Last week, I went to confession at a shrine near me, which I will not name. It was one of those infuriating confessions in which you try to convince the priest that what you are confessing, though not in the “mortal sin” category, is still sinful. He was polite, gentle, and meant well, I think. But his overall message was completely therapeutic, without the slightest indication that he even believed in the concept of sin (short of murder or piracy on papal waters).
Everything he said to me was geared toward making sure I understood that all of the circumstances surrounding my actions were utterly reducible to rather typical psychological factors that so mitigated my guilt as to make my entire confession seem like an exercise in runaway scrupulosity. In the end, what he really seemed to want was to make me feel more guilty about coming to confession in the first place than about my actual sins.
Even if my confessional experience is not the norm, it is expressive in an almost cartoonish way of the entire approach to moral theology “from below” that so characterizes the overall project of the current papacy and of a certain kind of pastoral theology that has been deeply influential in the Church for these past 60 years. In short, even as I robustly affirm that Pope Francis is not a heretic, I also affirm that he has put forward a model of pastoral practice that is overly horizontalist, psychologistic, and strangely lacking in any strong mystagogical orientation to the supernatural realm of grace.
This papacy, in other words, is my confessional experience writ large.
The subjective over the objective
In the grand interplay between the various components that go into the making of a moral act there are always objective and subjective considerations as part of the equation. While the tradition has always emphasized the objective pole as the proper starting point, Pope Francis and his allies have tended to treat that objective orientation as somehow expressive of a certain pastoral heartlessness and rigidity which must now be counteracted by a reforming of moral theology “from below.” And it will be guided less by theological “doctrines” and more by the psychological and sociological sciences. These disciplines, they say, can embellish and deepen our understanding of the subjective pole and make for a less pastorally rigid approach to real human beings in the full, existential reality of their concrete situations. Once situated, the subjective pole of human moral action should then become a far more determinative starting point than ever before.
Notice, for example, how Cardinal Fernandez in Fiducia Supplicans (FS) justifies his novel development of the notion of completely non-sacramental sacramentals, wherein priestly blessings for homosexual couples who aren’t being blessed as couples but merely as individuals presenting themselves as a couple, are now allowed: “The Church, moreover, must shy away from resting its pastoral praxis on the fixed nature of certain doctrinal or disciplinary schemes” (25). There is a sense here, and throughout FS, of placing the Church’s moral doctrine against concrete pastoral practice, with the former being viewed as a kind of elitist form of “control” (e.g. doctrines as “schemes”). There is the constant tendency of turning commandments into mere “ideals”’ which, when actually treated as commandments, are dismissed as a form of theological “ideology” that is “backward”-looking in its orientation.
This is always the net result of moral theologies “from below,” which inevitably degenerate into experiments in incrementalism. The experiential tale begins to wag the ecclesial dog to such an extent that sexual behaviors once deemed objectively sinful in all circumstances regardless of motives, are transformed ultimately into virtues that are then promoted as genuine Gospel values.
The process by now is a shopworn one and is standard fare in the progressive playbook. Actions once deemed immoral are at first tolerated on “pastoral grounds of mercy”; then mainstreamed as “pelvic issues we have exaggerated too much and which are no big deal really”; then universally accepted, as the behavior comes to be viewed as “normal” and merely an expression of the goods associated with the pluriformity of human sexuality; then embraced as “actually containing many good and wholesome features”; and finally promoted as a moral good on a par with all other moral goods and without sinful taint of any kind.
Thus ends the grand reversal of values wherein the Church’s traditional moral teaching eventually comes to be seen as a villain to be overcome. And only those nasty “backwardists” will oppose this reversal and will be characterized as toothless, knuckle-dragging, backwater, ecclesial moonshiners.
By contrast, in traditional Catholic moral theology the key components for judging the quality of a moral act are the object of the act (what is being done), the intention (the deliberate willing of the object), the motive (why is it being done), and the various circumstances surrounding the act, which would include the subjective psychological state of the choosing person and all potentially mitigating factors.
Traditionally, the “object” was always given the highest priority in moral analysis since it is the single most important factor in determining exactly “what” is being chosen in the act. Pope John Paul, in line with Thomas Aquinas, states this clearly in Veritatis Splendor: “The morality of the human act depends primarily and fundamentally on the ‘object’ rationally chosen by the deliberate will”. Therefore, John Paul concludes that, “as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, ‘there are certain specific kinds of behaviour that are always wrong to choose, because choosing them involves a disorder of the will, that is, a moral evil’” (#78).
