Hypocritical scholars criticize Amore Laetitia and Pope Francis: Jesus and the Pharisees

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites."

I have perused several scholarly critiques of Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis' apostolic exhortation about marriage and divorce.  Frankly, most of what I read comes across to me as pharisaical.  

Some old dudes in Brazil, who call themselves the Plinio Correa de Oliveira Institute,  published a turgid document (95 footnotes) claiming that Pope Francis' papal exhortation "Opens the Gates of the Church and Society for a Programmed Demolition of Marriage and the Family." Managing to be both hysterical and utterly boring at the same time, the document compares Pope Francis' pedagogical model to Jean Jacques Rousseau (!) and calls on the Pope to revoke Amoris Laetitia outright.

Father Regis Scanlon, writing in Crisis Magazine, says the document "has many Catholics thinking they are living in a nightmare." Father Scanlon asks his readers to reflect on a seventh-century doctrinal controversy during the papal reign of Honorius I, which he thinks might  help Catholics weather the Amoris controversy. 

Honorius, it seems, got too cozy with the Monothelitists; and he got a theological slap on the wrist by his successor, Leo II. Honorius, Leo charged, "did not illumine this Apostolic Church with the doctrine of the Apostolic tradition, but allowed it, while immaculate, to be stained by profane betrayal."

Thanks, Father Scanlon, for sharing that story with us. I'll bet you give great homilies!

Then there's Richard A. Spinello, a research professor at Boston College, who laments the fact that the church hierarchy is unwilling to speak out against Pope Francis's blow to "doctrinal integrity." Spinello ends his essay in Crisis Magazine by saying it is up to the laity "who must face reality and speak with candor about the deficiencies of this alien papal teaching." 

Let me get this straight, Professor Spinello. Are you saying it's Joe Six-Pack's job to tell Pope Francis what to do?  Good luck with that!

In another Crisis essay, Spinello sums up his view of Amoris Laetitia by saying: "At best, this is an imprecise work that needs clarification; at worst, it is a subtle repudiation of Veritatis Splendor and two thousand years of Catholic moral Tradition." 

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?

God knows I am no theologian, but I was raised a Methodist so I can read the Bible. And this is what Jesus said in the Book of Matthew:

Woe to you, scribes and pharisees, you hypocrites. You lock the kingdom of heaven before human beings. You do not enter yourselves, nor do you allow entrance to those trying to enter.

Woe to you, scribes and pharisees, you hypocrites. You traverse sea and land to make one convert, but when that happens you make him a child of Gehenna twice as much as yourselves.

As I said, I am no theologian, but that passage reassures me that Pope Francis was on the right track when he wrote Amoris Laetitia. It is, after all, a message of love and mercy.

 But then what do I know? I'm just a back-pew lay Catholic who lives in Louisiana, and I know absolutely nothing about Honorius I and those wretched Monothelites.

References

Plinio Correa de Oliveira Institute. 'Amoris Laetitia' Opens the Gates of thke Church and Society for a Programmed Demolition of Marriage and the Family, September 29, 2016.

Fr. Regis Scanlon, O.F.M. CAP. What History May Tell Us About Amoris Laetitia. Crisis Magazine, January 26, 2017.

Richard A. Spinello. Debate Continues Over Amoris Laetitia. Crisis Magazine, May 25, 2017.

Richard A. Spinello. On Rocco Buttiglione's Defense of Amoris Laetitia. Crisis Magazine, August 9, 2016.

Divorced Catholics in the Jubilee Year of Mercy: No Mercy for Catholic Survivors of Broken Marriages

I came across this lovely quote from Pope Francis last September while visiting the Shrine of St. Rita of Cascia in Italy.  Appearing on a large poster were these words:

In the Sacrament of Reconciliation, God forgives sins, which are really removed; yet there remains the negative imprint that sins have left in our behavior and in our thoughts. 

The Mercy of God, however, is even stronger than this! It becomes indulgence on the part of the Father, who, through the Bride of Christ, his Church, reaches pardoned sinners and frees them from every residue left by the consequences of sin, enabling them to act with charity, to grow in love rather than to fall back into sin.

Did Pope Francis intend for these powerfully reassuring words to apply to divorced Catholics? To divorced people who wish to become Catholic?

I believe he did. As the Pope said in Amoris Laetitia, his recent Apostolic Exhortation, "No one can be condemned for ever, because that is not the logic of the Gospel!"

As Pope Francis pointed out in Amoris Laetitia, the Synod Fathers have reached a general consensus with regard to people living in irregular situations, which he quoted:

In considering a pastoral approach towards people who have contracted a civil marriage, who are divorced and remarried, or simply living together, the Church has the responsibility of helping them understand the divine pedagogy of grace in their lives and offering them assistance so they can reach the fullness of God's plan for them.

This was possible, Pope Francis added "by the power of the Holy Spirit."

Of utmost importance to divorced Catholics, Pope Francis wrote that divorced and remarried Catholics "need to be fully integrated into Christian communities in the variety of ways possible, while avoiding any occasion of scandal." Indeed, Pope Francis emphasized:

Such persons need to feel not as excommunicated members of the Church, but instead as living members, able to live and grow in the Church and experience her as a mother who welcomes them always, who takes care of them with affection and encourages them along the path of life and the Gospel. This integration is also needed in the care and Christian upbringing of their children, who ought to be considered most important.

Tragically, these powerful and holy words, written by Pope Francis during the Jubilee Year of Mercy, have been explicitly rejected by many Catholic priests and bishops.

How ironic. The Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandal--this catastrophic episode in the life of the American Church--is a stain on the Bride of Christ that may never be wiped away. Certainly, the priests and bishops who participated in this scandal or who covered it up are in urgent need of mercy.

And yet so many of our priests and bishops offer no mercy whatsoever to divorced Catholics, even in this, the Jubilee Year of Mercy.

Msgr. Richard Mouton, Lafayette Diocese

References

Pope Francis. Amoris Laetitia--The Joy of Love. (2016)