Amoris Laetitia

I just finished reading Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation on marriage and the family, Amoris Laetitia (March 19, 2016). It is translated, The Joy of Love, and is a culmination of two years of Vatican-sponsored meetings and input concerning the family. With the explosion of the number of divorces, there has been an increasing pressure from liberals (progressives) to change the Church’s response to those who have divorced and remarried. This is especially because these persons are not allowed to partake of the Eucharist in the mass. The divorced complained that a repentant murderer can receive communion while they can’t. On the conservative (traditionalist) side, marriage is held as a metaphor for Christ’s relationship to His church, and therefore indissoluble. One of my own interests in the document is from the viewpoint of how women are treated by the Church, and I was pleasantly surprised to see some understanding.

Pope Francis agrees to the Christ-Church-marriage comparison, but with the understanding that people are not as perfect as Christ and therefore their marriages will not be perfect. The pope continues to hold up a good marriage as a difficult but attainable goal, worthy of all its efforts. Yet he asks for the mercy of those who interact with married couples and for the divorced and re-married Catholics who feel ostracized by not being allowed communion. The pope maintains these people are not excommunicated and should not be made to feel as such. To conservatives who don’t want change, any thought of giving them communion is a liberal viewpoint that they fear will lead to a downhill slide of the entire institution of marriage.

I found some of the most refreshing sentences in the whole exhortation Amoris Laetitia to be in Sections 36 and 37. In 36, Pope Francis comments on the overbearing emphasis of Church leaders on procreation that made Catholicism seem more about having the maximum amount of children instead of focusing on the divinity of Jesus Christ. Of course having children is important, but I don't think every married person is called to parenthood. And unfortunately not all children come to believe in God. But we are all called to worship and evangelize the nations for Jesus Christ. Section 36 has this sentence:

Then too, we often present marriage in such a way that its unitive meaning, its call to grow in love and its ideal of mutual assistance are overshadowed by an almost exclusive insistence on the duty of procreation.

Then, speaking of clergy, in 37 Pope Francis wrote: 

We also find it hard to make room for the consciences of the faithful, who very often respond as best they can to the Gospel amid their limitations, and are ca­pable of carrying out their own discernment in complex situations. We have been called to form consciences, not to replace them.

How important this is in contrast to the effort to control people.

Another section I like is 54, which speaks of women’s rights. It says emancipation of women is not to be blamed for all the woes of marriage. The pope writes:

If certain forms of feminism have arisen which we must consider inadequate, we must nonetheless see in the women’s movement the working of the Spirit for a clearer recognition of the dignity and rights of women.

Thank goodness. Let us hope this is a dawn finally of a new worldview about women. I’m not saying women always will make the right decisions or discern correctly, but I believe we can be as capable as men of doing so.

It remains to be seen what will actually happen in response to the paper. The Germans have been chafing at the bit to make changes, as are progressive groups of priests in Ireland and the US. But the tensions persist because there are plenty of conservatives up in arms and writing about it. One article is by Raymond Cardinal Burke, "'Amoris Laetitia' and the constant teaching and practice of the Church," National Catholic Register, April 12, 2016, basically saying that bishops and priests don’t really have to follow it. Conservative bloggers are complaining as well.

Pope Francis, though he says he encourages dialogue, has in turn had some pretty harsh words for conservatives: Carol Glatz, "'Witch hunts' rooted in putting laws above God's truth, pope says,"  Catholic News Service, April 11, 2016. The tensions are simmering and though it is rather fascinating to watch, it is not good for the Church to be mired in disagreements. When Catholics, leaders or lay, are so diverse, we need to pray for discernment. I’ve found, though, that persons can be so tied to one worldview, they can’t imagine any other having merits. This is a block to listening to other people.

However, what happens when different people are convinced the Holy Spirit is leading each of them but in different ways? Then we obviously have a problem of understanding exactly how the Holy Spirit leads and what He is leading toward. It may be that we need to consider what each other is saying and seek God’s will in mutual prayer. Hopefully we can all improve in discernment together.

Discernment's Center

Why is it wrong for a Christian to claim that everyone is a child of God? After all, we believe one God (in the form of a Trinity of the Father, the Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit) created the universe and ultimately all humans. What many seem to be missing is that even though we are all created in God’s image, He gives a specific path for acceptance as His children. And this power is given through faith in the Son. Jesus Christ, Who came to the world, lived a perfect life, died and rose for our sins. God wants us to recognize that we sin and that our salvation comes through Christ. And God wants us to tell this to everyone we can--not to leave others in ignorance of Him.

In the Bible, the Apostle John says we are allowed to be children of God if we believe in the Word, Jesus Christ:

But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name…(John 1:9-12 NABRE).

In my opinion, this viewpoint can be seen only one way.

There are those who think God will accept everyone. Though we might think that persons who never heard of Christ may be allowed into His kingdom, we must remember that if we have heard of Him we have to evaluate our own faith. If you believe it doesn’t matter what religion other persons are, your own faith and therefore discernment are in trouble. Those who have the opportunity to know Jesus and shrug Him off as one of many choices are worse off than those who have never heard of Him. It is God’s business to decide who comes into His kingdom; it is our job to recognize that for those who do fully know about Him, belief in Christ is the only way to heaven.