Of course, Pope John Paul also takes into consideration the pastoral law of gradualism (Familiaris Consortio, 9) where those on the path of sanctification are treated with a delicate compassion and a boundless reservoir of forgiveness. But this is different from a “gradualism of the law” in which absolute negative moral norms are turned into mere “ideals” that we all approximate in various flawed ways and which, given my unique “circumstances”, may not bind me in any way at all. This kind of gradualism is explicitly disallowed by John Paul:
They cannot however look on the law as merely an ideal to be achieved in the future: they must consider it as a command of Christ the Lord to overcome difficulties with constancy. ‘And so what is known as ‘the law of gradualness’ or step-by-step advance cannot be identified with ‘gradualness of the law,’ as if there were different degrees or forms of precept in God’s law for different individuals and situations. (Familiaris Consortio, 34)
It is possible, I suppose, to make the case that nothing Pope Francis has taught contradicts directly or explicitly these more traditional aspects of moral theology. However, there is no denying that the overall tonality and ethos of this papacy is closer to that priest in my confession than it is to the theological thought of John Paul II and Aquinas. There might be a literal continuity according to the strict meanings of words, but the connotative aspects of this papacy are in the direction of a horizonatalist pastoral practice that not only ignores, but actively works against, a view of human life fundamentally open in deeply radical and constitutive ways to the movements of supernatural grace. There is little emphasis upon the real mystical elements of the faith, the reality of the transformative power of supernatural agency in our lives, and the nature of true discipleship as a call to “come up higher” via the path of self-renunciation. All the talk is instead about “mitigating factors” and “complex concrete circumstances” and of “God blessing me where I am right now without any judgment”.
Gift, not grift
Pope Francis has often said that the Church is like a field hospital. I really like that. However, a field hospital, as I have said before, is still a hospital and not a hospice. It is to be a place where our sins are healed from within using curative medicines, and not merely covered over superficially with bandages. Or, worse, judged to be no illnesses at all, with the patient declared a self-loathing hypochondriac who has imbibed the ideology of his oppressor and sent on his way with a meaningless 10-15 second blessing and a boutique shop book on self-acceptance.
The approach adopted is minimalist and overly avuncular, ignoring the fact that in the spiritual domain people come to the Church not only seeking comfort and compassion, but also inspiration via a positive proposal of Christological regeneration through the kenotic gift of self to others. People in need and distress can find comfort and compassion in many venues outside of the Church. But they come to the Church seeking something more—and that something more is the life of Christ crucified and risen. They do not seek the soothing dulcet tones of an Oprah Winfrey or a Dr. Phil. They can get that for free on TV and on the internet.
They are seeking a way out of their existential messes, and not a blessing of the mess as “the best you can offer to God right now.” What they seek are spiritual vocations and not latitudinarian vacations. And the missional vocations they seek are those, not of personal gain, but also of personal loss, where the gift of self for the sake of the Kingdom is the greatest gain of all.
Gift, not grift, is what they seek. But the endlessly “kind” Church that pits mercy against truth is a grift of the highest order. It is a counterfeit simulacrum of the Gospel which paints a false picture of Jesus as a moral antinomian who apparently, when reaching out to those on the margins, was endlessly kind but never challenged them to repentance. C.S. Lewis summed this approach up nicely in his book The Problem of Pain (1940), when he pointed out that the God of a kindness divorced from goodness is a false one: “We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven – a senile benevolence who, as they say, ‘liked to see young people enjoying themselves.’” He goes on to point out that kindness divorced from moral goodness is actually a veiled form of contempt:
Kindness, merely as such, cares not whether its object becomes good or bad, provided only that it escapes suffering. … It is for people whom we care nothing about that we demand happiness on any terms. … If God is Love, He is, by definition, something more than kindness. … He has never regarded us with contempt. He has paid us the intolerable compliment of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable sense.
Puncturing the immanent frame
I am reminded as well of the analysis of Charles Taylor in his magisterial tome A Secular Age (2007), wherein he argues that modernity is characterized by the construction of modern selves who are “buffered” against the intrusions of mystical, transcendent, supernatural elements into our psyches. Previous to modernity, human beings viewed themselves as more “porous” and open to being deeply influenced and transformed by supernatural agents. But with the rise of modern science and purely naturalistic and reductionistic explanations for the entire nexus of reality, including the human reality, it is no longer possible to view our lives as existing in relation to anything outside of this purely “immanent frame” of our experience.
