Austrian Catholic website kath.netreports that on 7 July, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn published an interview in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, in which he said that Amoris Laetitia is a binding doctrinal document. From now on, says Schönborn, all the previous magisterial texts concerning marriage and the family “have to be read in the light ofAmoris Laetitia.” Schönborn also said in this interview – a fuller excerpt of this text has now been published in English in the Jesuit journal Civiltà Cattolica – that it is “obvious” that Amoris Laetitia is an act of the Magisterium since it is an Apostolic Exhortation. Kath.net reports: All previous magisterial statements concerning marriage and the family now have to be read in the light of Amoris Laetitia, Schönborn stressed, and just as today the First Vatican Council (1869-1870) must be interpreted in the light of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Cardinal Raymond Burke had previously claimed that Amoris Laetitia did not have a doctrinally binding character; Cardinal Carlo Caffarra and Cardinal Walter Brandmüller both had insisted that Amoris Laetitia had to be read in light of the previous magisterial texts. Cardinal Schönborn also now says that Amoris Laetitia is “an authentic lesson of the holy teaching” which now actualizes doctrine for today’s world.
It is the teaching of the Church that all subsequent documents must be read in the light of traditional documents preceding it, not vice versa. This is basic 101 level stuff. Schonborn isn't much of a theologian if he can't get the basics right. But that doesn't suit the agenda.
In the old days a Catholic mother would be Churched after giving birth - blessed, thanked and welcomed back. I would like a move from SSPX that would allow it to be Churched so the world could benefit from the good it contains. As expected it rejected the latest moves to regularise its status. Only The Warning will correct its conscience. Sadly, even then it may look back to its own tradition in order to preserve its status quo. Especially if Pope Frances is the Pope of The Warning. How sad. They could choose to stay outside the Church and there, there is no salvation. You condemned me to hell in one of your recent cartoons. I hope with all my heart that you and your society are spared damnation.
Amoris Laetitia endorses and embracers tradition. There really are none so blind as those who will not see - except perhaps those who fabricate their own faith such as the Francophobes here.
Does that make Cardinal Burke a Francophobe for rightly criticizing parts of Amoris Laetitia and pointing out its limits? Give me a break!
Amoris Laetitia is a magisterial act, says Cardinal Schonborn Jul 14, 2016 Since its publication on April 8, Amoris Laetitia has been widely discussed; some regret that the text does not go far enough, particularly with regard to allowing access to the sacraments to divorced, remarried Christians, whereas others see it, on the contrary, as a break from traditional doctrine. For the latter, the apostolic exhortation is merely the expression of Pope Francis’ personal opinion, which is not binding upon them in any way. The Pope gave Cardinal Schönborn the assignment to dissipate, as it were, this misunderstanding. He was the one who introduced Amoris Laetitia to the press. During the return flight from Lesbos on April 16, the Pope confirmed that the Archbishop of Vienna had indeed grasped and correctly expressed the meaning of the exhortation. Hence the interview with Cardinal Schönborn conducted by Fr Antonio Spadaro published in La Civiltà Cattolica. Amoris Laetitia is “a magisterial act that updates for today’s world the teaching of the Church”, which apply to all the faithful. The message could not be clearer! This is Part 1 of a two-part series. Fr Antonio Spadaro: Some have spoken of Amoris Laetitia as a minor document, a personal opinion of the Pope (so to speak) without full magisterial value. What value does this Exhortation possess? Is it an act of the magisterium? This seems obvious, but it is good to specify it in these times, in order to prevent some voices from creating confusion among the faithful when they assert that this is not the case … Cardinal Christoph Schönborn: It is obvious that this is an act of the magisterium: it is an Apostolic Exhortation. It is clear that the Pope is exercising here his role of pastor, of master and teacher of the faith, after having benefited from the consultation of the two Synods. I have no doubt that it must be said that this is a pontifical document of great quality, an authentic teaching of sacra doctrina, which leads us back to the contemporary relevance of the Word of God. I have read it many times, and each time I note the delicacy of its composition and an ever greater quantity of details that contain a rich teaching. There is no lack of passages in the Exhortation that affirm their doctrinal value strongly and decisively. This can be recognized