Has Pope Francis crossed the Ru-bicon with the issue of his Amoris Laetitia? Has the Church, at last, reached the point of no return in its reform process started by Pope John XXIII with Vatican Council II in 1962 and continuously resisted by traditionalists ever since? Will the Church, from now on, move on with Church reform in matters of doctrine and faith by pursuing the original message of the Vatican Council of dialogue with the modern world and greater openness, truth, justice and charity?
On October 12, 1962 at the opening of the Vatican Council II, Pope John XXIII addressed the extraordinary diplomatic missions at the Vatican and said: “It is not without deep emotion that we address you in the very place where, nearly four years ago, Divine Providence in its mysterious designs decreed the elevation to the supreme pontificate of the humble Patriarch of Venice, who had spent the greater part of his life in the direct service of the Holy See in the East and West.”
Pope John then said: “Four years later, the same Divine Providence gives us the joy of opening the Ecumenical Council… It is a clear indication that the council, in addition to its religious significance, has also a social aspect which concerns the life of peoples… its purpose is to show the Church’s vigour and to emphasise its spiritual mission.”
The Pope especially stressed the need for the Church “to adapt its methods so that the gospel teaching may be worthily lived and more readily heeded by the people”.
More than 50 years later, on April 8, 2016, Pope Francis issued the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia. The exhortation is the outcome of two contested synods on the family in 2014 and 2015. Pope Francis begins by exhorting the Church to submit itself to a “healthy dose of self-criticism”.
He then continues: “We have long thought that simply by stressing doctrinal, bioethical and moral issues, without encouraging opening to grace, we were providing sufficient support to families, strengthening the marriage bond and giving meaning to marital love…
As a result of these bold initiatives, the Church is now in turmoil in certain parts of the world
“Many people feel that the Church’s message on marriage and the family does not clearly reflect the preaching and attitudes of Jesus, who set forth a demanding ideal yet never failed to show compassion and closeness to the frailty of individuals like the Samaritan woman or the woman caught in adultery.”
The resemblance of aim and purpose between what Pope John XXIII preached in 1962 and Pope Francis exhorts in 2017 is remarkable. Tim Staples, the director of apologetics and evangelisation at Catholic Answers, said Pope Francis was “quite simply applying what is commonly held teaching in the magisterium – everyone who commits an objectively grave sin is not necessarily culpable of mortal sin – to the particular situation of people who have divorced and remarried without having received an annulment”.
In a previous exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis reminded priests “that the confessional must not be a torture chamber, but rather an encounter with the Lord’s mercy”.
The issue of Amoris Laetitia created a storm within the Church. Six cardinals took the unprecedented action of issuing a dubia. Four of them (Raymond Burke, Carlo Caffara, Walter Brandmuller and Joachim Meisner) even went public and asked the Pope to issue clarifications, which he declined to do, as (according to his adviser Antonio Spadaro) the controversial questions were already answered in the same exhortation. Other opponents claimed that with the exhortation, the Church had entered “unknown territory”.
In Malta the bishops showed courage by issuing on January 8 guidelines to the priests on the implementation of Amoris Laetitia.
The guidelines met with the Holy See’s approval in being published in the semi-official Vatican newspaper, the Osservatore Ro-mano, on January 14.
The most important part of the Maltese guidelines are found in paragraph 10, which states: “If, as a result of the process of discernment, undertaken with humility and discretion and love for the Church and her teaching, in a sincere search for God’s will and a desire to make a more perfect response to it, a separated or divorced person who is living in a new relationship manages, with an informed and enlightened conscience, to acknowledge and believe that he or she is at peace with God, he or she cannot be precluded from participating in the sacrament of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.”
As a result of these bold initiatives, the Church is now in turmoil in certain parts of the world.
But let us not forget that the life of Pope Francis’s has been an extraordinary journey of determination and faith in God.
The Pope started from being a traditionalist to becoming a passionate defender of the disen-franchised and an unwavering enthusiast for dialogue as a way to build bridges.
All of this shows that under Francis, the Church has embarked upon a difficult journey to restore the original aims of Vatican Council II, one that is gospel-oriented, loving, understanding and close to the people.
One only hopes and prays that he succeeds.