March 2023 Print

By Fr. Jonathan Loop, SSPX

Only a few months after his election to the papacy, Pope Francis gave an unscripted interview to multiple journalists while on a flight to Rome. When asked his opinion about a priest who was reputed to be a homosexual, he responded: “if a person is ‘gay’ and searches the Lord with a good will, who am I to judge him?”¹ This short phrase was widely reported, causing delight to enemies of the Church and consternation to the faithful. Nearly 10 years later, he has returned to the theme by saying in an interview with the Associated Press that homosexuality is not a crime, even if a sin. He reiterated this point in a letter written to Fr James Martin, SJ, the director of Outreach:

When I said it is a sin, I was simply referring to Catholic moral teaching, which says that every sexual act outside of marriage is a sin. Of course, one must also consider the circumstances, which may decrease or eliminate fault. As you can see, I was repeating something in general. I should have said “It is a sin, as is any sexual act outside of marriage.” This is to speak of “the matter” of sin, but we know well that Catholic morality not only takes into consideration the matter, but also evaluates freedom and intention; and this, for every kind of sin. And I would tell whoever wants to criminalize homosexuality that they are wrong.²

On the one hand, these statements of the Holy Father, coming nearly a decade apart, indicate he does not consider homosexuality a serious problem. While it may be sinful to commit homosexual acts outside of marriage³, being “gay” is not. Thus it seems the Holy Father views laws criminalizing homosexuality (laws manifestly meant to protect the traditional family) to be “exclusive” to homosexuals, making them more offensive than homosexuality itself.⁴

On the other hand, he seems to imply that he could not make an objective judgment of the moral rightness or wrongness of homosexuality. What the pope says–and, more importantly, what he did not say–leaves open the possibility that one would have to judge the rightness or wrongness of homosexuality based on the concrete circumstances in which the person found himself. Some of these circumstances might even serve to “eliminate fault.” In a way, the Pope seems to make his own a version of “situation ethics,” which undermines the traditional and objective clarity of moral theology. This ambiguity has created much confusion in the Church; furthermore, it has reappeared on multiple occasions during the course of the Holy Father’s pontificate, most notably on the question of divorced and “remarried” Catholics in his Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia. We shall therefore see that the Holy Father does in some measure make use of situational ethics in his teachings. Furthermore, we will consider the traditional teaching of moral theology which should guide our judgments in this matter.

Where then does the Holy Father stand? If we consider briefly his Apostolic Exhortation, we can see that he favors–at least when it deals with issues pertaining to marriage and the family–some form of situation ethics. By “situation ethics” we mean that the value of a man’s moral action depends entirely on the circumstances in which he finds himself, and which he alone is competent to judge. There may be certain moral ideals of right and wrong, but their worth and application is tied to the situation in which a man finds himself. As a result, different men in different circumstances may choose to do the exact opposite, and yet both act “morally.”⁵

The Pope of Situational Awareness

Now, how can we see this in Amoris Laetitia? The stated purpose of the Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, which the Holy Father wrote to summarize and comment upon the Synod on the Family held in late 2014, is to “promote love within the family in the context of the modern world.” There are many elements of the document which reflect–to a greater or lesser degree–traditional teachings regarding marriage.

At the same time, the Holy Father emphasizes throughout the document the need for mercy and understanding of those who do not live up to these teachings, as well as the changed circumstances of the world which render fidelity to those teachings more difficult. We can reasonably say that the Pope sees himself as reacting against a spirit of “legalism” where the law becomes an end in itself, a legalism exhibited by the Pharisees whom Our Lord severely rebuked in such words as “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”⁶ In this way, from the Pope’s perspective, the law ceases to serve a higher purpose (for example, human happiness) and becomes a tool to tyrannize over people.

He therefore writes in Amoris Laetitia:

In such difficult situations of need, the Church must be particularly concerned to offer understanding, comfort and acceptance, rather than imposing straightaway a set of rules that only lead people to feel judged and abandoned by the very Mother called to show them God’s mercy. Rather than offering the healing power of grace and the light of the Gospel message, some would “indoctrinate” that message, turning it into “dead stones to be hurled at others.”

