The Church is obliged to teach the truth of Christ and the principles of morality which spring from human nature and natural law. Conscience is obliged to accept and recognize these teachings and apply them in judging the rightness or wrongness of a particular choice to be made.
This has been and remains the consistent moral teaching of the Church that has been affirmed repeatedly by what the Church has taught about conscience at the highest level of magisterial authority.
As regards Amoris Laetitia, it is my belief that the Exhortation fails to adequately elucidate the role of conscience in the pastoral practice it encourages to allow sexually active divorced and remarried Catholics to receive the Sacraments. Those who oppose the Exhortation almost completely ignore the respect which must be paid to a judgment of conscience once made.
The Exhortation speaks, much too vaguely in my opinion, of a process of “pastoral accompaniment” which Pastors of souls must undertake in assisting Catholic couples in irregular marriages in the desire to be readmitted to sacramental practice.
The vagueness of this process is one of the greatest weaknesses of Amoris Laetitia. For the Exhortation needs to make very clear that such an accompaniment can rightly take place only when the Pastor assists in providing the couple with the true teachings of the Church regarding the indissoluble bond which is establish by valid sacramental marriage.
The Pastor is only permitted to provide the couple with what may be lacking in their understanding of what the Church teaches about the sacrament of marriage as well any questions they may have regarding what constitutes the essence of a valid sacramental bond.
In the process of accompaniment, it can never be the role of the Pastor to decide for the couple. Neither must the Pastor affirm or reject the decision which the couple make based upon the judgment of conscience they come to as a result of that accompaniment.
Should the Pastor make a decision or affirm or reject the couple's decision, he would violate the first principle regarding the Church’s teaching about conscience, that is, that conscience is man's most secret core, and his sanctuary, where he or she is alone with God, Whose voice echoes in his depths.
The Exhortation, I believe, fails to adequately elucidate this critical distinction: the Pastor assists the couple, but the couple decides. In this way, neither the Pastor nor the Church which he represents violates the cathedral of the conscience whose decisions belong to the very essence of one's relationship with God.
I believe that, if the Exhortation is understood and explained in light of this most crucial distinction, the document and pastoral policies flowing from it would stand the test of any critical theological analysis.
On the other hand, those who oppose the Exhortation fail completely to even consider the most fundamental and consistent teaching of the Church regarding the sacrosanct and inviolable role which conscience plays as one makes judgments in the sight of the God.
The authors of the dubia and those who join with them seek to place the Church between God and the individual human conscience and play both judge and jury, pronouncing sentences of guilt and administering sacramental punishment for those who judgments of conscience do not rigidly conform to the teachings of the Church.
Not only do they take upon themselves a competence which rightfully belongs only to God Himself, but they do so with a hardheartedness which completely obscures Christ’s message of compassion and forgiveness so beautifully manifested and wondrously bestowed upon all humanity in His Sacrifice of the Cross for all sinners.
One noted canonist among the group of dissenters who have penned the dubia speaks repeatedly of denying the Blessed Sacrament to those who publicly persist in matters of grave sinfulness, often quoting Canon 915 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law.
Yet he never explains how the Church can be assured, in a real and practical way, that any recipient of the Blessed Sacrament is properly disposed and not in a situation which would preclude an efficacious reception of Holy Communion.
I ask this question of him and his associates: how can he, they, you or I ever know if a another human being person is publicly persisting in a matter of grave sinfulness? In other words, who gives us the ability or authority to judge that another person is in or out of the state of grace?
As far as the administration of the Holy Communion is concerned, how can the Church's minister know whether or not a person may have repented? How can the minister know whether or not a person has renounced a former sinful way of life? How can the minister know whether the divorced and remarried Catholic in the Communion Line hasn't committed to a life of continence, sought and received sacramental absolution?
Again, how is the Church's minister of Communion to know if any recipient of the Blessed Sacrament is properly disposed?
Must the minister publicly ask each person the last time he or she received sacramental absolution before offering that person the Host? Is the minister to publicly ask a recipient (in the Communion line) whether he or she is subject to any law or circumstance which would preclude him or her from efficaciously receiving the Lord's Body and Blood?
So what do the dissenters mean, in a real and practical way, when they insist that the Church deny the Sacraments to those who obstinately remain in sin?
The opponents of Amoris Laetitia not only take upon themselves judgments reserved to God alone; but, for all their bravado, have offer no real and practical solutions to the objections they raise.
Like the stiff-necked lawyers of the Old Covenant, theirs is an exercise of the self-justification, affirming their opinions and judgments over the real flesh and blood needs of their fellowmen and women.
Ironically, the Law itself, which the dissenters would use to support their claims, dismisses their arguments from the very outset.
Canon Law is established and based upon certain fundamental presumptions which make the ordering of society and relationships within society possible.
Like all law civil or ecclesiastical, Canon Law fundamentally presumes that a person's internal disposition is in conformity with his or her external words, signs or gestures.
Without this presumption, society itself, whether ecclesiastical or civil, would cease to function.
As an example, criminal law presumes that, if a person violates a particular precept or ordinance, the person intended to do so and can therefore be legally charged. Whether or not the person is guilty of the infraction must be proven and the charge of crime be vindicated or discharged by due process of the law itself.
As regards civil matters, the law presumes that parties to contracts signed or otherwise agreed to intend to bind themselves to the terms of the contract, unless contrary evidence is brought forward to overturn that presumption. If so, the contract becomes void but, until such time, the presumption binds both parties.
Canon law makes the same presumption. Canon 1101, 1 is a perfect example. The precept states the presumption almost verbatim: "The internal consent of the mind is presumed to conform to the words and signs used in celebrating the marriage."
Every society operates on the basis of this fundamental presumption: our external actions conform to our internal intentions. People are presumed to mean what they say or promise or agree to do.
Is not, then, the Church's minister bound to observe this same presumption in the case of Holy Communion?
The answer is, of course, that the Church's minister must presume that those who come forward to receive the Blessed Sacrament do so properly disposed and in a state of good conscience.
Whether or not the person who receives the Sacred Host does so worthily and efficaciously is a judgment made and, I dare say, reserved to God alone.
Unfortunately, the dissenters of Amoris Laetitia either have forgotten or purposely chosen to ignore this most important principle of law. They condemn themselves in not acknowledging that no one is free to violate one law in defense of another law.
And I sincerely remind those, who oppose Amoris Laetitia by appealing to the dictates of moral law, are not free to violate the most fundamental of all moral laws which proclaims that the conscience of a person is inviolate to the scrutiny and judgment of any other than God Himself.
The Church may judge the act but never one's interior state of soul, an axiom which the detractors of Amoris Laetitia have much too conveniently forgotten or ignored.
Some concluding personal thoughts in Part Six tomorrow.
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