What this argues for is a pastoral approach to modern, alienated persons that emphasizes the true power of supernatural regeneration in order to puncture the balloon of this immanent frame. In other words, now is not the time to back away from the strong supernatural claims of the Church but, instead, to double down on them with extreme prejudice. There is a reason that fantasy tales like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings became so popular in our time. It is because we seek a re-enchantment of our lives. We are seeking magic again in a world dominated by the nihilism of the culture of digital techne. We seek some version of the “Benedict Option” and not modernity’s “Bonobo Option” where the social order is maintained via a series of manipulative sexual relationships.
One does not have to buy completely into Max Weber’s disenchantment thesis concerning modernity to see that there is a critical truth at play here. We seek God. And we seek him passionately. But modernity short-circuits that quest and fills the void with destructive, enslaving, and illusory idolatries.
And right at the very moment when the world is most ripe for a Christological re-enchantment, we get a rebarbative Church of psycho-blathering bromides about “listening” and “parrhesia” and “openness”, but all on a purely horizonatalist plateau and all safely within the immanent frame. Say what you will about traditional moral theology and its emphasis upon the object of the acting person’s choosing, at the very least it begins and ends with a fulsome, even prodigal, affirmation that we are more than pieces of thinking meat. That kind of traditional moral theology fits well within an enchanted world of supernatural connections.
The new moral theologies “from below” fit well into the world of buffered selves. And buffered selves showered with non-liturgical priestly blessings are still buffered, and thus still bewildered, sans a deeper supernatural challenge.
I think that matters.
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“…right at the very moment when the world is most ripe for a Christological re-enchantment, we get a rebarbative Church of psycho-blathering bromides about ‘listening’ and ‘parrhesia’ and ‘openness’…”
You’ve got it, Larry. “Rebarbative” is right.
The Jesuitical Argentine is doing his best to turn the Church’s ancient teachings on sexual morality into a Ted Talk on becoming your own best friend.
Let’s us bear in mind that in Confession, we are confessing to God, through the priest.
Well done, as usual, Dr. Chapp.
Just one quibble. “ripe for a Christological-re-enchantment.” I think it is the soul’s aching to know and love “the Way, the Truth and the Life” that Jesus Christ alone is. It’s not an academic pursuit as “Christological” suggests, but a desperate yearning for salvation in the face of nihilism. And, no, our pope, most bishops and the vast majority of priests (of which I am one) haven’t a clue.
The late Fr. Paul Mankowski, in a letter to the Rev. James Martin, began by posing this question: “Is sodomy a sin?”
It seems that Jesus was very concerned that we “sin no more.” The stakes are high.
Fornication is a deadly sin, that requires those of us who have committed fornication to recognize and feel remorse, and seek forgiveness from God and reconciliation with God, for the injustice we have done to God who created our bodies, the injustice, abuse and harm to the other who has committed this sin with us, and to ourselves who have willfully abused the gift of our own body, and the body of another person made in the image of God.
Likewise, sodomy is a deadly sin, and requires the same recognition, remorse and reconciliation with God.
The Pontiff Francis has publicly stated to priests that priests cannot refuse absolution for a person who does not intend amend their lives and cease sinning. It is a very safe starting assumption that the Pontiff Francis was sending a message to absolve people who don’t repent of sexual sins, because we understand that the Pontiff Francis and his circle, men such as the Eminence Hollerich, and the Eminence McElroy, the Eminence Fernandez, etc, etc, are very focused on “finessing” the “queering of the Church,” an objective of the highest order for their careers.
Which recalls the warning of St. Paul: “If for this life only we have hoped in God, we are, of all men, most to be pitied.”
Right on. In some ways I am glad I was raised as a Protestant before I became a Catholic. I was taught to believe the bible and especially the teachings of Jesus. Some in the Church seem to have forgotten that Jesus is God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity especially in matters sexuality, marriage and the family. I suspect that bishops and priests who actually support same sex “marriages” may be in mortal sin, especially in their lack of charity in not helping the deceived in marriage and the family to change their lives according to teachins of Jesus.
Chris what you allude to, as you and others are likely aware, is an admonition His Holiness made to Spanish seminarians approx a year past. We cannot absolve sins that are not confessed, and sins for which the penitent refuses to repent. “It’s been widely reported that Pope Francis told seminarians from Barcelona, Spain, in an unscripted talk, that they must not ‘be clerical, to forgive everything.’ Such must be the case even ‘if we see that there is no intention to repent, we must forgive all.’ In denying ‘absolution’ to someone who is unrepentant, ‘we become a vehicle for an evil, unjust, and moralistic judgment.’ Priests who withhold absolution to the unrepentant are ‘delinquents.’ At one point, Francis referred to such priests, whom he finds detestable, in a crude and obscene manner” (Fr Thomas Weinandy OFM Cap in TCT 1 . 25 . 23).