This subject relates to another: many people want to see world peace, which we think of as certainly a worthy cause. Especially for those affected by war, it may seem of primary importance. Yet some Christians hold the importance of Earthly peace so high that their worldview seems to put it even above the centrality of Christianity. Here again we have the idea put forth that all religions have the same God, all are children of God. But if you believe Christianity as the only True answer, worldly peace is secondary to evangelization. We must carry the message so all can know Christ, even if it means worldly tensions.

As a Jesuit, Pope Francis claims to seek discernment. Discernment is a method by which a person determines his or her vocation, and also a life-long quest to seek God’s will. The Jesuits are a religious order founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola. In 1522-1524 Ignatius wrote recommendations for spiritual discernment in his book, The Spiritual Exercises (some background and description at Wikipedia HERE. Through this, the members make great effort to tune themselves toward discernment of God’s will.

However, it has been shown that sometimes those who believe they are experts of God’s will have been wrong in their discernment. For example, US Jesuits who ran Georgetown University in the 1800’s owned slaves and then sold these humans to plantation owners of the deeper South in order to financially save the school (Wikipedia HERE). Though slavery was legal at the time, it should not have been considered a moral choice by the Jesuits—those who claimed to know the will of the Lord. Even though the Bible mentions slavery, St. Paul was advising those who had to endure it due to outside influences, not endorsing it as a Christian institution. And the end--a solvent school--did not justify the means. Often when we are confronted with challenges, God will come through if we go to Him and wait for Him. They did not have to own or sell slaves.

Of course, we can't read their minds. Was the president of the university alone somehow deviated from the centrality of Christ? What about others then and there?

The secular Enlightenment was to eventually effect many so-called Christians in disbelieving Christ's miracles and even His divinity, reducing Him to a sage. And Christ centered-ness is just the first step to proper efforts in discernment. Also we can have problems with pride or stubbornness which keeps us from considering other points of view.

Pope Francis seems to want Christianity both ways. He speaks of the need for only Christ for salvation, reported by Ann Schneible,  "Pope: Jesus is the only door to eternal life," Catholic News Agency, April 18, 2016. But at other times he tells everyone that we are all children of God, we all have the same God, or similar phrases (example reported by Elahe Izadi,  "Pope Francis washes the feet of Muslim migrants, says we are 'children of the same God,'" Washington Post, March 25, 2016). The pope holds world peace very highly and wants to see all people get along. But this is simply not the same as putting Christ at the center. The view that it does not matter what you believe is called “Indifferentism” and at least sometimes seems to be held by the pope as well as many other Catholics.

Why is it central to being a Christian to believe in Christ for our Salvation? God gives us free will, and all humans have fallen short of perfection except for Christ. Our own sins should bring us to humility when we recognize them. The Father is just as well as merciful and the imperfection due to sins would keep the sinner ostracized from God's presence. The Father has chosen belief in Christ to be our doorway to Him. As stated above, Christ lived a perfect life and then died for our sins. Jesus should be given the credit for that, just as we want to be credited for our own achievements. But I believe some Catholics, as other Christians, are too casual about sins, the need for Christ for one’s redemption, and about faith in Him in order to go to heaven.

I believe that in order to have right discernment, the central starting point is belief in Jesus Christ as our Savior. Then we can be guided by God to wisdom in other areas. When we really believe this, our love for others should lead us to tell them about Christ, what He did for us, and that we all need to repent and believe that He, and only He, is our Savior.

God's Not Dead 2

I went to see the movie God’s Not Dead 2 (Universal Studios, 2016). I'll abbreviate it GND2. I don’t want to be a spoiler, so I won’t write out the whole plot. But I will tell you that it was about a high school teacher who was sued by the ACLU for answering a question about Jesus Christ, using Scripture, in class.

If you saw the first God’s Not Dead (GND) movie, you will recognize similarities. GND was about a student who was maligned by a college professor because he would not deny God in the classroom. So both movies are about perceived oppression of Christians in academic settings.

Though some may not believe Christians are being oppressed in our country, the credits of the movie show there can be a price to pay when people stand up for what they believe. One real life example I will give is the backlash of the exposé done by David Daleiden against Planned Parenthood. He secretly filmed PP employees talking cold-bloodedly about selling body parts of fetuses, among other shocking images. But it was Daleiden who was indicted in Texas for his undercover work and was recently raided by California DOJ officers, reported by Megan Casella, "California officials seize computers, footage from anti-abortion activist," Reuters, April 6, 2016.

Daleiden's example can be linked with academia because the parts of fetuses go to trained researchers either at universities or in commercial settings. The academic worldview is very often the antithesis of Christianity, even though the medical disciplines do have a noble goal of curing people. They say they are about science and reason and not the "superstitious" religious beliefs. Perhaps that is what justifies their actions in their own minds, and the lines may not always be as clearly drawn as the GND2 movie implies. But cures can be found in other ways and it is imperative that everyone realize the humanity of those who are being killed.

Now, you might say Daleiden was breaking the law in his underground investigation. But consider that a pastor in GND2 says we are in a spiritual war. Non-Christians often see a statement like this as way too overblown. Christians may not always realize where the war is taking place. But the pastor is right, and the people who made the movie, among many others, are in the middle of the battle. When the laws can be unjust, spiritual warriors do not always follow the laws.