Part of the problem in the response to Amoris Laetitia has been the complete failure of the respondents to make proper distinctions in their responses. This has left them, especially the dubia cardinals, completely outmanned by their progressive counterparts and entirely hapless to address the real problem. And because of this incompetent "defense" of orthodoxy, the progressive narrative has run rampant (not that Pope Francis has lifted a finger to stop it, of course). And the progressive narrative is heresy, the same heresy condemned by Veritatis Splendor.
The massive tactical error is to respond to AL's changes on the doctrine of the public participation in the Eucharist, as opposed to addressing head-on the doctrine of Confession, which AL makes no attempt to change. The so-called "filial correction" charged the Pope with seven errors, none of which AL actually taught:
1). 'A justified person has not the strength with God’s grace to carry out the objective demands of the divine law, as though any of the commandments of God are impossible for the justified; or as meaning that God’s grace, when it produces justification in an individual, does not invariably and of its nature produce conversion from all serious sin, or is not sufficient for conversion from all serious sin.'
2). 'Christians who have obtained a civil divorce from the spouse to whom they are validly married and have contracted a civil marriage with some other person during the lifetime of their spouse, who live more uxorio with their civil partner, and who choose to remain in this state with full knowledge of the nature of their act and full consent of the will to that act, are not necessarily in a state of mortal sin, and can receive sanctifying grace and grow in charity.'
3). 'A Christian believer can have full knowledge of a divine law and voluntarily choose to break it in a serious matter, but not be in a state of mortal sin as a result of this action.'
4). ‘A person is able, while he obeys a divine prohibition, to sin against God by that very act of obedience.’
5). 'Conscience can truly and rightly judge that sexual acts between persons who have contracted a civil marriage with each other, although one or both of them is sacramentally married to another person, can sometimes be morally right or requested or even commanded by God.'
6). 'Moral principles and moral truths contained in divine revelation and in the natural law do not include negative prohibitions that absolutely forbid particular kinds of action, inasmuch as these are always gravely unlawful on account of their object.'
7). 'Our Lord Jesus Christ wills that the Church abandon her perennial discipline of refusing the Eucharist to the divorced and remarried and of refusing absolution to the divorced and remarried who do not express contrition for their state of life and a firm purpose of amendment with regard to it.'
The problem is that, if the proper distinctions are made, not one of these statements is supportable from AL. In particular, they are not distinguishing between living more uxorio, that is, living together, and sexual acts. There are two different forms of living more uxorio: continently, as brother and sister, and incontinently. If that distinction is not made, then this should actually be a fraternal correction of Pope St. John Paul II rather than Pope Francis. (In fact, I suspect that a number of these people are the same ones who would've said that Familiaris Consortio was wrong all along and are using this occasion as an attempt to reverse what they see as imprudent discipline.) But if the distinction is made, then this idea of "venial incontinence," which is the paranoid fear of the critics, cannot be found anywhere in AL.
We can see this in the first and third dubia:
Dubium One: It is asked whether, following the affirmations of “Amoris Laetitia” (nn. 300-305), it has now become possible to grant absolution in the Sacrament of Penance and thus to admit to Holy Communion a person who, while bound by a valid marital bond, lives together with a different person “more uxorio” (in a marital way) without fulfilling the conditions provided for by “Familiaris Consortio” n. 84 and subsequently reaffirmed by “Reconciliatio et Paenitentia” n. 34 and “Sacramentum Caritatis” n. 29. Can the expression “in certain cases” found in note 351 (n. 305) of the exhortation “Amoris Laetitia” be applied to divorced persons who are in a new union and who continue to live “more uxorio”?
Dubium Three: After “Amoris Laetitia” (n. 301) is it still possible to affirm that a person who habitually lives in contradiction to a commandment of God’s law, as for instance the one that prohibits adultery (cf. Mt 19:3-9), finds him or herself in an objective situation of grave habitual sin (cf. Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, Declaration, June 24, 2000)?
In both of these questions, the "following the affirmations of Amoris Laetitia" and "After Amoris Laetitia" language serve the "have you stopped beating your wife?" function in the question, because both would have been true under Familiaris Consortio. Note that the first question does not include "without fulfilling the conditions provided for by Familiaris Consortio n. 84," etc. If the answer "yes" is given, it resolves no ambiguity, since that would just be ratification of the prior discipline under Familiaris Consortio, i.e., that they can live more uxorio as long as they do so continently. The third dubium is similar; the couples that are allowed Reconciliation and participation in the Eucharist remoto scandolo are nonetheless in an "objective situation of grave habitual sin." Living as brother and sister does not change the objective situation at all. So Familiaris Consortio has already established that people in an objective situation of grave habitual sin (cohabitation) can nonetheless have access to the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist, and this is nowhere changed in Amoris Laetitia!
This is why one can appreciate the position of Josef Seifert, who firmly criticized AL based on the teaching of Pope St. John Paul II in VS but who refused to participate in the "filial correction." That was the principled approach, because the conservatives who wanted to reverse the discipline of Familiaris Consortio would condemn John Paul II and Francis in the same stroke. Consider that without the qualifier "incontinenly," the statement that the couple would "live more uxorio" in alleged error #2 would be exactly what Familiaris Consortio teaches. But even more than that, AL correctly appeals to the fact that the requirements of mortal sin might not be met in some of these cases based on Catholic moral theology, so the focus on "mortal sin" rather than contrition has fallen into the progressive trap. This was a grave error by the conservative opponents of AL.
