BREAKING: 62 scholars correct Pope Francis for ‘propagating heresies’

We will be hearing about this for a while:

BREAKING: 62 scholars correct Pope Francis for ‘propagating heresies’

ROME, September 23, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – Expressing “profound grief” and “filial devotion,” Catholic clergy and lay scholars from around the world have issued what they are calling a “Filial Correction” to Pope Francis for “propagating heresy.”

The Filial Correction, in the form of a 25-page letter, bears the signatures of sixty-two Catholic academics, researchers, and scholars in various fields from twenty countries. They assert that Pope Francis has supported heretical positions about marriage, the moral life, and the Eucharist that are causing a host of “heresies and other errors” to spread throughout the Catholic Church.

The letter was dated July 16 of this year, and “delivered to the Pope at his Santa Marta residence on August 11, 2017”. (It seems to me they could have just emailed him, it would have been quicker).

Unlike the “Dubia” last year, a formal document issued by four Cardinals last year simply asking for clarity on particular questions, this document has no formal standing. In fact, it is already being dismissed as simply “conservative theologians” who are “failing” to exercise “prudence” and “discernment”.

The traditionalist (and yet not having broken communion with the pope, as opposed to, say, the SSPX) Rorate Caeli begins its dramatic coverage of this item with the phrase, “And So It Begins: ‘FILIAL CORRECTION OF POPE FRANCIS For the Propagation of Heresies’.”

On the other hand, officially, nothing has really begun. They are still just throwing insults at each other, for all practical purposes.

“Pope Francis” vs “Pope John Paul II”: Opposing “Veritatis Splendor”

The Roman Catholic journalist Sandro Magister has fretted now that the dismissal of Cardinal Gerhard Müller was really “an attack on ‘Veritatis Splendor’”, which he called “the most important doctrinal encyclical” of “Pope John Paul II”, and further, that this “attack” was accompanied by an affirmation of this encyclical, “by fate or divine providence” in “all the Catholic churches of the Roman rite” in the regularly scheduled prayers in last Sunday’s Mass:

“O God, who through the grace of adoption chose us to be children of light, grant, we pray, that we may not be wrapped in the darkness of error but always be seen to stand in the bright light of truth. Through our Lord...

The first line of that encyclical re-states the Roman Catholic distinction vs Protestantism:

Called to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, "the true light that enlightens everyone" (Jn 1:9), people become "light in the Lord" and "children of light" (Eph 5:8), and are made holy by "obedience to the truth" (1 Pet 1:22).

“Obedience” makes people “holy”. This precisely mirrors the error that Augustine made, which led to the medieval misunderstanding of justification, which in turn was contested by Luther and the Reformers. The Council of Trent later codified the error as “infallible dogma”.

But there is a second error espoused by “Pope Francis” and “Amoris Laetitia”, and it was articulated by Joseph Ratzinger. Pope Ratzinger, who had been Prefect of the “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” (CDF) prior to Müller, and who “contributed in a substantial way to the writing of that encyclical”, had this to say about it in a recent chapter in “a book in honor of John Paul II”:

“Pope Francis” Brings Doctrinal Anarchy, Leads People Astray

“Pope Francis” Brings Doctrinal Anarchy

The National Catholic Register is probably one of the most mainstream Roman Catholic publications that there is in the US. No one can claim that it’s either liberal or progressivist. They are purely the milquetoast EWTN Catholics. And now they have come out with the headline “Doctrinal Anarchy” in association with the fact that Bishops’ conferences around the world are coming up (as “Pope Francis” intended) with conflicting “interpretations” of the Amoris Laetitia statement.

Since the publication last year of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation on the family Amoris Laetitia, a “doctrinal anarchy” that was feared and predicted at the synods on the family is becoming apparent.

Belgium’s bishops have become the latest to read the exhortation as giving — under certain conditions but with an emphasis on the primacy of conscience — access to the Sacraments for some civilly remarried divorcees without an annulment.

They follow the bishops’ conferences of Malta, the Philippines and Germany, as well as some bishops from other countries who have issued similar guidelines and statements for interpreting Amoris Laetitia’s controversial Chapter 8.

By contrast, Poland’s bishops’ conference last week became the first national conference to declare that Amoris Laetitia has not changed Church doctrine on Holy Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried, and that they continue not to have access to the Sacraments as the Church considers them to be living in an objective state of adultery.

