The following comes from an April 19 Angelus article by Archbishop José H. Gomez:
Amoris Laetitia (“The Joy of Love”) is a deep and important document.
There has been almost a frenzy of reaction in the media, much of it confusing as different groups try to “spin” the document to their own personal perspective.
Pope Francis is clear that he has no intention of changing Church doctrine or teaching. Instead he wants to change our hearts so that we can better know and live what he calls “the primordial divine plan” for our lives and our society.
“The Joy of Love”is a passionate, personal statement.
The pope draws insights and inspiration from saints and poets, even from films. He urges a “return” to two pillars of modern Church teaching — Blessed Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae (“On Human Life”) and St. John Paul II’s Familiaris Consortio (“The Family in the Modern World”). He includes a long quotation on love and endurance from the American civil rights leader, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
He has strong words to say about abortion, euthanasia, the death penalty and “the legal deconstruction of the family.” He is deeply troubled about the “ideology of gender” — that is fast becoming “absolute and unquestionable, and even dictating” in our societies.
He writes as a wise pastor about the meaning of married love, the joys of motherhood and fatherhood, and the gift of children. He has tender words of appreciation for couples whose married love lasts a lifetime: “Just as a good wine begins to ‘breathe’ with time, so too the daily experience of fidelity gives married life richness and ‘body.’… The love present from the beginning becomes more conscious, settled and mature as the couple discover each other anew day after day, year after year.”
I was touched by our Holy Father’s call for all of us in the Church to reach out with compassion to wounded families and persons whose marriages have ended in separation or divorce.
The marriage union is “real and irrevocable, confirmed and consecrated by the sacrament of matrimony,” he writes. And God intends marriage to be the means by which spouses grow in holiness and to bring children into the world and to raise them.
But the pope recognizes, as we all do, that relationships can become broken and marriages can fall apart. And we need to respond with mercy and sensitivity in caring for those in pain and difficult situations.
We have been talking about that here since before the synod, with the help of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council and our Office of Family Life. We have a lot to learn from “The Joy of Love” and that will give us even more to talk about and to reflect upon in our pastoral plans and work.
The comments on the Angelus article overwhelmingly disagreed with Archbishop Gomez. Some examples:
Who are we to believe? Jesus Christ, John The Baptist, St Paul, all Holy Saints and all his predecessors for 2000 years or Pope Francis? I’m going with Jesus Christ and his friends…
The Joy of Love is like a cake with one percent of poison added. The finished cake looks good but it is deadly…
–Yankeegator
With respect to a shepherd of the Church, I must suggest I am surprised that Abp Gomez and other bishops are not able to see the problem of a pint of poison in a lake of truth. Few laity will read the “good” parts of the document, yet many will hear the deep controversy found in Chapter 8, its footnotes, and several other problematic areas in the exhortation. Many Catholics will assume the Church’s teaching has been altered, and, sadly, many of those will be pastors.
–Donna Ruth
Eminence, you are a shepherd of the Church and for this you receive from me a respectful and open listen. However, the words of Our Lord are very clear, and I may not deviate from them even were you to counsel that we do so.
–Matt
With all due respect, Archbishop Gomez, this document is an utter disaster.
Like it or not, at Pope Francis’ instigation, the Synod on the Family became the synod on communion for the divorced and “remarried.” This was a settled issue until he pulled Cardinal Kasper – the theological “enemy” of Pope Emeritus Benedict – out of obscurity and put him front-and-center to re-propose what had already been explicitly rejected by two Popes.
–BXVI
The Pope is adding massive confusion to the situation. He wants to include everyone. If it requires jettisoning God’s Moral Standards to do so, so be it.
-Mongo
Coming Soon – To ‘our’ Tolerant Abomination too:
Martyr killed by bulldozer becomes symbol of growing persecution of Christians in China
https://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/04/21/martyr-killed-by-bulldozer-becomes-symbol-growing-persecution-christians-in-china.html?intcmp=hplnws
A Christian woman’s fateful and defiant stance in front of a bulldozer last week evoked the memory of Tiananmen Square and has become a rallying cry against persecution at the hands of the Beijing government.