Fr Weinandy goes on to say, “God’s merciful forgiveness is ever-present within the sacrament of Reconciliation, and the priest is ever-willing to absolve sins, most of all, mortal sins. Yet, it is sacramentally impossible to obtain God’s loving and merciful forgiveness, if one is not repentant for the sins committed”. The Code of Canon Law Can. 987. “To receive the salvific remedy of the sacrament of penance, a member of the Christian faithful must be disposed in such a way that, rejecting sins committed and having a purpose of amendment, the person is turned back to God”. For Pope Francis to have allegedly said as quoted by Fr Weinandy apparently meets the standard of heresy. Although he would be required to repeat this error obstinately. As you infer, the enormous damage has already been perpetrated. It’s statements like this coming from a Roman Pontiff that place many in jeopardy of their salvation.
“Is sodomy a sin ?”
Yes, regardless of the actors or the actor’s desires, it is a sin . Any act that denies the Sanctity and Dignity of human life from the moment of conception, is a sin, and thus devoid of Love.
The desire to engage in a demeaning act of any nature does not change the nature of the demeaning act. Acts that demean the inherent Dignity of the human person
as a beloved son or daughter are physically, psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually harmful and can never be reconciled with Christ, because they are sinful and devoid of Love.
You cannot be respecting the inherent Dignity of any beloved son or daughter of a human person while denying the Sanctity and Sacrednss of human life.
The Bergoglian/Tuch model of pastoral moral theology has been hugely successful. Evidence? Practically no one goes to Confession anymore. Sin has been rendered obsolete and Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross rendered superfluous.
Dr. Chapp: with regard to your experiences in Confession, I have had one persistent question in my mind since the breaking open of the clergy homosexual crisis almost 25 years ago. It is this: How often do our priests and bishops receive the Sacrament of Penance themselves? And, a related question: How many priests and bishops have a single, dedicated confessor. That, in itself, would be something worthy of synodal study. Would you want to receive services from a doctor who didn’t him/herself have a primary care physician whom s/he consulted on a regular basis?
Priests need to be wary of how they approach Confession. There are a series of church bulletin articles by Fr. Edwin Palka, of the Ephiphany of our Lord Catholic Church in Tampa, Florida about why good priests don’t turn in bad priests. One of the articles is:
*
https://epiphanytampa.weebly.com/pastors-bulletin-article/why-dont-the-priests-blow-the-whistle
*
He said the the active homosexual clergy can engage in entrapment to neutralize the faithful clergy. Some of it involves the use of the confessional. There are more articles on this topic in the August 2018 archive.
News Flash for Synodalists! The primary mission of the Church is to BE what it IS…
At the 20-year pulse-check for the Second Vatican Council (the 1985 Extraordinary Synod of Bishops), it was stressed, again, that the Church is both institutional and charismatic, e.g., “We cannot replace a false unilateral vision of the Church as purely hierarchical with a new sociological conception which is also unilateral” (Final Report, n. 3).
Rather than synodally congregational, the Church founded by Jesus Christ is Eucharistic, that is, assembled by the Real Presence in the Eucharist (CCC 1374). This fact says something permanent about the Apostolic Succession (and about the priesthood as extensions of the bishops), something categorically more than bishops functioning synodally “primarily as facilitators.” In what is becoming a global experiment in “pastoral” and moral Latitudinarianism (the 17th-century Anglican drift that seeped into America in the 19th Century, and was condemned by Pope Pius IX in Quanta cura)?
A bad “sign of the times,” that in 2024 bishops around the world are now herded (not heard, but “listening”!) into yet another roundtable synod. This during the Lenten season (!), and distracted by the “structure, organization, and leadership” of a unilaterally marginalized Catholic Church.
We ARE what we DO…
The ghostwritten and enabling Evangelii Gaudium (2013)–“time is greater than space” becomes gradualism “from below”—and begins to harmonize with primitive symbolism depicting a serpent swallowing his own tail. Today, in our prideful times, a modern video depicts a rattlesnake’s severed head sinking its fangs into its decapitated and exclusively sociological (?) self… (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH7sBRN0lUY).
As only partly a QUESTION of institutional architecture, what does it mean for the Eucharistic (one, holy, catholic and apostolic) Church to be both institutional and charismatic?
“This papacy, in other words, is my confessional experience writ large“
The problem is we can’t critically evaluate your claim because we don’t know what you confessed, nor what the priest actually said. We have only to trust your evaluation.
Well, and we can only doubt Chapp’s testimony based on your armchair doubt.
