The Maltese Bishops and ‘Amoris Laetitia’

They have been issued prudently in line with the recent Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia by Pope Francis after the holding of two bishops’ synods on the subject and are therefore sufficient to lay claim as a teaching of the Magisterium. Those who come to a responsible conclusion that they are at peace with God on the matter of their present conjugal relationship, after a thorough process of accompaniment and discernment regarding their conjugal relationship, might only then present themselves for Communion. The Bishops in their guidelines reflect the pastoral approach of Amoris Laetitia (AL) as the extensive quotations indicate. These guidelines underline the accompanying pastoral care of the Church for its faithful and in no way undermines the teaching of Christ on the subject of marriage, which teaching is clearly laid out and underlined in AL. This teaching reflects pastoral accompaniment and I must congratulate the Bishops on their courage in issuing their guidelines to the Maltese Church and reflect this teaching. Ultimately, people can now be officially accompanied in their problems by the Church rather than be left to face issues alone.

I have read this exhortation by the Pope, several times over, because I, as a lay apostolate need the information on how to conduct myself when meeting people with problems. Doctors often receive the same amount of counselling requests in social matters as priests and we are in a good position to give advice. Some may prefer to mull things over with a trusted doctor/friend before they speak to a priest! The guidelines issued by the Bishops are exactly in line with those found in AL especially those in Chapter 8. This alludes to the ‘internal forum’ where the individual examines his or her conscience with respect to God. Conscience is the final moral arbiter between God and the individual man and one is obliged to follow his conscience (St. Thomas Aquinas and Second Vatican Council Documents).

The big danger here is that it has to be a conscience properly formed after a process of accompaniment and discernment, as otherwise there is the danger that the whole matter becomes very subjective. To this end, AL obliges every person or couple to seek the counsel of a trusted and adequately well-prepared priest in helping to form their conscience and then one might rely on the conclusions to forge ahead. In this internal forum, the individual places himself before God with the circumstances that he/she find themselves in and examines whether circumstances may have diminished their moral responsibility with respect to the observed moral object with the result that guilt is subsequently dimin- ished. Whether it has been diminished to zero or to very low levels to allow Communion to take place is ultimately the question that has to be settled in the counselling experience, keeping oneself before God. Nobody can answer this question but the individuals concerned after seeking their accompaniment and discernment and who may throw themselves ultimately on His mercy.

In Martin Scorsese’s film Silence, based on the novel by Shusaku Endo, one thinks about the silence of God who accompanied believers in adversity during the Japanese inquisition and martyrdom of Catholics. The part that really impressed me in this film was where the Japanese inquisitor’s interpreter tells the inquisitor that the individual Jesuit priest concerned would quickly fall for their conceived plans of arranging his apostasy, as he was a proud and arrogant man! There is a lesson for us all here. Many may question this new pastoral teaching, some will proudly and arrogantly counter it thinking that they will be doing God a favour. Doing this with a certain disrespect for the Pope and Bishops who formulated and promulgated this teaching would be arrogant, rigid and proud, confusing people in the process and sowing discord and division in the Church with the result that they could be preparing their way for a heavier fall than the purported failures of those they criticize. It may be that before the over arching mercy of an infinitely loving God, it would be better to be silent and accept things as they really are, a continued developed teaching of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church which has been properly and officially constructed and promulgated.

The theologian Francis Schaeffer states that God has essentially revealed to us the truth necessary for our salvation, and that truth does not change. It would be presumptuous of us to hold that this truth is all the complete truth to be found especially when deducing aspects of the truth not from revealed sources but from natural and rational observation i.e. the properly construed natural sciences and social sciences! Previous incomplete knowledge of a deduced aspect of truth as we observed it may become accessible to us with time, in which case the known level of truth may have to be adjourned and added to. This is the normal way that the teaching of the Church develops or evolves. Not in the sense that truth itself evolves or changes, but in the sense that we get to know more of the part of truth that we did not yet know of! The redemption of mankind by God is also carried out through our co-operation in the discovery of more truths accessible by our rationality!