Vatican newspaper publishes defense of Amoris Laetitia
July 25, 2016
L’Osservatore Romano has published a defense of Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia by Rodrigo Guerra López, a philosopher at the Center for Advanced Social Research in Queretaro, Mexico.
Stating that “it is not strange to find resistance when Christian thought takes a new step forward,” López writes that the controversy over Amoris Laetitia recalls earlier controversies over whether the Second Vatican Council’s teaching on religious liberty was faithful to the teaching of Leo XIII and whether St. John Paul II’s use of phenomenology was in accord with the Church’s philosophical tradition.
“Amoris laetitia is a true act of pontifical teaching,” said López. “It is very imprudent, in addition to being theologically inexact, to insinuate that this apostolic exhortation is a kind of personal opinion, almost private.”
In Amoris Laetitia, López continued, there is an “organic development” of the understanding and application of the deposit of faith, but “Pope Francis does not change the essential doctrine of the Church.”
“The deposit of faith is a gift we must protect,” but not something to be stored in a freezer, López said. In applying the deposit of faith with “creative fidelity,” Amoris Laetitia is an example of the hermeneutic of reform in continuity mentioned by Pope Benedict in his 2005 address to the Roman Curia, and not an example of rupture with previous teaching.
López also states that critics of Amoris Laetitia who cite St. Thomas Aquinas, St. John Paul II, and Pope Benedict are misinterpreting these three figures.
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Posted by: JDeFauw -
Jul. 26, 2016 4:42 PM ET USA
Did Lopez specify what teachings in Amoris Laetitia he regards as a new step forward in Christian thought?
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Posted by: Randal Mandock -
Jul. 26, 2016 2:06 PM ET USA
I wonder how many philosophers at the Center for Advanced Social Research in Queretaro, Mexico, believe in God and the ontological reality of the Trinity. If the author believes in the God of the Catholics, does he think it possible for a mortal man to commit a mortal sin? If it is, then can public scandal ever constitute a mortal sin? If most marriages are invalid, according to Pope Francis, then why does the stodgy old Church continue to insist on divorce prior to application for annulment?
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Posted by: james-w-anderson8230 -
Jul. 25, 2016 7:47 PM ET USA
It is unfortunate that there is not an English translation available.