Fair enough, but Chapp is hardly the first to notice the erasure of sin, something like some confessors reducing themselves to the therapeutic smile of the Cheshire Cat, and with the rest of the cat the reality of sin) erased.
Thinking about this ecumenically (!), we call up Dr. Carl Menninger (1893-1990), licensed psychiatrist and devout Presbyterian, who wrote of this sort of sin and psychiatry in his “What ever became of Sin?” (1973). He explains that psychologists are “wicked men” when they erase the sense of sin, but that they can help with a possibly “false sense of sin.” https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,814717,00.html
About giving absolution to those who are not penitent (a retraction, less noticed, was issued by the Vatican), yours truly is fancifully reminded of one Hung Hsui-ch’uan, leader of the Chinese Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864). Poorly and only partly evangelized by a prominent Protestant missionary, Issachar J. Roberts, he chose to imagine himself as the younger brother of Jesus Christ.
Yea, verily, he baptized his troops with a fire hose. History record 20 million casualties due to both military action and widespread chaos. His movement against Peking (Beijing) eventually fell apart, partly because one of his generals went rogue, convinced that he himself was the Holy Spirit. (Helping to suppress the insurrection was the westerner, General “Chinese” Gordon, who later lost his head in Khartoum, Sudan.)
A real mess.
Thank you Larry. I’ve had to confess being a jerk to you, teasing your motives in print. My bad. Really! The good news in my case is that my sin was accepted and forgiven as such.
Speaking of sins, we want a Pope to confirm us in the practice of the Faith. Yet I have never understood why I need the Vicar of Christ to tell me some action is wrong when God has already done so in my conscience and His Sacred Word. When did it become Catholic to think that Christ is the Vicar of the Pope?
Holding out for objective truth, God’s peace to all.
P.S., Fr. Benedict Groeschel used to say “the Church is like a field hospital.” Two things about this.
1. Fr. Benedict put it this way”. “The Church is like a field hospital FOR SICK SINNERS.”
2. It is my understanding that he got this teaching from Dorothy Day herself.
A sinner has the privilege of breaking the seal with his own sins, so I’ll admit to having to deal with my anger problem, especially what seems like the gray area between innocent righteous anger and sinful sanctimonious imprudent anger. When I seek to deal with this with a confessor at times at length, I frequently get the dismissive therapeutic treatment to the point that it starts to make me angry at the confessor for his silly condescension wondering if I’m corrupting the intent of my confession. I agree with Larry Chapp 98 percent of the time, but then I wonder what good it does for the Church and my personal struggles to control anger to read his taking the position that the material heresy of Francis doesn’t exist.
Dr. Chapp states (correctly) that fantasy stories like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings have succeeded so well nowadays “because we seek a re-enchantment of our lives.” Perhaps bringing up the name might elicit skepticism if not ire in some, but I’ll take the risk and do so anyway: CG Jung stated years ago that ultimately every patient he had dealt with, particularly those over the age of 35, had fallen into a neurosis because he or she had lost a religious attitude toward life and that the patient’s healing had invariably involved reconnecting to that religious attitude. He also stated that among his patients, Catholics did not number large because of the sacrament of Confession. When the seriousness of one’s sins, however, is minimized (or worse, trivialized) by the very priest to whom one is confessing, as Dr. Chapp mentions at the beginning of the article and as has happened to me as well, one can only wonder how much the healing element of the sacrament is diminished. True, the confessional, as the current pontiff has stated, shouldn’t be a torture or interrogation chamber, but neither should it be a chapter out of “I’m Okay You’re Okay.”
You have delivered a powerful and honest message. I have felt that something was “off”. Thank you for this honest and strong essay. It will surely help me and others to be better in our Faith and closer to our Lord. God bless you, Dr. Chapp.
AMEN.
Is there any greater obstacle to our repentance and acceptance of Salvational Love, God’s Gift Of Grace And Mercy then denying sin is sin?
THAT was a great article. In the end Hebrews 11:6 (ESV)comes into play.
6 And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him. To seek a lesser consolation is not of Faith….and whatever is not of Faith is sin.
Some fine insights regarding FS, Fernandez, and the Pope, Dr. Chapp, but if you want to go to a worthwhile confession that is almost guaranteed to be such, seek out Bishop Strickland or Bishop Schneider or priests who properly admire and are guided by these and other faithful successors of the apostles.
Of course, you have already stated in writing that you do not care for the “brand” of Catholicism/Tradition practiced by these 2 bishops who do not measure up to your “brand” of Catholicism/Tradition, so you will likely have to accept more and more confessions with touchy-feely priests like the one you lament appearing before, and you can enjoy the consolation of ‘at least this priest is not in the Strickland or Schneider or similar camp that represents all 2000 years of the Church.’
