Needed: an “official interpretation” of the “official interpretation”

Cardinal Walter Kasper gets his way.

Sandro Magister links to several different articles here, all of which point in the same direction. In one of his first audiences as pope, Bergoglio highlighted his relationship with Cardinal Walter Kasper (the same Walter Kasper who, appointed by Pope John Paul II and reappointed by Pope Benedict XVI is on record as saying that “many of the gospel miracle stories” are “legendary”):

In one of his first major public addresses as pope, at St. Peter’s Square, Sunday, March 17, 2013, “Pope Francis” specifically cited Cardinal Walter Kasper’s book “On Mercy”:

In the past few days I have been reading a book by a Cardinal — Cardinal Kasper, a clever theologian, a good theologian — on mercy. And that book did me a lot of good, but do not think I am promoting my cardinals’ books! Not at all! Yet it has done me so much good, so much good... Cardinal Kasper said that feeling mercy, that this word changes everything. This is the best thing we can feel: it changes the world. A little mercy makes the world less cold and more just. We need to understand properly this mercy of God, this merciful Father who is so patient.... Let us remember the Prophet Isaiah who says that even if our sins were scarlet, God’s love would make them white as snow.

Now, who has made the world “cold” in the first place? Could it be anyone from the previous generation of popes? In what way did the world seem “less just”? Who is it, really, who has been working so hard for “social justice” in the world? I’m just askin’.

I’ll let readers decide how many of Magister’s links they want to follow up with. What I’ve provided here is just a compendium of some of the things that are being said by various sources:

Excerpts from the post-synodal exhortation “Amoris Lætitia”. “Roman Catholics may agree to disagree … not that there’s anything wrong with that!”

Quoting from the document itself:

3. Since “time is greater than space”, I would make it clear that not all discussions of doctrinal, moral or pastoral issues need to be settled by interventions of the magisterium. Unity of teaching and practice is certainly necessary in the Church, but this does not preclude various ways of interpreting some aspects of that teaching or drawing certain consequences from it. […] Each country or region, moreover, can seek solutions better suited to its culture and sensitive to its traditions and local needs.

So, Kasper gets his way. The German bishops will be able to “seek solutions better suited to their culture” without having to consult the Magisterium. Strikingly, “Pope Francis” finds an ally in Aquinas:

The Coming Solution to the Roman Catholic Divorce-and-Remarriage Problem: “We, ourselves, can effect ‘further developments’”.

Walter Kasper is the Golden Child at the Vatican these days. One of the first words out of Bergoglio’s mouth when he became “Pope Francis” was to laud Kasper:

In the past few days I have been reading a book by a Cardinal — Cardinal Kasper, a clever theologian, a good theologian — on mercy. And that book did me a lot of good, but do not think I am promoting my cardinals’ books! Not at all! Yet it has done me so much good, so much good... Cardinal Kasper said that feeling mercy, that this word changes everything. This is the best thing we can feel: it changes the world. A little mercy makes the world less cold and more just. We need to understand properly this mercy of God, this merciful Father who is so patient.... Let us remember the Prophet Isaiah who says that even if our sins were scarlet, God’s love would make them white as snow.

But who am I to judge?

Now, according to “Pope Francis”, Kasper has solved the dilemma of “divorced-and-remarried Catholics”. The problem, for these poor folks, is that they are not permitted under the Magisterium du jour to receive communion, and in response, they are among those leaving Rome in droves. For this dilemma, Kasper has found the cure, which Bergoglio calls “doing theology on one's knees”

The touchstone of Kasper's proposals was the Church of the first centuries, which was also "confronted with concepts and models of marriage and family much different from those preached by Jesus."

In the face of the present-day challenge, Kasper prefaced that "our position today cannot be a liberal adaptation to the 'status quo', but a radical position that goes to the roots, that goes to the Gospel."

What is the cure-all at this time? The Italian Journalist Sandro Magister relates this solution: