AMORIS LAETITIA

Amoris Laetitia

(The Joy of Love)

This almost 300 page long (in the English translation) work by Pope Franciscus deals primarily with Love within the family and within the Christian community.

I read most of it with great attention, some of it I just skimmed over, since it seemed either repetitious or not quite to the point.

(If this sounds presumptuous you must find it in your christian heart to forgive me.)

If I was able to interpret some of this AL correctly, I think that Franciscus is, to a large extent, breaking with Catholic tradition.

Pastors, he says, are to avoid judgments which do not take into account the complexity of various situations. It seems to me that up to now, the judgment of the church was doctrinaire and took into account only the written word of the entire liturgical output. 
( Including, but NOT limited to the Bible)

Every person, the AL stipulates, regardless of sexual orientation ought to be respected in his or her dignity and treated with consideration. This individual treatment, of course, can only come from the local clergy and would have to be subject to the local priest's judgment.

Divorced-remarried persons must be more fully integrated into the Catholic church and the degree of participation must be left to a person's conscience.

It is interesting to note that Franciscus makes no mention of receiving Holy Communion. It may be assumed, however, that the Eucharist is an integral part of “participation” in the Catholic Church, and that therefore Franciscus would like to see a more tolerant approach to receiving Holy Communion by divorced-remarried persons.

His call, as mentioned above, to “avoid judgments which do not take into account the complexity of various situations” might seem to open a door for such individuals to receive Holy Communion.

It can no longer be said, Franciscus states, that all those living in any “irregular” situation are living in a state of mortal sin.

The Church needs to stop applying moral laws, as if they were “stones to throw at a person's life.”

Gay men and women “need to be respected in his or her dignity and treated with consideration.”

The above surely is a far cry from the biblical reactions to homosexuality. God, it is said, destroyed the City of Sodom because of its homosexual population. And even if the New Testament does not definitively deal with homosexuality, the practise within the Roman Catholic Church was one of utter rejection of openly Gay or Lesbian persons.

In any event, I expect a controlled outcry from within the R.C.Church, since, if my interpretation is even only nearly correct, Franciscus is breaking, or attempting to break with old, iron clad traditions.

In Paragraph 36 he states:

“We also need to be humble and realistic, acknowledging that at times the way we present our Christian beliefs and treat other people has helped to contribute to today's problematic situation. We need a healthy dose of self-criticism.” ….

Way to go, Francis, finally one of their own, the Pope yet, tells it like it is, and invites the Church to examine its rigid rules and regulations.

Then, Francis hits a home-run when he says this: “Then too, we often present marriage in such a way that its unitive meaning, its call to grow in love and its ideal of mutual assistance are overshadowed by an almost exclusive insistence on the duty of procreation." (He could have left out “almost”).

I have heard Catholic Clergy insist that sex is not to be enjoyed, to be indulged in only between married couples and for the sole reason to conceive a child. Sex, they insisted, for any other reason is sinful.

Since God, in whom they claim to believe, has created Male and Female in their entirety, he also gave them the experience of orgasmic pleasure, without which, sex undoubtedly would grind to a screeching halt.

And here comes Franciscus and carefully, but unequivocally tells his flock that it is okay to have sex without procreation being its only reason.

The Pope, in this work, Amoris Laetitia, urges his own staff to be more tolerant, to examine issues carefully and treat them individually, as the case may demand.

There would be more in this work to discuss . The above seem to me the most important issues.
If you want more, go read it yourself.

Bertstravels

fears that Francis might run into some objections

from some of his own Cardinals and Bishops.