Are here, by the always delightful Ross Douthat, and a far more openly critical view here, by Michael Dougherty. In addition, Douthat reacts to those who are critical of the critics here. Meanwhile, at The American Catholic, Donald McClarey catches a footnote that could pack more punch than some of the larger issues being discussed, many of which center on Pope Francis himself, rather than what is in Amoris.
On the positive side, we have Cardinal Burke saying this is nothing new and is in agreement with constant Church teaching. This seems to be the opinion of the Grey Lady, where professor Julie Byrne also sees this as the Church getting back to old traditions, at least where authority distributed to local bishops versus a strong, centralized papacy is concerned. Not to be discouraged by its lack of doctrinal change, the hyper-fanatical left-of-Left Slate sees the entire document as a coded, secret, closeted argument for Gay Marriage.
You will have to do some digging. Again, because the document didn't come forth and declare that there is no God but gay sex, and all shall worship and despair, the media has dropped this like a hot potato in order to get back to covering Trump and Clinton. That means we'll have to sift through various articles and opinions to get a handle on what people are saying.
So far, it seems to be divided into two basic camps. One camp consists of those who have faith in the promise of Jesus that the Church will never be allowed to sink into error, therefore this, a papal document, can be nothing other than a continuation of consistent Church teaching. And on the other side are those who see this as planting subtle and nuanced seeds of future doctrinal evolution. Oddly, those in the second camp include folks on opposite sides of the debate. Both those who hope that the Church will eventually embrace the Leftist Gospel, and those who fear the same, are in that second camp. We'll see. It will be a while before I have time to sit down and read it myself.
A quote from AL 308:
ReplyDelete"I understand those who pre- fer a more rigorous pastoral care which leaves no room for confusion."
Somewhere between the two is I think where many people prefer to be: rigorous religious beliefs that leave no room for confusion...with a clause that allows for some level of flexibility, but not too much.
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