This from The Week’s Michael Brendan Dougherty: “To universal fanfare from the mainstream and Catholic media, Pope Francis has issued a long-awaited document, Amoris Laetitia, “the Joy of Love,” as his conclusion to the Catholic Church’s two-year Synod on the Family. But to this Catholic, the pope’s supposedly reformist document is a botch job.
For two years, bishops presented their respective cases for two contradicting views of marriage, re-marriage, and the Church’s own sacraments. Pope Francis didn’t choose between these two options. He chose them both. The pope did not effect some grand synthesis. He merely gave his imprimatur to the Church’s own confused practice on these matters and, more frighteningly, to its self-doubt.
As a result, the Joy of Love reads as an admission that God, as Catholics understand him, really isn’t merciful or gracious to poor sinners. So priests should try to do better from now on. READ MORE HERE
REMNANT COMMENT: Here’s the quotable quote of the week, maybe even the year: “This supposed paean to love is something much sadder. A Church so anxious to include and accept you that it must deny the faith that transforms and renews you. It admits that God’s commands are not just beyond our reach, but possibly destructive to follow. Pope Francis is trying to be more merciful than God himself.”
Congrats to Mr. Dougherty for having had the intestinal fortitude to say what so many Catholic news commentators know to be the truth but will not admit. It’s not popular; it may get you fired or even beat up–but it’s the truth and it must be said…regardless of the game of Let’s Pretend being played by our friends the neo-Catholics.