from the tone and the content of what is said, when we relate these to the intention of the text – for example, when the Pope writes: “I urgently ask …”, “It is no longer possible to say …”, “I have wanted to present to the entire Church …”, and so on. Amoris Laetitia is an act of the magisterium that makes the teaching of the Church present and relevant today. Just as we read the Council of Nicaea in the light of the Council of Constantinople, and Vatican I in the light of Vatican II, so now we must read the previous statements of the magisterium about the family in the light of the contribution made by Amoris Laetitia. We are led in a living manner to draw a distinction between the continuity of the doctrinal principles and the discontinuity of perspectives or of historically conditioned expressions. This is the function that belongs to the living magisterium: to interpret authentically the Word of God, whether written or handed down. Fr Spadaro: Did some things surprise you? Did other things prompt reflection? Did you need to read some passages several times? Cardinal Schönborn: I was pleasantly surprised by the methodology. In this sphere of human realities, the Holy Father has fundamentally renewed the discourse of the Church – certainly along the lines of Evangelii Gaudium, but also of Gaudium et spes, which presents doctrinal principles and reflections on human beings today that are in a continuous evolution. There is a profound openness to accept reality. Fr Spadaro: Would you say that this perspective, which is so open to reality and thus to fragility, can do damage to the strength of doctrine? Cardinal Schonborn: Absolutely not. The great daring of the Pope is precisely to demonstrate that this perspective, which is capable of appreciating and is permeated by benevolence and trust, does not do any damage whatsoever to the strength of doctrine. This perspective forms part of the vertical column of doctrine. Francis perceives doctrine as the “today” of the Word of God, the Word incarnate in history, and he communicates it while listening to the questions that arise en route. What he rejects is the perspective of a withdrawal to abstract pronouncements that are separated from the subject who lives and who bears witness to the encounter with the Lord that changes one’s life. The abstract doctrinarian perspective domesticates some pronouncements in order to impose their generalization on an elite, forgetting that when we close our eyes to our neighbor, we also become blind to God, as Benedict XVI said in Deus caritas est. Fr Spadaro: One is struck by the Pope’s insistence in Amoris Laetitia that no family is a perfect and ready-made reality. Why then do we have the tendency to be excessively idealistic when we speak about the relationship of a married couple? Is this perhaps a romantic idealism that risks falling into a form of Platonism? Cardinal Schonborn: The Bible itself presents family life, not as an abstract ideal, but as what the Holy Father calls a “work of craftsmanship.” The eyes of the Good Shepherd look at persons, not at ideas that are present in order to justify, at a second move, the reality of our hope. Separating these notions from the world in which the Word becomes incarnate leads to the development of “a cold bureaucratic morality” (AL 312). We have sometimes spoken of marriage so abstractly that it loses all its attractiveness. The Pope speaks very clearly: no family is a perfect reality, since it is made up of sinners. The family is en route. I believe that this is the bedrock of the entire document. This way of looking at things has nothing to do with secularism, with Aristotelianism as opposed to Platonism. I believe, rather, that it is the biblical realism, the way of looking at human beings that scripture gives us. Fr Spadaro: As he listened to the synodal fathers, the Pope became aware of the fact that one can no longer speak of an abstract category of persons, nor encompass the praxis of integration in a rule that is completely general. Cardinal Schonborn: On the level of principles, the doctrine of marriage and the sacraments is clear. Pope Francis has newly expressed it with a great communicative clarity. On the level of discipline, the Pope takes account of the endless variety of concrete situations. He has affirmed that one should not expect a new general set of norms in the manner of canon law, which would be applicable to every case. On the level of praxis, in view of the difficult situations and the wounded families, the Holy Father has written that all that is possible is a new encouragement to undertake a responsible personal and pastoral discernment of the specific cases. This must recognize that “since ‘the degree of responsibility is not equal in all cases,’ the consequences or effects of a rule need not necessarily always be the same” (AL 300). He adds, very clearly and without ambiguity, that this discernment also concerns “sacramental discipline, since discernment can recognize that in a particular situation