I was ordained 55 years ago, before Vatican II, and honestly I was neither shocked nor confused by our bishops’ recent guidelines on Amoris Laetitia, because they are not only in line with the doctrine of this apostolic exhortation but also with the additional moral and pastoral teaching of the Church.
These guidelines rightly insist on the confessor’s duty to take all aspects of people’s needs and capacities into consideration before reaching a practical pastoral judgement.
They also encourage us to help people form an informed and enlightened conscience by means of accompaniment and discernment. They remind us that it is possible for an objectively sinful situation not to be subjectively guilty.
At this point may I quote what a document of the Congregation for the Clergy had to say about conscience in the English edition of the May 20, 1971, edition of L’Osservatore Romano:
“Particular circumstances surrounding an objectively evil human act, while they cannot make it objectively virtuous, can make it inculpable, diminished in guilt or subjectively defensible. Ultimately conscience is inviolable and nobody can be forced to act contrary to his conscience as the moral tradition of the Church attests.”
Finally our bishops warn us to be careful to avoid falling into extreme rigorism on the one hand and laxity on the other.