I found this article (and a related one) among Jerry Walls’s Facebook posts. Regarding the “doctrinal anarchy”, he asks the question, “are conservative Roman Catholics now accusing their own Church of what they normally accuse Protestants?”

One writer there, Mark Daviau (a recent “Catholic Convert” who seems to be representative of such folks), apparently gave a response to the effect that “It’s no big deal; the pope wasn’t speaking ex cathedra and no dogma was changed”. For many Roman Catholic converts, this is their stock-in-trade. For them, the fact that “Roman Catholic Dogma” is not changed, is 100% of the reason for their “faith in the Church”. Nothing else matters. Never mind it is the case that Rome adds layer upon layer of obfuscation as time goes on, which, in reality, does change Roman Catholic dogma.

As Raymond Brown has said, “Essential to a critical interpretation of church documents is the realization that the Roman Catholic Church does not change her official stance in a blunt way. Past statements are not rejected but are requoted with praise and then reinterpreted at the same time” (Raymond E. Brown, “The Critical Meaning of the Bible,” New York, NY: Paulist Press ©1981, Nihil Obstat and Imprimitur, pg 18 fn 41).

Francis Beckwith, the took issue with this, noting (as in the screen capture nearby), that the real issue is (assuming Rome’s definition of “marriage” is correct) that Amoris Laetitia allows people to live with sin that’s equally as culpable as if they were to “watch pornography and miss Mass” on Sundays (both mortal sins if done with the knowledge that they are such).

What “Pope Francis” seems to be doing is creating a public mood in which, more and more Roman Catholics accept the practice, leading to a situation in which the sensus fidelium is that such things are all right. Some years down the road, some other pope or council will then recognize this practice as being part of “The Tradition” – the old doctrine will be “requoted with praise and reinterpreted at the same time” to give the appearance that it was always a part of Roman teaching. It existed in the teaching of the Apostles in “seed form”.

This is the same way that the Marian dogmas of 1854 (“Immaculate Conception”) and 1950 (“Assumption of Mary”) were given credibility.

We are watching “development of doctrine” in the making

"Binding and Loosing" right before our eyes!

Pope Bergoglio the Jesuit knows just enough about how to manipulate the Roman Catholic system (theology --> Magisterium) and to create enough of a public upswell (just as with the Marian devotions and doctrines) to see a new doctrine on marriage in the making. Yes, folks, we are witnessing a development of doctrine right before our eyes:

Cardinal Cupich has written the forward to a new English translation of Cardinal Coccopalmerio's booklet "A Commentary on Chapter Eight of Amoris Laetitia",...

In his endorsement of Coccopalmerio's book-long defense of adultery for the divorced and civilly remarried, Cupich cites an article by Rocco Buttiglione calling Amoris Laetitia a "development of doctrine and what it means for Popes to exercise their divinely granted Petrine power of loosening and binding in different ways and in different historical circumstances." (Emphasis added).

Cupich suggests Francis' new teaching on sex and the sacraments marks "new opportunities to retrieve certain truths that have become dormant," namely about the Church's teaching on conscience and mitigating circumstances, such that "when it comes to dealing with certain so-called irregular situations, what is required is a pastoral approach that takes into consideration both the general and the individual aspects of a person's life."

To understand Amoris Laetitia's treatment of conscience, Cardinal Cupich also recommends an article on the subject by Fr. James Keenan, an LGBT activist and supporter of condoms, who even testified publicly against a Massachusetts bill defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman as "contrary to the Catholic Church's teaching on social justice." Given that Cupich is on the record also supporting Holy Communion for some living active homosexual lifestyles, this all should come as no surprise.

Cupich's comments about "binding and loosing" regarding marriage and adultery also smack of two disturbing quotes from the 2015 synod on the family:

"Others, for the penitential way, intend a process of clarification and of a new direction, after the failure experienced, accompanied by a delegated presbyter.. [who] may reach an evaluation so as to make use of the power to bind and loose in a way adequate to the situation." - 2015 Instrumentum Laboris, 123

We are honored to be watching the sensus fidelium lead the way into a development of this new Roman Catholic doctrine!

