A 1P5 article by Maike Hickson is titled Interview: Bishop Andreas Laun on Amoris Laetitia and the Four Cardinals’ Dubia, and commences:Editor’s Note: Bishop Andreas Laun is Auxiliary Bishop of Salzburg, Austria. He is also a Professor of Moral Theology at the Philosophical-Theological Faculty of Heiligenkreuz, Austria. He is a member of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales.
There is more of this refreshingly candid comment there for you if you care to access the site.
Maike Hickson (MH): You are one of the signatories of the Filial Appeal “Declaration of Fidelity to the Church’s Unchangeable Teaching on Marriage and to Her Uninterrupted Discipline” which has now already found more than 30,000 supporters. Which aspects of the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia are in your eyes problematic and open to contradictory interpretations?
Bishop Andreas Laun (AL): I have read the concerns of the Four Cardinals, and I agree with them! Additionally, I know personally especially Cardinals Meisner and Caffarra and know how competent they are! With them, I am in the best company!
MH: Do you see any way for the “remarried” divorcees to receive the Sacraments without their first changing their way of life, and then continuing to live as brother and sister?
AL: “Unfortunately,” no! I would like to name for them an easier path. But it is all about truth and not about my feelings. This objective question has nothing to do with mercy. Could St. John the Baptist have “mercifully allowed” Herod to have his brother’s wife? The spiritual guide whose importance Pope Francis so much emphasizes has the role of a physician who makes a diagnosis but who then does not also render a true service to the patient when he only glosses over this illness – as he would prefer to have it – even though he knows of the illness’ dangers.
MH: Now, four Cardinals – Walter Brandmüller, Joachim Meisner, Carlo Caffarra and Raymond Leo Burke – have presented to Pope Francis five dubia concerning Amoris Laetitia and – since they did not receive an answer – they also have now published them. The four cardinals have been criticized for it and some people have accused them of a lack of loyalty. How do you yourself judge the conduct of these four cardinals?
AL: The conduct of the cardinals is a service to the teaching of the Church! In history, there are many examples of criticism also of a pope. However, it has to follow the “morality of criticism”: that is, to say it politely, objectively, justly, born in love, and with much understanding for the one who is to be criticized because each criticism also hurts more or less.
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