Atila Sinke Guimarães on AMORIS LAETITIA

Atila Sinke Guimarães on AMORIS LAETITIA

The Form & Content of AMORIS LAETITIA

Excited Modernist Approves!

THE FORM OF AMORIS LAETITIA UNDER ANALYSIS  -  To study the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris laetitia (AL) launched by Pope Francis early this month, I will divide my comments into numbered parts; the first four relate to the form, which I will analyze today. Parts five and six deal with the content and will be published tomorrow. 

Francis doesn't love his readers

1. After carefully reading AL, my first reaction to this document on love is that Pope Francis actually does not love his readers. He imposed on them an unnecessary burden that no one would inflict on anyone he loves. Indeed, he could have expressed everything he set out here in a much shorter text. The Italian copy I read, taken from the Vatican website, has 146 pages; the English edition in book format has 250 pages. It is exorbitantly large for a papal document!

Francis should have presented a better written and much shorter document. Had I been the editor of this document, I would have simply removed the five first chapters, which contain almost nothing of substance. In short, to present such a prolix draft as a final document is a lack of consideration for Catholics.

Suggesting Tantric practices

2. When one is accustomed to the papal encyclicals before Vatican II, issued in the most serious, elevated and noble language, the comparison with Francis’ populist style is shocking. Especially for topics like conjugal love, which demand a great distance and reserve, particularly when dealt with by men who supposedly have dedicated themselves to a chaste life.

But, Francis takes no such care. For example, he exclaims euphorically: “God himself created sexuality, which is a wonderful gift to His creatures.” (§ 150) (1) Since he is not taking a theoretical approach, but everything for him must be based upon “experiences,” the question that immediately comes to mind is: “How do you know that? Aren’t you supposed to be chaste?”

 
Bergoglio suggests Tantric practices for couples to enhance their pleasure

In another text, he enters into specifics: “In marriage it is good to have the joy of love. When the pursuit for pleasure becomes obsessive, it limits itself to only one ambit and keeps us from experiencing other types of satisfaction. Joy, on the other hand, increases our capacity for pleasure and helps us find fulfillment in any number of things, even in those times of life when the [physical] pleasure fades.” (§ 126) Again, why this prosaic orientation on sexual pleasure in an official papal document?

Further on Francis continues: “Let us remember that authentic love also knows how to receive from the other, … does not refuse to welcome with sincere and joyful gratitude the corporal expressions of love found in a caress, an embrace, a kiss and sexual union.” (§ 157) A Pope should not write about these details. This is matter for the confessional, not for a public document. Bergoglio’s approach on sexuality is disgusting. If he continues on this path, shortly he will be teaching explicit Tantric practices of sexual embrace that aim to provide more intense pleasure.

At this point, I imagine a conservative reader turning his eyes to the sky and, with an expression of pity toward me, saying: “What an absurd statement!” Well, I just made explicit what Francis says implicitly when he invites his reader to welcome different types of Taoism and Buddhism, not excluding their Tantric practices.

In fact, dealing with the acceptation of pleasure, including the sexual, he states: “In this sense, we can welcome the proposals of some Eastern masters who urge us to expand our conscientiousness so that we do not remain imprisoned in a very limited experience that can close perspectives to us. Such an expansion of our conscientiousness is not a denial or destruction of our desire, but its dilatation and perfection.” (§ 149)

The exaggeration of love's role is destroying marriage

3. When the first end of marriage was procreation and the second was mutual support of the spouses, referring mainly to the remedy for concupiscence, papal encyclicals dealt very little with the conjugal act. They stressed charity, which should exist in marriage between spouses and toward the children, with an extraordinary balance, entering neither details nor excesses.

The number of Catholic marriages dropped drastically & the annulments skyrocketed after Vatican II put love as the first end of marriage; stats here

The fruit of this wise policy was almost two millennia of exemplarily stable Catholic marriages.

But, since Vatican II inverted the ends of marriage, it required as a consequence the exaggeration of the role of love. This hypertrophied love brought as a corollary an overstressed eroticism. So, instead of that pure language we had, for example, in Casti connubi by Pius XI, we are receiving the para-pornographic and syrup-soaked sentimentalism of the conciliar Popes’ teachings.

The fruit of this inversion is that never in history has Catholic marriage been more unstable than in this post-conciliar phase. The result speaks for itself of the failure of this exaggeration of love. Amoris laetitia is its apogee: a sticky swamp of poisonous syrup. After reading it I felt the need to find intellectual/spiritual sanitization.

