as ambiguous as some people claim.”

Cardinal Fernando Sebastian Aguilar: December 11, 2016 – “Some honorable men suffer because they do not understand what Francis wanted to say in Amoris Laetitia.”

Archbishop Mark Coleridge: December 9, 2016 – Pope Francis “wants a genuine clarity” while the four cardinals are seeking a “false clarity.”

Archbishop Pio Vito Pinto: December 1, 2016 – “They gave the Pope a slap in the face.”

Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier: November 30, 2016 – “Jesus also chose not to answer certain questions.”

Cardinal Claudio Hummes: November 25, 2016 – “We are 200, they are only four.”

Bishop Frangiskos Papamanolis: November 20, 2016 – They have committed the “two very serious sins” of “apostasy” and “scandal.”

Cardinal Blase Cupich: November 19, 2016 – “It’s up to those who have doubts and questions to have conversion in their lives.”

Cardinal Joseph Tobin: November 18, 2016 – “Just to simply reduce [Amoris] to a ‘dubium’, I think it is at best naive.”

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn: November 18, 2016 – This is an “attack against the pope.” The cardinals “must be obedient to the pope.”

Indeterminate

Cardinal Angelo Amato: November 24, 2016 – “The debate must be continued in reciprocal respect and above all by using the talents of the respective positions [in order to arrive at a] more integrated and improved positions.”

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