In other words, insisting that people make efforts to avoid sinful behavior is to “indoctrinate” the Gospel and make it an instrument with which to stone them. In the Holy Father’s mind, this is directly contrary to “love and mercy” which require one to be “understanding” of the sinful situations into which people may have placed themselves. It would seem he has in mind the Pharisees who wanted to stone the woman caught in adultery. They clearly did not care about the woman, merely wishing to use her transgression as a weapon to wound Our Lord. Later in the document, Pope Francis writes:

For this reason, a pastor cannot feel that it is enough simply to apply moral laws to those living in “irregular” situations, as if they were stones to throw at people’s lives. This would bespeak the closed heart of one used to hiding behind the Church’s teachings, “sitting on the chair of Moses and judging at times with superiority and superficiality difficult cases and wounded families.”⁷

How does one avoid “judging with superiority and superficiality”? Though the Pope never uses the term, he does indeed advocate for a kind of “situation ethics.” Rules of morality and justice are subject to change according to the needs of men in particular cases. This can arise because one views the highest priority to be the individual and his personal conscience. If a man believes he must act in a certain way, his conscience is necessarily correct. Thus, we are not surprised to read in Amoris Laetitia:

The degree of responsibility is not equal in all cases and factors may exist which limit the ability to make a decision. Therefore, while clearly stating the Church’s teaching, pastors are to avoid judgments that do not take into account the complexity of various situations, and they are to be attentive, by necessity, to how people experience and endure distress because of their condition.”⁸

While it is true that circumstances may diminish culpability in certain instances, they cannot change the intrinsic nature of an action, which is rooted in the nature of man or in the divine law. Pope Francis appears to reiterate this basic point, but at the same time he makes statements such as this:

Hence it is can no longer simply be said that all those in any “irregular” situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace. More is involved here than mere ignorance of the rule. A subject may know full well the rule, yet have great difficulty in understanding “its inherent values,” or be in a concrete situation which does not allow him or her to act differently and decide otherwise without further sin.⁹

In other words, a man may know that the Church’s teaching does not allow intimate relations outside of a true marriage, but reject it. We are speaking of something much more than invincible ignorance, where a person unknowingly and in good faith (i.e., he does not suspect he may be acting incorrectly) acts contrary to the natural or divine law. This rejection can very well be an act of his conscience, which he must follow. Thus, he cannot “act differently… without further sin.” The Holy Father writes two paragraphs later:

Recognizing the influence of such concrete factors, we can add that individual conscience needs to be better incorporated into the Church’s praxis in certain situations which do not objectively embody our understanding of marriage… Yet conscience can do more than recognize that a given situation does not correspond objectively to the overall demands of the Gospel. It can also recognize with sincerity and honesty what for now is the most generous response which can be given to God, and come to see with a certain moral security that it is what God himself is asking amid the concrete complexity of one’s limits, while yet not fully the objective ideal.¹⁰

This individual conscience rejecting the teaching of the Church must somehow be “incorporated” into the Church’s praxis, or way of judging and handling concrete situations. So, when somebody is living in a state of sin¹¹ but judges that the most “generous response” they can give to God is to, for example, remain loyal to their adulterous partner, they can be morally certain this is what God asks of them in this situation, even if it is not ideal.

It should be noted that an ideal is a goal which one should strive for, but is not properly an obligation. In this light, it is interesting to note that in the footnote 329 of Amoris Laetitia the Holy Father writes: “In such situations, many people, knowing and accepting the possibility of living “as brothers and sisters” which the Church offers them, point out that if certain expressions of intimacy are lacking, ‘it often happens that faithfulness is endangered and the good of the children suffers.’” So, to ensure “faithfulness”—to a person to whom one is not married—one can show expressions of intimacy with the moral conviction this is not only not wrong, but actually what God is asking. But clearly God cannot be asking us to go against God’s law in order to sinfully pursue a human good.

The Holy Father further seems to believe that laws need to be adjusted to reflect the norms of different cultures at different times. In a letter to an atheist Italian journalist named Eugenio Scalfari, the Holy Father wrote:

To start, I would not speak about, not even for those who believe, an “absolute” truth, in the sense that absolute is something detached, something lacking any relationship. Now, the truth is a relationship! This is so true that each of us sees the truth and expresses it, starting from oneself: from one’s history and culture, from the situation in which one lives, etc. This does not mean that the truth is variable and subjective. It means that it is given to us only as a way and a life. Was it not Jesus himself who said: “I am the way, the truth, the life”? In other words, the truth is one with love, it requires humbleness and the willingness to be sought, listened to and expressed.¹²

In other words, the truth—especially in practical and moral matters—is not the expression of unchanging principles independent of time, place, and cultural milieu. The truth is different for different peoples while remaining accessible by everyone, but necessarily in the light of the culture in which they have grown. The principle of unity is an ambiguous and ill-defined “love.”

