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: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/francis-praises-prominent-humanae-vitae-dissenter-for-his-radical-new-moral
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: Thu Nov 24, 2016 - 1:55 pm EST
: Francis praises major Humanae Vitae
: dissenter in rebuke of ‘white or black’
: morality
: Pete Baklinski
: ROME, November 24, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) –
: Pope Francis has praised the 1960s German
: moral theologian Bernard Häring, one of the
: most prominent dissenters from Pope Paul
: VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, for his
: new morality which the pope said helped
: “moral theology to flourish.”
:
: "I think Bernard Häring was the first
: to start looking for a new way to help moral
: theology to flourish again," he said in
: comments, published today by La Civiltà
: Cattolica, that were given during a dialogue
: with the Jesuit order which was gathered for
: its 36th general Congregation on October 24,
: 2016 in Rome.
:
: Pope Francis gave his comments while
: answering a question about a morality he has
: often spoken about based on “discernment.”
:
: “Discernment is the key element: the
: capacity for discernment. I note the absence
: of discernment in the formation of priests.
: We run the risk of getting used to 'white or
: black,' to that which is legal. We are
: rather closed, in general, to discernment.
: One thing is clear: today, in a certain
: number of seminaries, a rigidity that is far
: from a discernment of situations has been
: introduced. And that is dangerous, because
: it can lead us to a conception of morality
: that has a casuistic sense,” he said.
:
: Francis criticized what he called a
: “decadent scholasticism” that his generation
: was educated in, that provoked what he
: called a “casuistic attitude” towards
: morality.
:
: “The whole moral sphere was restricted to
: ‘you can,’ ‘you cannot,’ ‘up to here yes but
: not there,’” he said.
:
: “It was a morality very foreign to
: ‘discernment,’" he said, adding that
: Bernard Häring was the “first to start
: looking for a new way to help moral theology
: to flourish again.”
: Fr. Bernard Häring (1912-98) was a key
: figure during the Second Vatican Council,
: where he applied the principle of the
: evolution of dogma (as found in the nouvelle
: théologie) to morality.
:
: According to Professor Roberto de Mattei,
: this “new morality” championed by Häring
: ultimately “den[ied] the existence of an
: absolute and immutable natural law.”
:
: Häring was first appointed an “expert” at
: Vatican II and then later became the
: secretary of the Commission on the modern
: world, where, according to de Mattei, he
: became one of the primary architects of the
: document Gaudium et Spes (Joy and Hope),
: part of which deals with marriage.
: According to de Mattei, a vicious battle was
: waged during the crafting of this document
: between the progressive and traditional
: minorities over procreation in marriage.
:
: “This battle went beyond the pill to include
: the ends of marriage. At issue was the very
: basis of natural law itself,” he said in a
: talk given at the Rome Life Forum in 2015.
:
: The progressive element, backed by Häring,
: eventually prevailed upon Pope Paul VI to
: leave aside the question of contraception in
: the document, according to de Mattei.
:
: “The most surprising aspect of Gaudium et
: Spes, however, is the lack of any
: presentation of the traditional order of the
: ends of marriage, the primary and the
: secondary….The institution of marriage,
: therefore, is defined without any reference
: to children and only as an intimate
: community of conjugal life. Moreover, in the
: succeeding paragraphs, conjugal love is
: discussed first (paragraph 49) and
: procreation second (paragraph 50),” said de
: Mattei.
:
: After Paul VI released Humanae Vitae in 1968
: where he taught unequivocally that “each and
: every marriage act must remain open to the
: transmission of human life” and called the
: use of contraception “intrinsically wrong,”
: Häring spent his energy in criticizing not
: only Paul VI, but also Pope John Paul II,
: for their stances on birth control and other
: sexual issues.
:
: Häring was eventually investigated by the
: Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
: (CDF) in the 1970s for his 1972 book Medical
: Ethics, where he presents a concept of
: health that would allow a couple to use
: contraception if they deemed it the best
: means to help them fulfill their total
: vocation, a principle condemned in Humanae
: Vitae.
:
: Häring became the mentor of Charles Curran,
: a dissident Catholic priest who aggressively
: condemned the Church’s teachings on matters
: such as abortion, contraception, and
: homosexuality. Curran, who was also
: investigated by the CDF in the late 1970s
: and early 1980s, was officially prohibited
: by Pope John Paul II in 1986 from teaching
: at any Catholic school and was stripped of
: the title ‘Catholic theologian.’
:
: Francis called it an “important task” of the
: Society of Jesus that they “form seminarians
: and priests in the morality of
: ‘discernment.’”
: It was using the method of “discernment” in
: response to the Zika virus scare earlier
: this year that Pope Francis appeared to
: condone the use of contraception for married
: couples living in affected areas as the
: “lesser of two evils.” Vatican spokesman Fr.
: Federico Lombardi confirmed the pope’s words
: the following day, stating: “The
: contraceptive or condom, in particular cases
: of emergency or gravity, could be the object
: of ‘discernment’ in a serious case of
: conscience. This is what the Pope said.”
: Critics said the pope’s move contradicted
: previous Catholic teaching (see here, here,
: and here).
:
: Pope Francis also spoke about the morality
: of “discernment” in his April exhortation
: Amoris Laetitia more than thirty times,
: using the term as a key to opening the door
: to Holy Communion for Catholics living in
: adulterous situations. Immediately following
: the “smoking footnote” 351, in which critics
: say the pope allowed the divorced and
: remarried to receive Holy Communion, the
: pope writes that “discernment must help to
: find possible ways of responding to God and
: growing in the midst of limits.”
:
: Four cardinals have recently asked the pope
: to clarify key passages in the exhortation,
: asking him a set of five yes-or-no questions
: regarding the indissolubility of marriage,
: the existence of absolute moral norms, and
: the role of conscience in making decisions.
: They went public with their “dubia” last
: week after the pope failed to reply.
:
: During his dialogue with the Jesuits, Pope
: Francis noted the progress that has been
: made in moral theology since the days of
: “you can, you cannot.”
:
: “Obviously, in our day moral theology has
: made much progress in its reflections and in
: its maturity,” he said.
:
:
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