no grave fault exists” (AL, footnote 336). He also specifies that “individual conscience needs to be better incorporated into the Church’s praxis” (AL 303), especially in a “conversation with the priest, in the internal forum” (AL 300). Fr Spadaro: After this Exhortation, therefore, it is no longer meaningful to ask whether, in general, all divorced and remarried persons can or cannot receive the sacraments … Cardinal Schönborn: The doctrine of faith and customs exist, the discipline based on the sacra doctrina and the life of the Church, and there also exists the praxis that is conditioned both personally and by the community. Amoris Laetitia is located on this very concrete level of each person’s life. There is an evolution, clearly expressed by Pope Francis, in the Church’s perception of the elements that condition and that mitigate, elements that are specific to our own epoch. “The Church possesses a solid body of reflection concerning mitigating factors and situations. Hence it can no longer simply be said that those in any ‘irregular’ situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace. More is involved here than mere ignorance of the rule. A subject may know full well the rule, yet have great difficulty in understanding ‘its inherent values,’ or be in a concrete situation which does not allow him or her to decide differently and act otherwise without further sin. As the Synod Fathers put it, ‘factors may exist which limit the ability to make a decision’” (AL 301).
continued.... Fr Spadaro: But this orientation was already contained in some way in the famous paragraph 84 of Familiaris Consortio to which Francis has recourse several times, as when he writes: “Pastors must know that, for the sake of truth, they are obliged to exercise careful discernment of situations” (AL 79). Cardinal Schönborn: St John Paul II did indeed distinguish a variety of situations. He saw a difference between those who had tried sincerely to salvage their first marriage and were abandoned unjustly, and those who had destroyed a canonically valid marriage through their grave fault. He then spoke of those who have entered a second marital union for the sake of the upbringing of their children and who sometimes are subjectively certain in their consciences that the first marriage, now irreparably destroyed, was never valid. Each one of these cases thus constitutes the object of a differentiated moral evaluation. There are very many different starting points in an ever deeper sharing in the life of the Church, to which everyone is called. John Paul II already presupposes implicitly that one cannot simply say that every situation of a divorced and remarried person is the equivalent of a life in mortal sin that is separated from the communion of love between Christ and the Church. Accordingly, he was opening the door to a broader understanding, by means of the discernment of the various situations that are not objectively identical, and thanks to the consideration of the internal forum. Fr Spadaro: I have the impression, therefore, that this stage is an evolution in the understanding of the doctrine… Cardinal Schönborn: The complexity of family situations, which goes far beyond what was customary in our Western societies even a few decades ago, has made it necessary to look in a more nuanced way at the complexity of these situations. To a greater degree than in the past, the objective situation of a person does not tell us everything about that person in relation to God and in relation to the Church. This evolution compels us urgently to rethink what we meant when we spoke of objective situations of sin. And this implicitly entails a homogeneous evolution in the understanding and in the expression of the doctrine. Francis has taken an important step by obliging us to clarify something that had remained implicit in Familiaris Consortio, about the link between the objectivity of a situation of sin and the life of grace in relation to God and to his Church, and — as a logical consequence — about the concrete imputability of sin. Cardinal Ratzinger had explained in the 1990s that we no longer speak automatically of a situation of mortal sin in the case of new marital unions. I remember asking Cardinal Ratzinger in 1994, when the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had published its document about divorced and remarried persons: “Is it possible that the old praxis that was taken for granted, and that I knew before the Council, is still valid? This envisaged the possibility, in the internal forum with one’s confessor, of receiving the sacraments, provided that no scandal was given.” His reply was very clear, just like what Pope Francis affirms: there is no general norm that can cover all the particular cases. The general norm is very clear; and it is equally clear that it cannot cover all the cases exhaustively. http://www.heraldmalaysia.com/news/...isterial-act-says-cardinal-schonborn/30382/14