Something Else to Consider: Both Bishop Strickland and Bishop Schneider have a negative/condemnatory opinion of Fiducia Supplicans that is quite similar to Dr. Chapp’s opinion. On the other hand, the kind of Bishop that Dr. Chapp finds himself to be more aligned with is Bishop Robert Barron, and Bishop Barron supports Fiducia Supplicans. Bishop Barron also supports the entire Synod on Synodality themes of reaching out to so-called oppressed and marginalized people, which is just hogwash.
“The Bergoglian/Tuch model of pastoral moral theology has been hugely successful. Evidence? Practically no one goes to Confession anymore.”
I’m no big fan of Francis, but the truth is that practically no one went to confession during the previous two papacies either. Francis can be blamed for some bad things, but not this phenomena. I don’t recall lines being longer then, in fact I have rarely seen “lines” at all.
‘Lines’ must be a phenomenon at those churches where the priests preach regularly and well about the Sacrament and sin– in many places, of course, we have ‘overcome’ such relics of the pre-conciliar night.
Our Parish has massive lines. If we have a problem, it’s our pious folk usi g the confessional for spiritual direction…And yes, the Pastors preach the full Gospel. Try one of these if your Parish is lacking:
https://reverentcatholicmass.com/
To some extent, confession is a “build it and they will come.” From my personal experience, make confession available and the penitents will appear. Both my actual parish and the other close one have reverent liturgies and orthodox preaching. But the latter has confession every day before the evening Mass and during the Sunday Masses so many people line up. My gigantic home parish offers only on Saturdays and therefore reaches many fewer people, both absolutely and proportionately. I’m trying to nudge our pastor on this policy.
I don’t approve of the practice, but on the matter of separating ashes, The Church used to allow bodies to be dismembered and buried in separate tombs. Let me tell you, the grave of a medieval French king’s intestines, topped by a statue of him holding up same, is a memorable sight. The coil of entrails could easily be mistaken for a giant Danish pastry.
Mark, please take note of what I was referring to: the MODEL OF PASTORAL MORAL THEOLOGY.
What I refer to as the Bergoglio/Tuch Model existed way before anyone even heard of Bergoglio. This model of pastoral moral theology began in the mid to late 1960’s with the Sexual Revolution. This model of permissive self-indulgent disregard of conventional morality has been growing since those days. Only difference is that Pope Bergoglio has codified it.
So true, it has been going on for a long time, I was received into the Church and was lucky to experience about two years of sound Catholic teachind and practice concerning confession – bu there was a steady downward spiral since then which I experienced not only here where I live but also in England, Ireland and Germany! The present Pope and I am tempted to call him henchman Tucho seem to be the end results of this development. I fail to understand how it is that these people cannot see that they are cheating us who go to confession of discovering and experiencing the real wrong of sin and also of its remedy. We don’t want comfort we want truth.
I think you are right. Confession of sin is a proof. Unmistakable.
“Thus ends the grand reversal of values wherein the Church’s traditional moral teaching eventually comes to be seen as a villain to be overcome.” What of its liturgical teaching? I understand that my comment here seems out of place, but I think it odd that FS (as gravely serious as it is) has completely swallowed up the Dicastery’s guidance permitting the separation of ashes of the deceased person contrary to Ad Resurgendum cum Christo. I have purposely waited nearly a month to see some significant Catholic commentary concerning this funerary change and a challenge from the bishops. In CWR, I have seen only a few CNA reports but no deep discussion of this (I apologize if I missed any of your commentary as I do wander). In truth, there has also been very little reflection on this in Catholic news outlets in general. How could something so vital to our understanding of a corporeal work of mercy go undisputed? Those who work in parishes have already felt the aftershocks, as the people now believe that the papacy has approved the keeping of ashes in the home. Dr. Chapp writes… “This is always the net result of moral theologies “from below,” which inevitably degenerate into experiments in incrementalism.” What of incremental liturgical modifications from below that also decompose Church doctrine? I have yet to hear of a request for a gay-couple blessing in the parish I work at (thank goodness and no thanks to Pope Francis) but separating and keeping the deceased remains at home is quite a topic here!
There are many who point to Vatican II, especially it’s implementation, as the bishops’ capitulation to immanence. I’m sorry for his sake that Dr. Chapp got the same type of confessor that I had growing up. However, if you live by Vatican II, you die by Vatican II. I am thankful that I don’t have to deal with as many of the consequences of crappy theology unmoored from coherent philosophy by clinging to tradition. However, I can’t help but repeat the ‘told ya so’ of those who Pope John XXIII called the “prophets of doom” who have been proven exactly correct and then some in front of our very eyes.