The woman, identified by Christian activists as Ding Cuimei, wife of the Rev. Li Jiangong, was trying to stop the government-ordered demolition of Beitou Church in the central Hena province city of Zhumadian.
Unlike the iconic man who brazenly…
May Ding Cuimei and all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.
Not a surprise! Another Archbishop attempts to explain what exactly the ‘exhortation’ means & doesn’t mean. Was the Ab. a bit upset by the ‘frenzy of spin’ that has occurred already? Really Archbishop? Those of us in the pews have been rather frequently explaining ‘insights like this’ ever since, “Who am I to judge” was ‘let loose’ about 2 years ago. With all due respect Ab., welcome to our (from the pew) world. And thanks be to God’s for graces given to all the good people who continue to explain away ‘mere feelings’ however well intentioned, that contradict any of the teachings of Holy Mother Church.
Pope Francisco used the pastoral method of CV II to pass Communion with Catholic Divorce, cohabitation and sodomy. This was his great program and now he’s passed it.
GratiaS: Where has he passed any of these things? Where? You are obviously among those who have never read Amoris Letitcia.
Have You ? YFC, every article involving sodomite discussion, you are right there to defend it. Just come out and say it, what so called life style do you live and be specific. I have never read a follow up comment from you defending other topics such as abortion, contraception ect ect. You’re part of the problem and how I see, a fellow wolf along side some of the Bishops.
Why should we Archbishop Gomez, so as to not find out the truth ? When those in the media who are willing to do the work for the Church, unlike many in the Religious Life for the past 50 years, so just maybe, maybe the laity are taught the truth about what’s the leaders are doing. Dump the cool aid in the toilet so others will not be tempted.
If anyone but the Pope wrote this exhortation could it get a imprimi potest, nihil obstat, or imprimatur? The confusion generated is attested by the attacks and defense of this exhortation. If Pope Francis’ goal was to create confusion he succeeded. If the Pope is the chief Shepard whose main job is to keep those sheep on the narrow road and lead those on the wide road to the narrow road this exhortation confuses the roads entirely at a time when good direction is needed more than ever. There are only two destinations, heaven or hell. Should the index of forbidden books ever return this exhortation should make the list for its confusion.
Archbishop Gomez cannot ignore the frenzy that he caused when he personally told my close friend that he didn’t think that “La Raza” was a Marxist Organization. Archbishop Gomez writes about the Pope’s meaning of married love, but recently in Archbishop Gomez’s own vineyard, an ex-priest who is currently married to his boyfriend, gave a parish retreat talk to unsuspecting sheep. Letters and phone calls to the Archdiocese were ignored. We should not ignore the Mother of God when she warned us that Bishops would be against Bishops and Cardinals against Cardinals. The laity also cannot ignore the terrible scandal/frenzy of inviting Socialist, Bernie Sanders, to TEACH at the Vatican.
Honesty is true charity and the reality is that for many years divorced and remarried Catholics have already been told by liberal minded clergy to form their own conscience and to go up and receive Holy Communion, even when things were not resolved. THAT is the giant elephant in the room that is also being ignored. The same with artificial contraception. St. John of the Cross said, “In the twilight of our lives we shall be judged on charity.” It is not charity for divorced and remarried Catholics to now think that there is an official seal of approval on what they have already been doing for many years. The same with artificial contraception.
Faithful priests have always shown compassion when reaching out to divorced and remarried Catholics. Their exemplary charity always included the instruction not to receive Holy Communion until matters were resolved.
“BEING CATHOLIC MEANS BELIEVING IN ALL OF THE CHURCH’S TEACHINGS FROM PENTECOST UNTIL TODAY. ”
Pius IX & Syllabus of Errors – Sensus Fidelium
https://youtu.be/y1wRDo0ruK4
Heresy, apostasy, lies, confusion, deception, modernism. Put them all together and they mean Amoris Laetitia.