Time to Return to the Magisterium
The Derailing of Moral Teaching One Decade Ago
Humanae Vitae, in 1968, constituted an unexpected event amid the liberal climate established by Vatican II. It also aroused intense contestation. While this Council, presided over by Paul VI, had opened up ecclesiology to liberal Catholicism (ecumenism, religious freedom, dialogue with religions), the very same Paul VI, to everyone’s astonishment, refused to liberalize the doctrine of marriage and condemned contraception. What has been dubbed the “restoration”, brought about during the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, (according to the term used by Joseph Ratzinger himself in The Ratzinger Report), which consisted in an attempt at a moderate interpretation of the Council, thus crystallized on this relative resistance of moral teaching (Veritatis Splendor in 1993). It was a fragile resistance, on the part of those who felt obliged to make some concessions (John Paul II’s theology of the body) and above all, who refused to rely on the infallible magisterium: for, despite repeated requests, the teaching of Humanae Vitae has never been given as definitive, as the “pastoral” horizon of the Council remained unsurpassable.
Be that as it may, Amoris Laetitia, in 2016, broke down this moral barrier and inaugurated a new phase of the post-conciliar period. This is not without certain positive elements: the time for half-measures is over.
Chapter VIII of Amoris Laetitia
Thanks to Amoris Laetitia of March 19, 2016, Pope Bergoglio in a sense decriminalized adultery, the relations proper to marriage with someone other than one’s spouse, under certain conditions. The eighth chapter of the Apostolic Exhortation, “Accompanying, Discerning and Integrating Weakness,” deals concretely with the “weakness” of those who break the matrimonial bond and contract a second marriage. Pope Francis proceeded in three stages:
- He called for a pastoral “accompaniment” of the divorced and remarried based on gradualness, distinguishing between the ideal represented by the moral norm and that which many Christians can concretely accomplish and which must be tended to through a journey of accompaniment and discernment that “guides the faithful to an awareness of their situation before God”.[1] This accompaniment, beginning with a “conversation with the priest, in the internal forum, contributes to the formation of a correct judgment on what hinders the possibility of a fuller participation in the life of the Church and on what steps can foster it and make it grow” (n° 300).
- Pope Francis then set out his new doctrinal proposition: “It can no longer simply be said that all 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 act differently and decide otherwise without further sin.” (n° 301). This is the heart of the new moral doctrine, which is in direct opposition to the adage of Saint Augustine (Confessions, l. X, c. 29) taken up by the Council of Trent (Dz 1536): “For God does not command impossibilities, but by commanding admonishes you both to do what you can do, and to pray for what you cannot do, and assists you that you may be able”, an adage which means that God always gives the grace necessary to accomplish what he demands, in this case fidelity in marriage.
- Pope Francis drew the consequences of this affirmation regarding sacramental practice: the notorious communion granted to the divorced and remarried, which had been the object of all the pressures of the theological left. “Because of forms of conditioning and mitigating factors, it is possible that in an objective situation of sin – which may not be subjectively culpable, or fully such – a person can be living in God’s grace, can love and can also grow in the life of grace and charity, while receiving the Church’s help to this end.” (n° 305).
Whereupon a note (note 351) specifies that, even while remaining in adultery, one may nonetheless receive sacramental absolution and the Eucharist: “In certain cases, this can include the help of the sacraments. Hence, ‘I want to remind priests that the confessional must not be a torture chamber, but rather an encounter with the Lord’s mercy’ (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium [24 November 2013], 44: AAS 105 [2013], 1038). I would also point out that the Eucharist ‘is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak’ (ibid., 47: 1039).”
Unanswered Questions of Faith
Four cardinals – Raymond L. Burke, Walter Brandmüller, Carlo Caffara and Joachim Meisner[2] – then presented Pope Francis with five dubia, questions addressed to the Roman authorities, formerly drafted in such a way that they had to answer yes or no, positive or negative – “let your speech be yea, yea: no, no” (Matthew 5:37) – even if it entailed providing an explanation along with the response. The cardinals’ principal dubium was: “After Amoris Laetitia (n° 301) is it still possible to affirm that a person who habitually lives in contradiction to a commandment of God’s law, as for instance the one that prohibits adultery (Matthew 19:3-9), finds him or herself in an objective situation of grave habitual sin (Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, ‘Declaration,’ June 24, 2000)?”