Edit 6/7/2017, 9:30 am: It seems as if Peter Williams (@PeterDCXW) did not catch my allusion here to the sensus fidelium. Of course it was a reference to Pope Bergoglio knowing how to manipulate the popular opinion – in this case, “divorced and remarried ought to be able to receive communion” – in order to create a groundswell that can then be attributed to the sensus fidelium (“the sense of the whole faithful”) in order to make the claim that the doctrine should be changed.

Carl Trueman Plays the Sanctimonious Fool

I’m sorry if this sounds uncharitable, I really am. However, it’s so sad to me when a seminary professor at a leading Reformed seminary – and one who’s a celebrity to boot – gets things wrong like this. He says in a recent First Things blog article:

I am not a Roman Catholic and not a huge fan of much Roman Catholic theology. But I had long thought that, when it came to social teaching and hard-headed moral thinking, the Roman Catholic Church was light years ahead of most Protestants in both sophistication and precision. That no longer seems to be the case.

I wonder if he has really been following along, or if he just picked the thing up in a vacuum and responded sanctimoniously. The problem is, Trueman in this very article demonstrates that he hasn’t got a good grasp on what Roman Catholicism really teaches in this case, about marriage, nor has he identified what they’re talking about when they talk about “adultery”. In most cases, “Roman Catholic moral thinking” is far more sanctimony than it is “sophisticated” or “precise”.

Earlier in the article, he writes:

Last week I stumbled across the document issued recently by the Roman Catholic bishops of Malta. It is an attempt to establish “criteria” for “applying” the now-infamous Chapter VIII of Amoris Laetitia…

Paragraph 9 of the Maltese bishops’ document is one for the ages: We are told of “complex situations” that might make it “humanly impossible” to avoid illicit sex. I wonder what those situations might be?

“Illicit sex” in this case, in the real world (not a conservative Roman Catholic view) is simply sex between a legally married couple. Traditional, conservative Roman Catholics view these documents as discussing the fate of a Roman Catholic couple, married according to Rome’s “sacramental marriage”, who hasn’t gone through their Annulment process, who gets divorced and civilly re-married.

“Pope Francis” is in the minority. But the winds of change are blowing.

Bishops and Cardinals vs Pope Francis.
But the progressives are with him.

In the tussles over the papal statement “Amoris Laetitia”, which many claim has changed church teaching on marriage (enabling the civilly-divorced-and-remarried to be readmitted to communion under certain circumstances that were never possible before), “Pope Francis” finds himself on the losing end among those bishops and cardinals who have taken sides so far.

The Four Cardinals Are Up 14-9. But Leonardo Boff Is in the Game, Too.

It seems likely to me that “Pope Francis” will go to his grave not having responded to the dubia, the yes-or-no “questions” which essentially ask “Pope Francis”, “does your teaching supersede that of “Pope John Paul” on the issue?” (“Pope John Paul II” seemingly unequivocally ruled out what “Pope Francis” now has opened the door to in the name of “mercy”):

The past six months have seemed at times like a war of attrition. The controversy has centred largely on how the Pope’s words are to be interpreted. Some national bishops’ conferences – Germany, for example – seem more or less united in favour of liberalising the discipline, while others – such as Poland – insist that nothing has changed. The bishops of Buenos Aires produced a document suggesting that the way is now open for Communion for the remarried in some cases where subjective guilt might be diminished. The Pope responded with a private letter commending this interpretation as the right one. In what has become a familiar aspect of disputes around the Pope’s real intentions, the purportedly private exchange was leaked – a transparent attempt to give momentum to the liberalising tendency.

More Official Confusion Over “Amoris Laetitia”

I wrote last week about Confusion at the highest levels of the Roman Catholic Church over the “interpretation” of the recent “Pope Francis” document “Amoris Laetitia” (“The Joy of Love”). That confusion is continuing now after a couple of recent milestones: the naming of some new Cardinals by the pope, and a meeting of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, where, contrary to the papal promotions, the US Bishops named some of the more conservative bishops to leadership positions.

This week featured a spat between the newly named Cardinal Kevin J. Farrell, a former bishop of Dallas, and now prefect of the newly established Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, and Charles J. Chaput, archbishop of Philadelphia.