Anyone who thinks Cardinal Schonborn is a "good Catholic" because of his work on the Catechism of the Catholic Church needs to read the views of the saintly master catechist Fr. John Hardon, SJ about the new catechism: http://www.christianorder.com/features/features_2016/features_jan16.html http://www.christianorder.com/features/features_2016/features_feb16.html Ten Specific Reservations: After answering these eight questions submitted to him, Father Hardon went on to submit ten specific Reservations about the “Revised Draft,” giving now his deeper reasoning for his convictions. These may be recapitulated, as follows, in his own words: 1. The “Revised Draft” is not a summary of Catholic Doctrine, but a compendium of Catholicism, Protestantism, and Theological speculation. 2. The “Revised Draft” is ambiguous throughout on the meaning of faith. It is not committed to the Catholic Church's definition of divine faith as the assent of the intellect to what God has revealed. 3. The “Revised Draft” does not teach what is clearly stated in Lumen Gentium of the Second Vatican Council that the Ordinary Universal Magisterium of the Church is infallible. 4. The “Revised Draft” does not clearly teach that there are two sources of divine revelation, namely, Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, where Sacred Tradition (like Sacred Scripture) was completed by the end of the apostolic age. 5. The “Revised Draft” is ambiguous on the causality of the seven sacraments instituted by Christ. It does not clearly teach what the Council of Trent defined, that the sacraments confer grace “ex opere operato.” 6. The “Revised Draft” in effect, accepts the erroneous theory of the Fundamental Option. Only persons who have made the fundamental option to reject God are said to be liable to eternal punishment. Thus the meaning of mortal sin is not that of the Church's universal ordinary magisterium. 7. The “Revised Draft” does not use the Vulgate text of the Bible. This is contrary to the Church's magisterial history over the centuries. 8. The “Revised Draft” does not teach, or explain, the whole matter of development of doctrine, which is carefully and precisely taught by the Second Vatican Council. 9. The “Revised Draft” leaves open for speculation most of the Church's irreversible teaching on morality. 10. The “Revised Draft” does not do justice to the teaching of the Second Vatican Council. This failure is shown especially in the selective use of the conciliar texts. Immediately after listing these ten major Reservations, Father Hardon then adds: In the following pages [pp. 4-68], each of these ten reservations is further explained and recommended revisions are made. * * * This saintly Jesuit, a professor of dogmatic theology, and world renowned expert on catechisms of the Church, as well as author of his own superb catechism, was not asked to participate in the committee that authored the new catechism. He expressed grave concerns about the new catechism, in writing and in detail, after reviewing it, to Schonborn. His grave concerns were ignored by Schonborn. One can better understand the gravity of these ten time bombs in the new catechism when one realizes Schonborn's hand in creating them, his position of prominence in the Church today, and the agenda that has engulfed the Church in the last three years. See how the boldened concerns buttress the current errors of the Vatican; they were included 25 years ago to make possible what is being promoted as "Catholic" today by appealing to the " definitive" CCC. Which gives everyone a better grasp of how long they have planned this, and the central role of men like Schonborn and Kasper in planting it's seeds.
One thing always puzzled me very much about Cardinal Schonborn and that was his out and out support for Medugorje.
This has always been a large part of the reason for my skepticism; hopefully it's just a case of a blind squirrel occasionally getting the acorn.
There can be no doubt he is a way out there beyong the stars out and out totally 100% dyed in the wool fully paid up heretics heretic. ..and the Pope has given him a top , top job. I notice with huge interest how charismatic these people are, that can't be just chance. There is something praeternatural going on here. No doubt about it.
That is a good point, about the whole lot of them. Except maybe Cardinal Maradiaga at times. ;-) Maybe this is why they had to wait until the passing of their ringleader, Cardinal Martini. Not very charismatic at all...
Yes, I've noticed quite a few of the critics of Pope Francis are supporters of Medjugorje. I believe that situation will prove to be an unsustainable one and the critics will have to ditch their belief in Medjugorje as well eventually.
Actually MOG is an anomaly in this regard. Most defenders of the Faith are traditional; traditionists tend to resist the errors of this pope as well as Medjugorje. You'd be hard pressed to find a traditionalist outside of MOG who both defends the Faith in light of this pope's words and actions ("personnel is policy") and supports Medjugorje.