Incurring his own condemnation

4. Another point that catches attention is that, along chapter 4, Francis tries to explain to the reader many Greek expressions from the 1^st Epistle to the Corinthians in which St. Paul dealt with charity. So, Bergoglio gives the original Greek, translates it and, then, comments on it, doing this for each expression.

Francis wisely explains the subtleties of the Greek original text written by St. Paul...

Now, as far as I could verify in his biography, Francis knows only the most elementary Greek taught in seminary courses during the Council. I would be agreeably surprised if he could carry on a conversation in Greek or read without embarrassment the Greek Fathers. I am not even sure whether he is fluent in Latin, which is the official language of the Church. So, if I am not wrong, why this theatrical pretense that he knows Greek well enough to establish himself as a judicious and scholarly exegete who can explain to the entire world the deepest meanings of St. Paul’s original text? It seems to me this is just another of his bluffs, manifesting his keen vanity to shine momentarily before many persons who do not have the habit of analyzing what they read.

Notwithstanding, in the same chapter he states: “The next word – physioutai – is very simple, indicating that love is not arrogant. Literally, it means that we do not ‘magnify’ ourselves before others and also points to something very subtle. This is not only an obsession to show off our own qualities, but also makes us lose the sense of reality. We consider ourselves more important than we are, because we believe we are more ‘spiritual’ or ‘wiser.’” (§ 97)

Does this not apply to Francis himself when he pretends to know and teach Greek?

THE CONTENT OF AMORIS LAETITIA UNDER SCRUTINY  -  I will continue with my analysis of yesterday’s theme where I stopped.

Introducing married priests

5. Although the moral points addressed by Amoris laetitia (AL) are very significant, as I will confirm later, I believe that, institutionally speaking, it lays the foundation for the end of priestly celibacy as no other papal document has done before.

The topic is addressed in passing as Francis deals with the “conversion” of the Church in chapter 6: “The Church is required to have a missionary conversion: She must not close herself in a merely theoretical message, disengaged from the real problems of people.” (§ 201)

Then, he goes on to command a new formation for priests: “Along with a pastoral specifically oriented toward families, we envisage the need for a more adequate formation of priests, deacons, religious men and women, catechists and other pastoral workers. In the replies given to the consultations sent worldwide, it was revealed that ordained ministers often lack an adequate formation to deal with the complex contemporary problems of families. In this sense, also the experience of the long Eastern tradition of married priests can be useful.” (§ 202)

 
Priests having recourse to women to ‘reinforce their self-esteem’ & ‘promote complementarity’

So far, Bergoglio declares the need for a new formation for priests in order to better understand modern families and he points to the model of married priests of the Eastern rites, who, supposedly, already have this formation.

The rest of the plan is revealed when, in the next paragraph, Francis addresses the formation of the seminarians who will be tomorrow's priests. He says:

“Seminarians must have access to a broader interdisciplinary formation, not just doctrinal, in the areas of engagement and marriage. Their formation not always allows them to express their own psychological and affective world. Some bear the experience of their own wounded families, with the absence of parents and emotional instability. It is necessary to ensure that maturity is reached during their formation so that future ministers have the psychological equilibrium that their mission demands. Family bonds are essential to reinforce a healthy self-esteem in the seminarians. It is important for families to be a part of the entire process from seminary to priesthood, since they help to strengthen them in a realistic way.

“In this sense it is helpful for seminarians to combine time in the seminary with time spent in parishes that can give them more contact with the concrete realities of family life, since in their entire future pastoral life the priests will be dealing with families. In the formation of the priest, the presence of lay people and families, and especially the feminine presence, promotes an appreciation of the diversity and complementarity of the different vocations in the Church.” (§ 203)

 
If virginity is not superior to marriage, then, the glory of St. John the Evangelist disappears

Thus, the plan is laid out: Seminarians should be welcomed as guests for periods of times in family homes with the “feminine presence” so that they can “strengthen their self-esteem” and are allowed “to express their own psychological and affective world.” All this should be done taking into consideration “the experience of the long Eastern tradition of married priests.” What does this mean except that the door was opened for married priests?

Do not imagine that this is a plan for a remote future. It is already being executed right now, as can be verified in the Kansas City area by the Fraternity of St. Peter with its young seminarians. In fact, recently they were sent into family homes with the feminine presence - wives and beautiful daughters, who received them warmly and had parties for them. This is just one case that I know about. How many others are there around the US and the world?

