Interpreting and Applying Amoris Laetitia

Dear Apologist:  What was the Pope getting at with Amoris Laetitia?  What IS the proper application of that document - and how does it fit into existing Church teaching?

The proper interpretation of Amoris Laetitia has been a contentious topic since its release.  Even today there are a handful of Cardinals who – concerned with widespread misreading of the document – have asked the Vatican to clarify and reiterate certain points.

So this will be my best attempt.

Accompaniment:  

My understanding of the document begins with certain emails I have received in my Ask the Apologist inbox from people in irregular marital situations.

About a month ago I received an email from a lady who had approached a priest to inquire about her status being divorced and remarried.  She felt alienated from the Church because because the priest simply told her the Church’s rule regarding her circumstance.  He provided no other form of aid - no explanation of why the law made sense, no helping her find a path forward.  Her only recourse for advice was the amateur Apologist in the parish bulletin.

This, I think, is precisely what Pope Francis wanted to warn priests against in Amoris Laetitia.  When we get to the much-discussed section on pastoral care, the constant refrain is “accompaniment”.  The Pope is urging pastors to really get to know people in these situations, to understand the unique nature of their problem, and to help them find a path forward toward reconciliation with Christ and the Church.

If you look at the document with that lens, I believe the whole thing makes more sense.



The Legal Aspect:

Now let's get onto that explanation. We'll start with the two relevant section of Canon Law.

CCL 916:

The Code of Canon Law section 916 (in conjunction with the Catechism and the Bible) states a person who is conscious of being guilty of mortal sin ought not receive communion.  It reads:

"A person who is conscious of grave sin is not receive the body of the Lord without previous sacramental confession unless there is a grave reason and there is no opportunity to confess." - CCL 916

This purpose of this law is to encourage people to avoid inflicting upon themselves the punishments which Saint Paul ties to unworthy reception of the Eucharist.  [Reference]

Now, there is always a certain amount of discernment involved in this.  One has to think about one’s moral status and whether one is guilty of mortal sin.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is helpful in this regard.  In section 1735, mentions how there can be extenuating circumstances which can diminish one's culpability when committing an objectively grave sin:

"Imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors." - CCC 1735

None of this is to say the sin ceases to be grave.  But it does mean the person might not be mortally guilty of the thing. This would mean Canon 916 wouldn't prevent such a person from receiving communion.

CCL 915

Moving on; In section 915, the Code also states that a person who preservers in manifest (that is, publicly known) grave sin must not be given communion. It reads:

"Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion." - CCL 915

The purpose of this law is to prevent scandal.  That is to say, suppose someone is known by the community to be habitually in situation of serious sin.  Seeing that person approaching Communion could give people the false impression that the Church approves of that person's state of life.

It is important to note that the subjective culpability of the person makes no influence on the exercise of this law.  That is because the public cannot possibly know the private state of a person's conscience.  What they know is the state of a person's life.

So if a person's life involves a state of objective grave sin - and this is public knowledge - this Canon applies regardless of personal culpability  Because, again, the thing being guarded against is scandal.


The Space Between:

You may notice there is some room between those two canons mentioned above.

What if you have a person who is privately (not known to the public) committing what is objectively a grave sin, but has diminished culpability for it?

Due to the diminished culpability, the person would not fall under Canon 916.  And since the matter is not publicly known, the person would not meet the criterion for Canon 915.  What do we say about people in this middle area?

That is the area which the Pope seems to be addressing.  In other words, he is looking at cases in which ordinary people may be doing something objectively wrong – unknown to the community – but are not mortally culpable.  In those cases, Amoris Laetitia seems to indicate it would be acceptable for such persons to receive Communion.

And one instance of this would be... people in irregular marital situations.


Out of the Ordinary:

The document itself lays out some criteria for when this can occur:

First, the assumption is that the person is in regular contact with a priest, who is guiding him/her to full reconciliation with the Church. [1]

In section 299 [2] he says there must be no risk of scandal.  That is to say, we cannot be a person who is publicly flaunting the objective teaching of the Church.  If that is the case, he says in section 297 [3] that such a person should be separated from the community.

Next, in section 300 [4] he notes that the person must desire to live in full accord with the teaching of the Church.  He also notes there cannot be any appearances given of a priest making special exceptions or applying a double standard.

Lastly, in section 298 he pictures a scenario where a person cannot separate from him/her new "spouse" due to shared obligations to children.

Therefore, imagine this scenario:

A person falls away from the Church.  Later on, she gets divorced and then remarried civilly.  She has a conversion back to the faith.  She approaches her pastor and asks where she stands with the Church. 

Her priest tells her the man she is with is presumed by the Church to not be her husband.  She understands and accepts that.  She desires to regularize her situation with the Church.   

However, she cannot separate from this second man because they have children.  Furthermore, she proposes to her husband that they cease marital relations, but he threatens to divorce her if she tries to withhold from him.  Now she is stuck.

In such a case, the priest may discern with the woman that she is not fully culpable for the sin of adultery because of her diminished consent.  And as long as the case does not create public scandal, the priest may admit her to communion while she continues trying to regularize her status.


Give an Inch...

The Church has laws.  The laws are oriented toward answering tough questions of how we are supposed to live out the teachings of the Bible in a community.

In regard to interpreting Amoris  is important to note that the goal here is not to find exceptions  to the rule.  The goal is to ask what is allowable within the framework of the existing rules.

The danger is what happens when something like this gets out into the messiness of the world.  Many pastors will use it as an excuse to say:

"Divorced and remarried?  No problem!  Pope Francis called off that whole 'no communion' thingy."  

Or perhaps:

"Everyone gets to be an exception!  No need to discern with a priest.  No need to seek an annulment.  No need to make sincere attempts to avoid the sin of adultery."

But for better or worse, these are risks Pope Francis is willing to take.


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Citations
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[1]

"Priests have the duty to accompany the divorced and remarried in helping them to understand their situation according to the teaching of the Church and the guidelines of the bishop.  What we are speaking of is a process of accompaniment and discernment which guides the faithful to an awareness of their situation before God." - 300

[2]

“The baptized who are divorced and civilly remarried need to be more fully integrated into Christian communities in the variety of ways possible, while avoiding any occasion of scandal." - 299

[3]

"Naturally, if someone flaunts an objective sin as if it were part of the Christian ideal, or wants to impose something other than what the Church teaches, he or she can in no way presume to teach or preach to others; this is a case of something which separates from the community. Such a person needs to listen once more to the Gospel message and its call to conversion." - 297

[4]

"For this discernment to happen, the following conditions must necessarily be present: humility, 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. These attitudes are essential for avoiding the grave danger of misunderstandings, such as the notion that any priest can quickly grant exceptions, or that some people can obtain sacramental privileges in exchange for favours. When a responsible and tactful person, who does not presume to put his or her own desires ahead of the common good of the Church, meets with a pastor capable of acknowledging the seriousness of the matter before him, there can be no risk that a specific discernment may lead people to think that the Church maintains a double standard." - 300