Likewise, when they do turn to Reconciliation, their approach bungles the argument. Familiaris Consortio very clearly permits Reconciliation for people who do not express a firm purpose of amendment with respect to what AL calls "the obligation to separate," because positive commandments are not broken when done for proportionate reasons. So, once again, the failure to distinguish living more uxorio continently and living more uxorio incontinently is a fatal error. Thus, in the sense that the alleged error #7 charges, Familiaris Consortio would be guilty of the same thing.
But, in fact, every single one of the alleged errors is based on this confusion! It makes the uncharitable assumption that AL is referring to living more uxorio incontinently, contrary to the actual wording of the document, which always refers to the state of life (cohabitating with a non-spouse) and never to sexual acts. There is literally not even one reference that applies to sexual activity within the union; the only reference to living as brother and sister says that it is difficult and that we should not deny absolution to those who fail at it. Nowhere does AL say or even imply that incontinence is not a serious sin that requires Reconciliation before the Eucharist. On the contrary, the strong implication of AL is that the confessors should not jump to conclusions based on the state of life but rather should consider the person's acts, including whether the person is trying to be continent even if not successfully doing so.
The Buenos Aires guidelines actually confirm this:
(5) Whenever feasible, and depending on the specific circumstances of a couple, and especially when both partners are Christians walking together on the path of faith, the priest may suggest a decision to live in continence. Amoris Laetitia does not ignore the difficulties arising from this option (cf. footnote 329) and offers the possibility of having access to the Sacrament of Reconciliation if the partners fail in this purpose (cf. footnote 364, recalling the teaching that Saint John Paul II sent to Cardinal W. Baum, dated 22 March, 1996).
Why would you need Reconciliation if incontinence is not a serious sin? There's no qualification here or any suggestion that incontinence would not be a serious sin. There is no suggestion that incontinent partners can proceed directly to the Eucharist without Reconciliation. On the contrary, the possibility being offered is Reconciliation, although that would implicitly be followed by the Eucharist. Apart from the paranoia that AL's references to the state of sin simply must be referring to sexual incontinence, there would be no reason to think so.
(6) In other, more complex cases, and when a declaration of nullity has not been obtained, the above mentioned option may not, in fact, be feasible. Nonetheless, a path of discernment is still possible. If it comes to be recognized that, in a specific case, there are limitations that mitigate responsibility and culpability (cf. 301-302), especially when a person believes they would incur a subsequent wrong by harming the children of the new union, Amoris Laetitia offers the possibility of access to the sacraments of Reconciliation and Eucharist (cf. footnotes 336 and 351). These sacraments, in turn, dispose the person to continue maturing and growing with the power of grace.
These four sentences have prompted numerous cries of "Katie, bar the door!" Indeed, it is fair to say that this is the sole basis for the paranoia, since the only discussion of sexual activities in AL is quoted in BA #5, and it is clear that incontinence requires Reconciliation in that case. The move from #5 to #6 solely deals with why the proposal is not feasible. In other words, why is this person not agreeing with the new spouse that they should be continent? In those cases, the penitent might not be culpable for failing to do so; it might not indicate a guilty intent to remain incontinent. That person's moral responsibility for the situation should be assessed. On the other hand, if the incontinence itself were not sinful then why is Reconciliation mentioned here at all? If this idea of "venial incontinence" is not contemplated in #5, then why would we conclude that it comes out of nowhere in #6, especially when there is the additional factor of whether the penitent is culpable in the spouse's refusal?
To be clear, I am sympathetic to the suspicion of Victor Manuel Fernandez, the likely writer of both AL and the BA guidelines, and I believe that he has explicitly taught heresy concerning the "intimate acts" of a more uxorio cohabitation in his own comments. But he isn't stupid either; he kept that out of both documents and restricted it to his own private speculation so that Pope Francis could avoid being justly charged with any of this. On the contrary, they knew full well that if the conservatives did exactly what they did, which was stupidly and recklessly charge Pope Francis with heresy in a way that would indict even the sainted Pope John Paul II, then it would make Pope Francis appear all the more reasonable. And that gives the progressives a longer leash. The idiotic "have you stopped beating your wife?" dubia and the subsequent filial correction have done exactly that.
What they could've done, and what they should've done, is to focus on the requirement of Reconciliation in the case of incontinence, distinguishing the obligation to separate from the moral commandment concerning sexual acts. There is actually a significant amount of text in AL and even the BA guidelines that reaffirms the obligation of continence in FC and the need for Reconciliation in the cases of lapses. They should've focused on the objective role of the priest in the internal forum that balances the subjective considerations of the penitent, contra the extended (and mostly irrelevant) commentary on mitigating factors for moral sin. They should've focused on the objective requirement of firm purpose of amendment, which doesn't allow mitigation or subjective exceptions apart from (usually invincible) ignorance. Instead, they unjustly and falsely charged Pope Francis with heresy and showed themselves thoroughly inept at both clear teaching and Vatican politics.