Along the same lines of promoting married priests, in other texts of AL, Pope Bergoglio disparages priestly celibacy: “John Paul II affirmed that the biblical texts give no reason to assert the ‘inferiority’ of marriage, nor the ‘superiority’ of virginity or celibacy based on sexual abstinence.” (§ 159)

This is a blatant error that goes against both Scripture and Tradition. Nonetheless, Francis says: “Therefore, it is not the case to diminish the value of marriage in favor of continence. There is no basis for a supposed contra-positioning of one against the other. ... If, adhering to a certain tradition, one speaks of a ‘state of perfection,’ this has to do not with continence itself, but with regard to a life lived according to the evangelical counsels. Nonetheless, a married person can live the highest degree of charity.” (§ 160)

These are the texts that signal a green light to seminarians looking for a good wife to engage in a social life with young women. I believe that Card. Walter Kasper was referring to this new position when he stated that this document would introduce the beginning of a Revolution that would change 1700 years of the Catholic Church. We are witnessing the call for the end of priestly celibacy.

Apocalyptic morality

6. Regarding morals, AL tolerates absolutely all perversions – called “irregular situations” or “situations of frailty” – by recommending priests and lay people to welcome these persons into parish life and, at times, to Communion. These include homosexuals, persons who engage in pre-marital sex, unmarried cohabitating couples, civilly divorced and “remarried” couples, single mothers, as well as other public sinners whose lives, thus far, the Church considered scandalous. Francis demands that no past moral rules should be applied to them.

 
Above, Francis blesses the child of unmarried couple at the Vatican; a de facto approval of their situation; below, he blesses a pregnant bride: an approval of pre-marital cohabitation

A list where Francis frontally denies Catholic Morals in dealing with regular or “irregular” situations follows:

• No more “general norms” (§ 2);
• no “abstract texts” (§ 22);
• no “discriminating forms and models of the past” (§ 32);
• no “rhetorical denunciations of present day evils” (§ 35);
• no “abstract theological ideal of marriage” (§ 36);
• no “imposition of a series of stone-like norms” (§ 49);
• no “defense of a cold and lifeless doctrine” (§ 59);
• no “talk of indissolubility as an obligation” (§ 134);
• no “moralizing language” (§ 139);
• no “theoretical and unconnected messages” or “presentation of a set of rules” (§ 201);
• no teaching fiancés the “complete Catechism,” overwhelming them with “too much information” (§ 207), or saturating them with “doctrinal convictions” (§ 211);
• no “pastoral of small elites” (§ 230);
• no “imposition of an indisputable truth” (§ 264);
• no “application of rigid and immutable methods” (§ 273);
• no manifestation “of authority and norms” (§ 288);
• no “judgment of a person’s guilt [in an ‘irregular’ situation]” (§ 302);
• no “petty consideration that the actions of a [cohabitating] person must correspond to a law or rule” (§ 304);
• no “application of moral laws to those living in ‘irregular’ situations, as if they were stones to be thrown against persons” (§ 305);
• no “cold bureaucratic morality in dealing with more sensitive issues” (§ 312);
• no ‘harsh judgments about those who live in situations of great frailty” (§ 325).

This list configures a great hatred for Catholic Morals as it was always taught by Holy Mother Church. It also characterizes a new religion of tolerance. Every vice and every evil is tolerated.

Then, Pope Bergoglio issues this astounding principle that summarizes Amoris laetitia:

“It is no longer possible to say that all those who live in a so-called ‘irregular’ situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace.” (§ 301)

The Conciliar Church transformed itself into the home of every impure spirit

He finally defines the new Conciliar Church: “I sincerely believe that Jesus wants a Church attentive to the goodness which the Spirit sows in the midst of human frailty: a Mother who, even while she expresses her objective teaching, always does what good she can, even if in the process, she runs the risk of dirtying herself with the mud of the street.” (§ 308)

We have, then, the Conciliar Church transformed into a mammoth house of tolerance. Incidentally, in Portuguese, “house of tolerance” is the scholarly and juridical name for a house of prostitution. Bergoglio transforms the Church into the “habitation of devils and the hold of every unclean spirit, and the hold of every unclean and hateful bird.” (Apoc 18:2)

This coincidence evokes the figure that St. John, the Apostle of love, warned us would appear in times to come: A great harlot offering the entire world a golden cup that contains the “wine of her prostitution.” (cf. Apoc 17:2, 4; 18:3) I ask: Is not the apostate post-conciliar Rome the prostitute? Is not Amoris laetitia the cup containing the “wine of prostitution,” which is this tolerance being offered to corrupt what is left of morality in the entire world?