Important Guest Essay: "The Meaning of Amoris Laetitia According to Pope Francis." - by Dr John Lamont

The meaning of Amoris laetitia according to Pope Francis

John R. T. Lamont

            The teaching of the apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia has been the subject of a great deal of debate since the promulgation of that document. Various interpretations of this teaching have been presented, and the differing interpretations have been used both to denounce the document as heretical and to defend it as in harmony with the teaching of the Church. Pope Francis has recently acted to clarify the meaning of the most contentious section of Amoris laetitia through a statement in the October 2017 issue of the Acta apostolic sedis, the journal that publishes the official acts of the Holy See (the title of the journal is generally abbreviated as AAS). The meaning and consequences of this clarification are of the first importance, and need to be carefully and accurately examined.

The meaning and authority of the AAS statement

            The statement in the AAS has three components: i) a letter from Pope Francis to the bishops of the Buenos Aires region concerning their pastoral degree on the application of Chapter 8 of Amoris laetitia, ii) the pastoral decree itself, and iii) a statement by Cardinal Parolin, the Secretary of State, asserting that the Supreme Pontiff has ordered the publication of the two preceding components in the AAS as statements of the authentic magisterium. The letter from Pope Francis is given the title of ‘Apostolic letter’ in the AAS statement, a title it did not bear when originally issued.

            The statement in the AAS has a high degree of authority. The term ‘authentic magisterium’ is explained in para. 25 of the dogmatic constitution Lumen gentium, and in canon 752 of the Latin Code of Canon Law. The exercise of the authentic magisterium is not infallible, and hence does not require the assent of faith from Catholics, but it does require the religious submission of mind and will, a submission that includes sincere adherence to the assertions being taught. The covering statement by Cardinal Parolin, the publication of the above documents in the AAS at the command of the Pope, and the new title of ‘Apostolic letter’ given to Pope Francis’s original letter to the Buenos Aires bishops, confirm that the relevant contents of the documents are teachings of the authentic magisterium of the Catholic Church. This is a rather roundabout way of conveying an official teaching of the Church, since  this teaching is given in a letter about a letter about an apostolic exhortation, but this form of expression is not entirely without precedent or unsuitable in itself. There are precedents for a Pope issuing a teaching by endorsing a statement previously made by bishops. It does however mean that the statement needs to be carefully analyzed in order to identify the content of the teaching it conveys.

Exclusive for Rorate: Michael Davies Memorial Lecture by Roberto de Mattei - "From the Second Vatican Council to the Synod: The Teaching of Michael Davies"

Requiem and Michael Davies Memorial Lecture

SPONSORED BY THE LATIN MASS SOCIETY, LONDON

A requiem for Michael Davies was celebrated by Fr Tim Finigan in the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory, Warwick Street, London W1B 5LZ, at 5.30pm yesterday, Friday 10th July 2015. The Mass was accompanied with music by Cantus Magnus, under the direction of Matthew Schellhorn.

Following the Mass, The Michael Davies Memorial Lecture was delivered by Roberto de Mattei, Professor of Modern History and Christian History at the European University in Rome. His lecture was entitled 'From the Second Vatican Council to the Synod: The Teaching of Michael Davies'.

The lecture, which was held in the church hall at Warwick Street and chaired by Adrian Davies - Michael’s son, started at 6.30pm. The Mass and lecture were open to all.

Exclusive for Rorate Caeli

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From the Second Vatican Council to the Synod: 

The Teaching of Michael Davies

Roberto de Mattei

Dear friends,

It’s an honour and a pleasure for me to be here to speak about the work of Michael Davies, whom I met personally and consider one of the few true defenders of the Catholic faith of the 20th century.

His books anticipate those of Romano Amerio 1 and Monsignor Gherardini 2 and my History of the Second Vatican Council II is also indebted to them.3

In the first paragraph of his book Cranmer’s Godly Order (published in 1976) Michael Davies wrote that the Church was going through “the greatest crisis since the Protestant Reformation, quite possibly the greatest since the Arian heresy”. For Davies this crisis has its most recent roots in the Second Vatican Council to which he dedicated an entire volume, the second of his memorable trilogy, The Liturgical Revolution.4

He returned to Vatican II in 1992 with another important book: The Second Vatican Council and Religious Liberty 5. The problems relating to the liturgy and religious liberty at first glance, appear distant from each other but actually have a common origin in the Second Vatican Council and its consequences.

In this conference, I’ll be focusing on the fundamental aspect of Mr. Davies’ work: that is, his contribution to the understanding of Vatican II and its aftermath.

The convocation of the Second Vatican Council

On October 9^th 1958 Pope Pius XII died. On January 25^th 1959, only three months after his election to the papal throne, the new Pope, John XXIII, announced the convocation of the Second Vatican Council.

Davies retraces Vatican II starting from its convocation, by using the words of Cardinal Pietro Sforza Pallavicino (1607-1667), a historian of the Council of Trent, quoted by Cardinal Manning: “… to convoke a General Council, except when absolutely demanded by necessity, is to tempt God”6.

This was not what some conservative cardinals thought, seeing that from the moment John XXIII was elected, they encouraged him to convoke an ecumenical Council. The First Vatican Council had been brusquely interrupted by the Franco-Prussian war in 1870, and these cardinals imagined its continuation – in their intentions -  would be culminated with the drafting of a “Syllabus” of contemporary errors. They counted on the support of Monsignor Domenico Tardini, seeing that they had imposed on John XXIII, Tardini’s nomination as cardinal and Secretary of State, as a condition for his election to the Papacy.

Monsignor Tardini’s unexpected death on July 30th 1961, while the preparatory phase for the Council was in progress, upset these plans. The conservative cardinals also, overestimated the strength of the Roman Curia and underestimated their adversaries,’ who were forming a powerful and well-organized party. In his book, The Rhine flows into the Tiber, Father Ralph Wiltgen, was the first to reveal the existence of this organized structure.7 In my book about the Council I reported new elements based on the memories of some protagonists and some archival documents, which came to light in recent years.

In June 1962, when the first seven schemas of the conciliar constitutions (which  had been worked on by ten committees for three years under the supervision of Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani) were submitted to the Pope, John XXIII was still convinced that the Council would have been closed by December. The Pope approved the preparatory schemas and in July, three months before the opening of the Council, ordered that they be sent to all the Council Fathers, as a basis for discussion at the general congregations.

The Second Vatican Council opened in St. Peter’s Basilica on October 11^th 1962.