We can perceive this spirit in this quote from Amoris Laetitia: “Faithful to Christ’s teaching we look to the reality of the family today in all its complexity, with both its lights and shadows… Anthropological and cultural changes in our times influence all aspects of life and call for an analytic and diversified approach.” One cannot simply apply moral norms universally and objectively without considering the situations in which people find themselves, their experiences, and weaknesses.

Thus, it is noteworthy that a large portion of the first section of Amoris Laetitia is dedicated to laying out the changing cultural attitudes of the modern world. These are presented as challenges facing traditional marriage which must be taken into account and may require the Church to adjust her moral teaching accordingly. It is no surprise that the Dutch bishops who published their scandalous “Rite for the Blessing of Same-Sex Couples” explicitly refer to the teaching of Amoris Laetitia to justify their efforts to “welcome” such men and women.

We can state therefore that Pope Francis does, in some manner, argue that there are some stable moral norms. For example, he does write in Amoris Laetitia:

It is one thing to be understanding of human weakness and the complexities of life, and another to accept ideologies that attempt to sunder what are inseparable aspects of reality. Let us not fall into the sin of trying to replace the Creator. We are creatures, and not omnipotent. Creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift. At the same time, we are called to protect our humanity, and this means, in the first place, accepting it and respecting it as it was created.¹³

So, being a creature means we must accept what is intrinsically connected with our nature. However, these moral norms are not so much “obligations” as ideals which are ever to be aspired to, even if never fully attained. As a result, when men judge—either through conviction or weakness—they cannot abide by them, they can reject them in good conscience and act accordingly, with the understanding that “this is what God is asking of them.” No one has the right to condemn them in these cases, even if it is still licit to present the “ideals” and invite men to embrace them. Thus, the Holy Father radically undermines the act of fraternal correction and lays the groundwork for anyone to reject Catholic moral teaching whenever it suits them.

A Traditional Response

How might we respond? Perhaps the clearest presentation of the traditional teaching may be found in the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas. Effectively, he teaches in the Treatise on Law¹⁴ that there is a “natural law”; i.e., certain foundational principles of good and harmful behavior that flow from man’s very nature (for example, “do good and avoid evil”). These remain the rules of human conduct regardless of the situations in which men may find themselves. Men by their reason devise certain “secondary” rules which are generally needed in order to attain the primary goals of the natural law. A well-formed conscience will be guided by these principles, applying them to the concrete situations of daily life. A man whose judgment contradicts these principles of the natural law has an erroneous conscience, and it is a work of charity to correct him as far as possible.

The secondary precepts are actions and behaviors that help men fulfill the primary precepts of the natural law. St. Thomas notes that these secondary precepts are conclusions of reason, reflecting on what is needed to attain the primary precepts. Furthermore, they deal with the specific cases in which men may find themselves.¹⁵ For these reasons, they are true in the majority of cases, but they may on occasion admit of exception or even alteration. However, the primary precepts that underlie them remain unchanged.

St. Thomas also speaks of the Divine Law, which presupposes the natural law, but which elevates it to a higher end. Thus, the sacrament of marriage presupposes the natural bond whose purpose is to assure the “preservation of the human race.” However, the sacrament prepares the man and woman to cooperate with the grace of God to lead the children entrusted to them by God to eternal life, something the natural law could never accomplish. Here too, St. Thomas notes that there is a similar relation of primary precepts and what could be called secondary precepts.¹⁶

The essence of the New Law is the life of grace, and there flows from this certain works, some of which are necessary to maintain the life of grace, while others are intrinsically opposed to the life of grace. He gives the example of the profession of Faith, which is necessary, and the denial of Faith, which is intrinsically opposed. We can reasonably say that those actions contrary to the stability of the sacrament of marriage are intrinsically opposed to the New Law and can never be sanctioned. No amount of so-called “mercy” can change this fundamental reality.