Yes it’s what has been frequently pointed out, that the understanding of sin has departed from what’s manifest, to psychological analysis of mitigating circumstances and an inflated concept of conscientious freedom.
That can be seen in Amoris Laetitia and the grounds His Holiness offers. One of his misinterpretations of Aquinas is in ST 1a2ae 94 4 Ad 1. Whether the natural law is the same in all men. Aquinas holds it is, except in instances accidently due to ignorance, or sin. Francis suggests it potentially fails in all.
Priests, perhaps most since the Sixties and particularly during this pontificate have decided to be psychoanalysts rather than confessors, which is why you were frustrated during confession. They convince penitents that if a sin is habitual it lessens culpability and even absolves it. As if habitual fornicators, adulterers don’t sin. This pontificate has made mitigation a category that dissolves responsibility for sin and neutralizes moral doctrine.
The kind of mitigation that is going on often looks like that of the Parable of the Dishonest Manager. Fixing tickets rather than fixing sinners.
There is another concept that has been treated like sin has been. For the most part the word temptation has been replaced by the word orientation.
True Greg. Our spontaneous, natural desires, called appetites by Aquinas are all good in themselves. We don’t sin when we have a normal sensual attraction to a married woman or any woman, except when we escalate it and consent to venereal pleasure. If as frequently occurs we experience an unwilled venereal desire, a temptation, and resist we gain merit. Lust is giving consent to that venereal desire [in marriage a man’s venereal desire for his wife is preceded by love and commitment to that woman]. What Aquinas calls a willed privation to a due end, which defines sin. The due end is the good of resisting lust. Purity is not absence of natural sensual attraction or desires. Purity is the refusal of lust, avarice, covetousness.
In short, even as I robustly affirm that Pope Francis is not a heretic, I also affirm that he has put forward a model of pastoral practice that is overly horizontalist, psychologistic, and strangely lacking in any strong mystagogical orientation to the supernatural realm of grace.
Denying the reality of sin and the efficacy of grace is heretical I’m thinking.
I will confess to everyone that when I get absolution I become both overjoyed and very distracted by it! I must seek for a counsel on this I think, it’s kind of irrational. I then do the penance but my thoughts never collect BETTER as I imagine they could. Here again I haven’t had the presence of mind to speak up on it and confide.
What’s the matter. You didn’t like my criticism of this author. I didn’t use curse words. I still think he’s beating on a dead horse and I still think he’s intelligently not so smart then if you didn’t like the word I used.
Mirabile dictu, turns out the principal author of Fiducia Supplicans is a guy who likes to write about sixteen year old girls having relations with Jesus. Who could have seen this coming?
… Archbishop Paglia
That’s what the pope is all about love.
Larry, I hope you’re getting paid to write columns like this one. For, in Heaven, there are no rewards for this sort of work.
The Church’s doctrine of Original Sin, derived from the Scriptural account of the Fall, involves the refusal to accept creaturehood and its foundation in God’s creation of a natural order. As noted by several commentators, the eschewing of Original Sin has profound implications for soteriology and the doctrine of grace. Rome, we have a problem.
The story of the Fall of Man in Genesis, has a major component of trust. Eden is God’s garden, that was given as a turnkey operation to Adam and later, Eve. Everything in the garden was there because God put it there. The entire garden were the things that are God’s. God only imposed one condition on Adam and Eve concerning the forbidden fruit. It was a test where Adam and Eve could prove that they could be trusted with the things that are God’s. The Fall of Man was where Adam and Eve broke the lease as it were. To me way too many of the Church hierarchy are acting like they are totally free agents who can do whatever they darn well please with the things that are God’s.
” To me way too many of the Church hierarchy are acting like they are totally free agents who can do whatever they darn well please with the things that are God’s.”
If you believe that public heretics and apostates, even those who have and continue to deny, mock, contradict, obfuscate or are silent about the perennial and true teachings of the Church (and even in the case of Peter Seewald, believe the Catholic Church can be both the Church of Christ and the Church of the Antichrist), publicly perform acts of idolatry and sacrilege, and continue aiding and abetting the most heinous crime of sexual abuse upon children in particular as well as adults, then of course they believe they can do whatever the want and have done so without any penalties and in some cases, rewarded for doing so.
I agree. There are far too many in the Church hierarchy who have made a complete mockery of their ordinations, vows, and oaths. The Church teaching about Donatism, about the worthiness of the clergy, is getting a real workout. The German Church is on a forbidden fruit diet.