The Declaration of the Council for Legislative Texts referred to by the cardinals said: “In effect, the reception of the Body of Christ when one is publicly unworthy constitutes an objective harm to the ecclesial communion: it is a behavior that affects the rights of the Church and of all the faithful to live in accord with the exigencies of that communion. In the concrete case of the admission to Holy Communion of faithful who are divorced and remarried, the scandal, understood as an action that prompts others towards wrongdoing, affects at the same time both the sacrament of the Eucharist and the indissolubility of marriage. […] The minister of Communion must refuse to distribute it to those who are publicly unworthy.”
Earlier, when the Bergoglian pontificate had begun and a doctrinal reversal was taking shape, we had asked the same question, but concerning the sacrament of penance, to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: “Can a confessor give absolution to a penitent who, having been married religiously, has contracted a second union after divorce?” It was a matter of allowing the Congregation (whose Prefect was Cardinal Müller and whose Secretary was Archbishop Ladaria) to affirm that the teaching of Familiaris Consortio, which we will quote below, was still valid. The Congregation had replied to us on October 22, 2014: “It is not possible to validly absolve a divorced and remarried person who does not make a firm resolution to avoid ‘sin in the future’ and therefore to abstain from the acts proper to spouses, and to do everything in his power in this regard.”
Yet after Amoris Laetitia, neither the pope nor the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith saw fit to answer the cardinals’ questions about the reversal that had taken place.
An opportunity to ask the question once again is soon to arise. On March 19, 2026, the tenth anniversary of the Apostolic Exhortation, Pope Leo XIV intends to celebrate the “luminous message of hope regarding conjugal love and family life” constituted by the Apostolic Exhortation, and to “give thanks to the Lord for the stimulus that has encouraged reflection and pastoral conversion in the Church” which the Exhortation brought about, asking the Church “for the courage to persevere on this path, always welcoming the Gospel anew.” And he has announced that he intends to bring together, from October 7 to 14, the Presidents of the Episcopal Conferences of the whole world “in an effort to proceed, in mutual listening, to a synodal discernment on the steps to be taken in order to proclaim the Gospel to families today, in light of Amoris Laetitia and taking into account what is currently being done in the local Churches.”
To prepare for the work of the assembly, a thematic itinerary was published on July 6 by the General Secretariat of the Synod and the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life, the fourth point of which (“In the difficulties of life: accompanying and supporting — Walking with families in complex situations”) overlaps with the subject of Chapter VIII of Amoris Laetitia. Despite its lack of clarity, it nonetheless appears to endorse the doctrinal change brought about by the Exhortation: “Particular attention is directed to couples and families who, at every stage of married life, encounter relational, social or spiritual difficulties […]. What steps have been taken to support those living in situations of fragility or difficulty? What forms of resistance continue to emerge? How can Christian communities be built in which those who have experienced suffering, abandonment, separation and divorce may truly feel listened to, involved and co-responsible? Which concrete experiences already reveal today the face of a Church increasingly capable of proximity, discernment, accompaniment and appreciation, helping persons and families to regain confidence, recognize themselves as part of the community, and experience the mercy of God?”
The text, as unclear as possible, evokes those “who have experienced divorce,” who must “truly feel listened to” in a Church “increasingly capable” of helping persons to “experience mercy.” It should be noted that there is euphemistic mention of “situations of fragility” so as to avoid the word sin (as is the case also with the encyclical Magnifica Humanitas).
An Inadmissible Thesis
Preparations are certainly being made for a renewal of the new doctrine, insisting on welcoming divorced and remarried persons in the Church – a welcome which, by the way, had never been called into question: never had a sinner’s membership in the Church been denied ‒ , but according to the new pastoral model, this membership necessarily includes the receiving of the sacraments.
This meeting could, however, be a providential opportunity for a certain number of courageous pastors to highlight the considerable harm caused by the Apostolic Exhortation to natural and Catholic morality, and thereby to the salvation of souls. It is, moreover, easier to contest Amoris Laetitia than this or that problematic text of the Council.
- For one thing, we can in this instance rely on the teaching of a post-conciliar pope, John Paul II, who maintained the perennial doctrine on this point:
- On penance: “Reconciliation in the sacrament of Penance which would open the way to the Eucharist, can only be granted to those who, repenting of having broken the sign of the Covenant and of fidelity to Christ, are sincerely ready to undertake a way of life that is no longer in contradiction to the indissolubility of marriage.” (Familiaris Consortio, n° 84).
- On communion: “However, the Church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried. They are unable to be admitted thereto from the fact that their state and condition of life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and the Church which is signified and effected by the Eucharist.” (ibid.) They are unable to be admitted to Communion unless, that is, the persons in this irregular situation “take on themselves the duty to live in complete continence, that is, by abstinence from the acts proper to married couples”[3], and any and all scandal is avoided, which would otherwise be caused to those who see them receiving communion.
