Just yesterday, I posted a blog regarding Pope Francis’ encouragement (if not insistence) that the Church’s moral teachings continue to evolve based upon what he and others have termed “a theology of discernment”.
On September 14, Pope Francis urged Bishops to cultivate what he called an “attitude of listening” and to avoid being “imprisoned by nostalgia.” He was addressing Catholic Bishops from across the globe who were appointed during the past year. The Pope stressed that they must focus their Episcopal ministry on the the need for “discernment”.
The Bishops had just completed an annual training program organized by the Congregation for Bishops.
I have read the Pope’s address to the Bishops and quote extensively from his remarks as I take the opportunity of asking questions which arise from them.
“Authentic discernment,” the Pope said, “although definitive at every step, is always an open and necessary process, and can be completed and enriched”.
But doesn’t this fly in the face of a traditional (arguably infallible Church teaching) that Catholic moral doctrine is founded upon principles which are immutably true by virtue of Divine Revelation or the Natural Law?
Insisting that discernment “can’t be reduced to repeating formulas” Francis pointed out that it is, in fact, an “antidote against rigidity, because the same solutions aren’t valid everywhere.”
But isn't what the Holy Father conveniently refers to as “formulas” really what traditional Catholic doctrine has for centuries referred to as “moral absolutes”?
“You must have the courage to ask yourself whether yesterday’s proposals are still Evangelically valid,” the Pope said to the new Bishops, highlighting the importance for all pastors to not be stuck in the margins but to have the capacity of “evaluating God’s times.”
Again, the Pope uses the phrase “yesterdays proposals”.
Yet when, if ever, has the the moral theology of the Church been considered a "proposal" rather than an imperative based upon the truth of the Gospels and Will of the Creator known to man by both Divine Revelation and the natural order of Creation itselt?
Saying that the gift of discernment cannot be taken for granted, Pope Francis describes it as the primary condition upon which to draw as the Bishops strive to “discern the paths of God” for the salvation of those entrusted to them.
And so, if I understand the Pope’s remarks to the new Bishops, is Catholic moral doctrine no longer to be considered as absolute and universally binding human conscience?
Is morality now somehow now “conditional”, based not on absolute truths but to be determined by the situations and circumstances in which people find themselves at any given moment?
So, is what is morally accept in this place at this time perhaps equally unacceptable in another place at this same time? Or in the same place at another time?
Is truth itself, if it can be still considered to exist, no longer universal? Is morality reduced to the exigencies of time and place?
Am I alone in thinking this is sheer madness?
The Pope proclaims that the achievement of any kind of balance in personal and ecclesiastical behavior is dependent on profound and regular prayer.
This is true for the spiritual ordering of every human life.
But shouldn't we expect that the answer to this prayerful discernment be one and the same for everyone everywhere, since the response to those prayers comes from One God, Who is the Father of all of us?
Is God no longer just?
Or should we now envision God as whimsical in the exercise of His Will, binding some and releasing others for no reason other than His personal amusement?
Pope Francis told the Bishops that discernment is not a private exercise by an individual, but an activity that unfolds within the context of the community. And so, the Bishops are to consult that community in their attempt to reach right decisions.
Certainly, consultation with the community can be helpful in the process of teaching and governance.
But is the Holy Father suggesting that the moral law is no longer to be found in the precepts of the Sacred Scriptures (now referred to as “yesterday’s proposals" which may or may no longer be pastorally valid)? Rather, is morality now dependent upon the observations and judgments of a contemporary community's predominant cultural values?
Real people in concrete situations, he explained, wish to “draw from the treasure of the Church what’s most useful for the ‘today’ of their salvation”.
Does that mean that the moral theology of the Church is now no longer ordered to what is salvific but to what is “practical” and popular?
Listen yourself to the Holy Father’s remarks.
Insisting on the need for all Clergy to always keep contact with ordinary people, Pope Francis warns that without such an exchange “the faith of the most cultivated can degenerate into indifference, and that of the humblest into superstition.”
Pope Francis also calls on Bishops to be attentive to the “the culture of religiosity of the people” noting that popular piety is often the “foundation of a people’s self-understanding,” and that discernment has to enter into dialogue with it.
“Remember that God was already present in your diocese before you got there” he told the new Bishops, “and he’ll still be there when you leave”.
So much for the value of the individual Servant of God, the gift an individual life in service to Christ and the Church!
Oh well, my earlier post suggested that the Catholic faithful (Priests and Bishops especially) have always had to contend with the storms which arise on the seas of moral discernment.
In the past, however, they relied on the ability of the Vicar of Christ to steer the Barque of Peter to safe harbor.
Lately, however, I feel that I am sailing the waters of those seas not in a sturdy ship, but rather a life boat!
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