A few days ago
someone commented concerning Gregory XVI’s
Singulari Nos, “On the Errors of
Lamennais,” at a little over fifteen hundred words, “Man,
encyclicals used to be so short!” Yet
the same pope’s Mirari Vos,
“On Liberalism and Religious Indifferentism” — arguably the first “social
encyclical” — from two years earlier, clocks in at a little over
four thousand words in the English version, leaving Singulari Nos in the dust.
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| Henry George: Leo XIII didn't understand Catholic teaching. |
Or
does it? Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, that hearkened back to Singulari Nos in the use of the term “rerum novarum” to describe
socialism, is around fifteen thousand words, or ten times as long as Singulari Nos (and the waspish reply of
the agrarian socialist Henry George to Rerum
Novarum informing the pope he didn’t understand Catholic social teaching
was thirty thousand words). Pius XI’s Quadragesimo Anno and Divini Redemptoris (which are two parts
of the presentation on social justice to counter socialism) combined are around
thirty-three thousand words.
Centesimus Annus,
John Paul II’s take on the subject, is a little disappointing as it has only a
little over twenty-seven thousand words.
That is, until you add in Laborem
Exercens, with a touch over twenty-two thousand words and which is sort of
the introduction to Centesimus Annus,
giving you a total just short of fifty thousand words.
Pope
Francis hasn’t issued an encyclical on the problem of socialism (yet), but, e.g., Laudato Si’ is a little over forty thousand words. Amoris
Laetitia (which we managed to spell correctly without having to look it
up), is a pages-filling sixty thousand words.
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| Some critics: Pope Francis doesn't understand Catholic teaching |
Our
commentator was right. Encyclicals are
getting longer. And longer. The question is, Why?
As
a tentative hypothesis, let’s assume that we’ve been right all this time and
many people have neglected to learn how to think, and those few that do think
ignore the first principle of reason. As
an example, let’s take the dust-up over Amoris
Laetitia.
Now,
we’re not looking at this situation for any reason other than to make a
point. What rules the Catholic Church
has for its members and why it makes them are not our concern here. What we’re looking at is reading
comprehension, and how certain assumptions a reader or listener makes can
change the whole meaning of a document or statement, whether instructions for
putting a bicycle together, the U.S. Constitution, or an encyclical.
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| Anything goes? Is earthly happiness the goal of Catholic teaching? |
Now,
some experts have expressed “dubia,” that is, five concerns about Amoris Laetitia that pretty much boil
down to one: can people who have been divorced and remarried participate fully
in the sacramental life of the Catholic Church?
They claim that §§ 300-305 suggest that it may be possible.
Again,
we’re not concerned here with whether or not people who are divorced and remarried
can, e.g., receive communion, however
important that issue may be to anyone personally. No, our concern is whether the experts aren’t
unconsciously twisting something to fit an agenda or conform to an assumption,
and reinterpreting the document in light of preconceptions brought to the
table.
Reading
through the offending passages, we realized something remarkable. They do not even address the issue of, e.g., whether people who are divorced
and remarried can receive communion.
Rather, an entirely different issue is being addressed.
And
that is?
The
Catholic Church has a large number of people in “irregular unions,” meaning at
least one party has gotten a divorce and remarried. The Catholic Church considers this “B-A-D.”
Unfortunately,
many people in this situation “know” that the Catholic Church teaches marriage
after divorce is wrong, but they, like, man, don’t feel it is wrong. Like,
dude, their God wouldn’t condemn
anybody for that, and What Would
Jesus Do?
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| Lewis: you have to give 'em the bad news to give 'em the Good News |
Ministers
and counselors therefore have the extremely unpleasant job of getting such
people to realize that they are doing something seriously wrong before they can
even pretend to start fixing things, or even determining if it’s possible
(humanly speaking) to fix it. As C.S.
Lewis once remarked, the “sense of sin” has degenerated so much in modern times
that before a minister can give people the very “Good News” of the Gospel, he
or she has to give them the very bad news that they are sinners.
And
that is the concern of §§ 300-305 of Amoris
Laetitia. There are even several
warnings that in the process no doctrine of the Catholic Church — such as
communion after remarriage following a divorce — is to be downplayed, ignored,
or changed just to make people feel better or make the minister’s job seem
easier by taking a shortcut so everybody can be happy, happy, happy.
Obviously,
then, the issue addressed in these particular passages is not, How can a clever
confessor or counselor turn evil into good with a few mental reservations and a
little creative casuistry so people can sneak around the rules?
No,
the issue is to decide just how bad the situation is — and having people who
don’t even know or believe they’re Doing Wrong Big Time (according to the
Catholic Church) is not a good thing. It
sets up instant confrontation and immediate denial before people stomp out of
the room, vowing never to return to the Church, thereby cutting off all chance
of ever reaching that individual or couple again.
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| Cato the Younger: never compromise on principle |
The
job of priests, etc., however, is not
to drive people out of a church. Rather,
their job is to bring them in and keep them in, but without compromising on principle — and there has been a lot of compromise in our day and age by
the Christian churches just to be perceived as “open” and “welcoming.”
By
the lights of the Catholic Church, divorce after remarriage is a very bad situation. That anyone in such a situation is in a
serious and objective state of sin is a given.
The sections of the “Apostolic Exhortation” clearly say so.
That
anyone in a state of serious and objective sin cannot take communion is also
clear, if we understand the repeated warnings against changing Catholic
doctrine. But how do you get people to
understand the seriousness of their situation without them storming out of the
Church declaring how their God
wouldn’t condemn them, not like that jerk of an arrogant priest or that
insensitive, immature deacon?
Thus,
by a subtle change in the question being asked, from “How do you get people to
realize they’re in bad shape?” to “Is Pope Francis trying to figure out ways
for people to sneak around the rules to make them feel good and stay in the
Church?” a document can be confused and distorted beyond recognition, and end
up meaning exactly the opposite of what it was intended to mean.
Now,
the reason for going into this particular issue — the substance of which has no
relevance to the Just Third Way — is to illustrate a problem with form. And that is?
Unless
you 1) ask the right question, and 2) understand the underlying principles, you
are 3) probably going to get things wrong.
And
that’s why encyclicals have been getting longer, and longer, and longer, etc., etc., etc.
The
question then becomes what, if anything, can be done about it? Leave things as they are, and the next
encyclical could easily resemble the Affordable Care Act and have as many pages
as Singulari Nos had words . . . or
even individual letters.
We’ll
look at that trifling problem in our next posting.
#30#