- Moreover, ruptures in moral teaching are more easily apprehended by everyone than those in ecclesiology. In this case, the reversal made by Amoris Laetitia is striking. According to n° 301, “concrete situations” (a new “marriage”, the existence of children of this new union) could cause the rupture of this new union – separating from this illegitimate spouse or living with one another as siblings – to actually constitute “a new fault”, presumably due to the harm caused to the second spouse, as well as to any children of the second union. (Of course, it cannot be disputed that the consequences of adultery must be borne, notably with regard to the children born of this illegitimate union, but without prejudice to what must be rendered in justice to the legitimate spouse and to the children of the legitimate union, which the Exhortation does not envisage.) Thus, the reasoning of Amoris Laetitia is taken to its logical conclusion: whereas remaining in public adultery no longer constitutes a sin, leaving this situation does in fact become sinful. There are cases, according to Amoris Laetitia, where adultery is meritorious!
Theology and the Magisterium were once wont to condense their remarks into clear and concise theses or propositions, especially when it came to condemning them (the 85 propositions issuing from the Synod of Pistoia, condemned by the bull Auctorem fidei of Pius VI in 1794). The inadmissible thesis of Amoris Laetitia could be formulated as follows: Some of those who live in public adultery, even though they know the norm they are transgressing, may be considered as not being in a state of mortal sin. Is this proposition condemnable or not in light of the Catholic faith? Or conversely, is the fact of holding this thesis as being inadmissible now condemnable?
Closing the Chapter on “Pastoral” Teaching
It pertains to the function of the pope and the bishops to answer questions about faith and morals that the faithful of Christ ask themselves and ask them. Their primary role is to teach the faith, to transmit the message of the Gospel. “Bishops,” Lumen Gentium (n° 25)recalls,“are preachers of the faith, who lead new disciples to Christ, and they are authentic teachers, that is, teachers endowed with the authority of Christ, who preach to the people committed to them the faith they must believe and put into practice, and by the light of the Holy Spirit illustrate that faith. They bring forth from the treasury of Revelation new things and old (cf. Mt 13:52), making it bear fruit and vigilantly warding off any errors that threaten their flock (cf. 2 Tim 4:1-4).”
As for the Roman Pontiff, he is first and foremost the supreme doctor of the faith. He is distinguished from the other bishops not by a superior sacramental power but by a plenary and sovereign jurisdiction over the whole Church, above all with regard to the teaching of the faith and morals (Vatican I, Pastor Æternus, Dz 3064).
What the Church expects from her pastors today is that they set aside all things “pastoral”, in the new sense given to this term, that of a second-rate teaching disconnected from its link with tradition, and that they return to the evangelical meaning of pastoral, to the care that pastors must deploy in order to lead the souls of the sheep to salvation, in the first place through the proclamation of the truth.
In this case, the Church expects them to recall to the faithful the commandment: “Thou shalt not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14; Deuteronomy 5:18; Matthew 5:27), and to patiently preach penance to sinners by guiding them along the path of repentance towards God and of reparation towards the betrayed spouse, and towards the children who have been profoundly mistreated, without forgetting, of course, to bear the consequences of the fault committed, including with regard to the children of the second union.
Essentially, the Church expects a return to the magisterium as such or as a direct reference in all her discourse.
Fr. Claude Barthe
[1] This notion of gradualness had been put forward to circumvent the doctrine of Humanae vitae condemning contraception. John Paul II, in Familiaris Consortio (22 November 1981, n° 34), had tried to plug the breach by making a hazardous distinction: the “law of gradualness”, that of human action, which gradually overcomes difficulties in order to be able to observe the commandments, is legitimate, but not the “gradualness of the law”, which seeks to make of the divine commandment a mere ideal towards which one must strive. Amoris Laetitia, in n° 295, speaks of a “gradualness in the prudential exercise of free acts” on the part of subjects who “are not in a position to understand, appreciate, or fully carry out the objective demands of the law.” In brief, if one cannot observe the law, one does what one can…
[2] A fifth cardinal, the Dutchman Willem Jacobus Eijk, archbishop of Utrecht, publicly supported and joined the initiative of the first four. Another senior prelate signed the dubia addressed to the pope, but did not want his name to be disclosed to the public.
[3] John Paul II, homily during the Mass at the conclusion of the 6th General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, 25 October 1980.