Doesn’t all of this point to the papacy being a human institution capable of doing great harm, and for which there is no recourse? Aren’t the Orthodox correct in rejecting this mitered autocracy?
No, if only because the Orthodox have no unity and have not had any for centuries. And when they tried to have a council a few years ago, it imploded.
But, the present situation does point to the need to seriously contemplate the core and essential purpose/character of the Petrine ministry. That, by the way, was something that Ratzinger/Benedict XVI tried to do in various ways over the years. He saw the problem with ultramontanism (as did the great St. John Henry Newman). The pope is indeed human, and he can make all sorts of mistakes or questionable decisions, especially when it comes to personnel, governing, politics, etc. And, yes, it can do harm. No doubt. But it is a true point of unity, precisely because it was established by Christ, to protect and guard the Deposit of Faith, etc.
“A schismatic is a fool.” St. Catherine of Siena
One ecclesial extreme is that only the Pope has episcopal authority; the other extreme is that Bishops can operate without proper papal authority. Psalm 133
Orthodox Churches were formed from the false premise that obedience should not involve suffering. That was the same error that led Peter to try and talk Our Lord out of His salvific mission (Matthew 16:23). In our desire for heavenly bliss, we are all tempted to skip purgation. This can even lead to blasphemous “blessings” that enable sin. The Way of Christ is the only Way. We follow Him anywhere, even to Golgotha. Papal abuse can be answered with an abandonment of the Catholic Church, or met with cruciform witness whether in word or silent suffering. The only mistake is to run away from the Cross.
We can trust that God will use this disastrous pontificate in many ways for the good. For instance, humiliation is an opportunity for a humbled Petrine ministry. Bishops are finally organizing to counteract pastoral heresies to assert their apostolic authority. This could actually attract the Orthodox back into full unity. Etc.
I neglected to mention how much I admire my Orthodox friends and almost everything about their Churches: liturgies, icons, etc. But I will not leave the Catholic Church. There is never a good reason to do so. Why leave St. Francis because of Pope Francis?
Well communicated and hope the article becomes (among others) mandatory seminary reading. Catholic educators would likewise benefit.
BTW, this horizontal emphasis has been notably widely present at least since the early 70’s. Although I always stayed with Catholicism, a particular similar confession that Dr. Chapp experienced relaxed my vigilance and guilt for many years. I was young. Fortunately, a personal near tragic experience pulled me back.
“ We do not really need a religion that is right where we are right. What we need is a religion that is right where we are wrong.”
Chesterton.
Video (20 min. 12 sec.) at PODCAST: Theology Upside Down (with Larry Chapp)
Description:
The Catholic Thing
Monday, January 15, 2024
Theologian Larry Chapp joins TCT’s Robert Royal to discuss how “theology from below” is leading to controversial steps like blessing same-sex couples, dialogue with Marxists, and listening first to people rather than God.
Thank you Mr. Flynn. That was a great podcast.
The Church and its leaders need to set down the general ledger and the calculator and pick up the Sextant again: The Vulgata, The Council of Trent and the Summa Theologiae. Our enemies, the world, the flesh and the devil, have gained great strides and lots of ground. We need to stop ceding Christ’s Kingdom in the form of pandering to “modern man” and start forming him in the image of his Creator again with great and ardent intensity. Modernity has failed in politics, culture and Religion. It’s toxic and destructive. End the insanity! Start by attending the Latin Mass. It’s the Mass the Christ NEVER ABANDONED. It’s truly a gift from God. Attend. You’ll see where God is really blessing His children (and church).
This is excellent in many ways, but I’m taking the trouble to comment just to say that I’m laughing out loud at “the Bonobo option.”
Recently, I started going to Confession. I felt the same way you describe, that the priest thought I was being overly scrupulous. He chuckled at how I expressed myself. (It was kind of condescending.) I don’t have too many other places to go, although there are priests all around me. I mean I don’t know of a special priest who might be able to respond to my desire to get on the right path and really give me some insights during confession. I have a theology degree and a lot of other experiences. I began to realize that I had had terrible formation, in one way or another, and my theology degree doesn’t mean too much. I see what has happened. Recently, I listened to a Janet Smith lecture, and it all fell into place for me. I’ve seen it all, just as she described. I was friends with friars in D.C. who “lived it up.” I’ve met McCarrick. I’ve seen how many Catholics (not all) are no different from anyone in the “the world” in practice and beliefs. I want to be different. It’s not easy. Going to Confession was a big deal to me. Kind of scary, like when I was a little kid. I’ve been twice and want to go back, but it feels a little weird, especially if the priest just chuckles at me. I’m glad I entertain him! (Not)