This teaching of St. Thomas is admirably repeated by Pope Pius XII, precisely when he had to deal with people who were agitating to replace the Church’s traditional moral theology—especially with respect to marriage—during his pontificate. For example, he said in a radio address:

[…] The ‘new morality’ affirms that the Church, instead of fostering the law of human liberty and of love, and of demanding of you that dynamics which is worthy of the moral life, instead bases itself almost exclusively and with excessive rigidity, on the firmness and the intransigence of Christian moral laws, frequently resorting to the terms ‘you are obliged,’ ‘it is not licit,’ which has too much of an air of a degrading pedantry… Taking, therefore, the words of Christ and of the Apostle as the strict rule, should not one say that the Church of today is rather inclined more to indulgence than to severity? It so happens that the accusation of oppressive rigidity made against the Church by the ‘new morality,’ in reality, attacks, in the first place, the adorable Person of Christ Himself.”¹⁷

To conclude, therefore, we can say that the situation ethics which is given credence by Pope Francis and seen very clearly in Amoris Laetitia is fundamentally opposed to the sure and traditional moral teaching of the Church. True mercy does not consist in confirming people in sin. The prophet Isaias warns against such a false mercy: “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil: that put darkness for light, and light for darkness: that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.” The Church placed this warning in her Ritual for the consecration of bishops, reminding them of their grave duty to communicate faithfully the truths and commandments which Our Lord entrusted to the Church, never hiding them merely because they were unpopular or even hard for men to accept.

So, the princes of the Church and the Vicar of Christ must especially make clear and precise moral judgments. This is not to imitate the Pharisees and to use doctrine as “stones” to hurl at sinners. Rather, it is the highest form of charity to help men see what separates them from God and to encourage them to convert. After Our Lord saves the poor adulteress from the bitter zeal of the Pharisees, He does not tell her to continue acting according to her conscience, but rather to “sin no more.”

Endnotes

¹ Quoted from an article published by Fr. James Martin, SJ on the American Magazine website on July 29, 2013. Accessed January 26, 2023. https://www.americamagazine.org/content/all-things/pope-gays-who-am-i-judge

² Handwritten letter dated January 27, 2023. Translated and published on Outreach.com. Accessed on January 28. https://outreach.faith/2023/01/pope-francis-clarifies-comments-on-homosexuality-one-must-consider-the-circumstances/

³ See an article on Lifesitenews.com written by Jeanne Smits written on September 20, 2022. Accessed January 31, 2023].

⁴ The Holy Father fails to note that countries which still legislate on the subject (mainly in Africa and in the Middle East) do not criminalize the “tendency” to homosexuality, but homosexual behavior. What might his judgment be on the so-called “Don’t Say ‘Gay’” Law in Florida, which forbids exposing children in grades K-3 to any kind of sex education or “gender identity”? Is this “criminalizing” homosexuality, and therefore wrong?

⁵ The article at Wikipedia on “situational ethics” offers some interesting insight into the origin of the moral theory.

⁶ St. Mark 2:27.

⁷ AL #305

⁸ AL #79

⁹ AL #301

¹⁰ AL #303. This paragraph is explicitly cited by the bishops of Flanders in their document published on September 20, 2022 explaining the “rite of blessing” for homosexual union.

¹¹ Here, by “state of sin” is not meant merely having committed a mortal sin. Rather, it is meant a living habitually in a near occasion of sin. For example, a man who was validly married in the Church but subsequently got a divorce and re-married civilly is in a state of sin by living with his adulterous partner.

12 Letter dated 4 September 2013. Available at: https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/letters/2013/documents/papa-francesco_20130911_eugenio-scalfari.html. Accessed 28 January 2023.

¹³ AL #56

¹⁴ This is a section of the Summa found in the Prima Secundae, beginning at Q90 and continuing to Q108, covering law in general, the natural law, human law, and the divine law (Old and New Law).

¹⁵ Ia-IIae Q94 Art 4. Pope Francis quotes this passage in his most controversial section of Amoris Laetitiae, but we should note that he gives it a sense far different than St. Thomas would have intended.

¹⁶ Ia-IIae Q108, Article 1.

¹⁷ Pope Pius XII, “La famiglia.” Radio Message on the Occasion of ‘Family Day,’ March 23, 1952

Picture Sources

TITLE IMAGES: sspx.org

POPE FRANCIS: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pope_Francis_Korea_Haemi_Castle_19.jpg (Korea.net / Korean Culture and Information Service | Jeon Han)

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saint_Joseph’Catholic_Church_(Central_City,_Kentucky)_-_stained_glass,_St._Thomas_Aquinas,_detail.jpg (Nheyob)