Not one word has come from the mouth of Pope Francis after four cardinals publicly asked him to resolve five major “doubts” raised by the most controversial passages of “Amoris Laetitia":

Or better, the pope has given a non-answer, when in the interview with Stefania Falasca for the November 18 edition of "Avvenire" he said at a certain point, using the familiar “tu” form of address with the interviewer, a longstanding friend of his:

“Some - think of certain replies to ‘Amoris Laetitia’ - still fail to understand, it’s either black or white, even though it is in the flux of life that one must discern.”

To make up for this, not a few churchmen of the pope’s circle have come forward to speak for him, falling over themselves to say that the post-synodal exhortation “Amoris Laetitia” is already perfectly clear in itself and cannot give rise to doubts, and therefore those who are raising them are in reality attacking the pope and disobeying his magisterium.

IMPORTANT: International Declaration of Fidelity to the Church's Unchangeable Doctrine and Uninterrupted Discipline on Marriage

There is a "Catholic-Protestant Debate Group" on Facebook. It is a closed group, but you can apply for membership there.

Not long ago, one of the moderators, Seth Murray, blocked me (I'm still a member of the group, he just can't see what I write) -- because I insisted that Amoris Laetitia actually was a big deal in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. Well, now there is an IMPORTANT: International Declaration of Fidelity to the Church's Unchangeable Doctrine and Uninterrupted Discipline on Marriage attesting the very thing I was saying.

I like to razz them, so I posted this:

These guys are just way too uptight, right? I mean, TECHNICALLY no TRULY INFALLIBLE dogmas have been changed. THE TEACHING (whatever that is -- where's the "infallible table of contents", to use Scott Hahn's word, but that's another question) is UNSCATHED. These guys should just chill. So what if a brilliantly "merciful" pope has found a way around the letter of the "unchangeable law", handed down, uninterrupted, as received from the Apostles? Why change "the letter" of the law, when "the spirit" is so malleable? They should just get with the times. Be like the Easterners. Go with the flow. After all, annulments are just so easy and inexpensive to get these days. This issue never needs come up in real life. We should go with Seth Murray on this one, right? Seth is studying this stuff, and he says, "no harm, no foul." Move along. No need to make a big deal about this, much less have an IMPORTANT INTERNATIONAL DECLARATION. These guys should just get a life, right?

This is important enough, by the way, that the New York Times has been writing about it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/opinion/has-pope-francis-failed.html?_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/opinion/sunday/dilution-of-doctrine.html

More instances where Roman Catholicism opens up the name of Christ to mockery.

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:

The New “Uncertainty Principle” In Catholic Doctrine and Hermeneutics

I’ve been checking out some of the responses on both sides of the “Pope Francis” “apostolic exhortation” “Amoris Laetitia”. It seems as if, generally, conservative Roman Catholics are breathing a sigh of relief about this. Generally, the word is, “no doctrine was changed”. But some things have changed, and it was no less a source than Cardinal Schönborn who has openly called some of the “developments” in this document “true innovations”.

The conservative Catholic website Rorate Caeli sums them up very well:

1. An apostolic exhortation is not, by its very nature, a non-magisterial document. It is the content of a papal document that reveals its magisterial relevance, … Amoris Laetitia itself does not say that it is not itself magisterial: what it says, in its highly explosive paragraph 3, is that the Magisterium does not need to be invoked or suffer intervention to sort all Catholic questions. On the other hand, this same paragraph opens up a Pandora's Box of decentralization of the Magisterium [and especially the papacy, predicted here], creating a centrifugal force which can ruin Catholic doctrinal unity.

2. Saying Amoris Laetitia is not a big deal, and not magisterially relevant is simply not true. The present Pope and his successors will not act as if it were not magisterially relevant, and bishops on the ground will certainly invoke it in their own Magisterial pronouncements. Amoris Laetitia will certainly have its place in future editions of the Denzinger and in any future revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

3. Francis, with some of his previous documents, but particularly with Amoris Laetitia, introduced a kind of "uncertainty principle" in Catholic doctrine and hermeneutics on morals, marriage, and family life, and that itself is magisterially relevant.

What the author here is saying is that there is no principled way of discerning divine revelation from mere human opinion, which, according to Michael Liccione (and echoed by dozens of writers and commenters at “Called to Communion”), is the epistemological advantage that Rome supposedly has over Sola Scriptura. But that has now officially vanished.