Freely engage his will in carrying out that gravely immoral act. Have knowledge that what he is about to commit is, in fact, a grave sin.ģ. Commit an act that is objectively grave.Ģ. It is indeed the perennial teaching of the Church that In order to commit a mortal sin, one must:ġ. The Pope was quite simply applying what is a commonly held teaching of 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 fact, he did not even change a single law of the Church, notwithstanding all of the accusations to the contrary. But in so doing he made very clear he was not and is not changing a single doctrine of Catholic Faith. In a nutshell, Pope Francis made a pastoral and prudential judgment to change the practice of the Church that in the past absolutely, and in every situation, forbade any Catholic who had divorced and remarried outside the Church to receive Holy Communion. Let’s see if we can clear up the confusion. But, unfortunately, many seem to have overlooked the good due to the confusion caused mainly by what I argue are faulty interpretations of chapter 8. It is packed with solid Catholic doctrine and practical application concerning our Faith. There is much in AL that is good, beautiful, and true and that helps you understand the whole document. If you have not read the rest of it, I encourage you to do so. There are nine chapters in the document, but I am going to focus on chapter 8 (though I will mention other parts as well) and the famous “footnote #351,” which has been the source of virtually all of the questions I have received. In this post I will outline the controversy. Because my colleague Jimmy Akin has already written an excellent synopsis of it, I was not planning to write about it.īut because the questions about Amoris Laetitia, which I will refer to as “AL,” seem to keep coming-some few even accusing Pope Francis of heresy-I decided to jump into the fray. The apostolic exhortation of our Holy Father, Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia(Latin, “The Joy of Love”), promulgated March 19, 2016, has caused quite a stir.
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