Attendees of the Boston College conference organized by Cardinal Blase Cupich last month. (Courtesy of Boston
College)ANALYSIS: Conferences on Amoris Laetitia Highlight Dissenting Scholars
In an effort to promote the so-called new paradigm surrounding the interpretation of Pope Francis’ 2016 apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), three seminars were held last month for invited bishops and select theologians at three Catholic universities around the country.
The group of theologians invited is noteworthy not because of their expertise on the topics of marriage and family, but because of their public opposition to some of the Church’s long-taught traditions.
Called “New Momentum Conferences on Amoris Laetitia,” the seminars were spearheaded by Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, fresh from his February speech on Amoris Laetitia at Cambridge University in England, and coming on the heels of a conference on the apostolic exhortation at Boston College last October.
Catholic News Agency reported Feb. 12 that it had obtained a letter from Cardinal Cupich inviting some U.S. bishops to the conferences. The gatherings offered a “tailor-made program that goes from why Amoris Laetitia provides ‘New Momentum for Moral Formation and Pastoral Practice’ to how to provide formative pastoral programs.”
The seminars brought together several selectively invited bishops “to have a conversation with the aid of theologians” at Boston College, the University of Notre Dame and Santa Clara University. The events were by invitation only and were closed to the media.
Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta attended the Boston College event. Cardinals Joseph Tobin and Blase Cupich were to present at the University of Notre Dame, and Bishops Steven Biegler of Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Robert McElroy of San Diego were to present at Santa Clara University.
Perhaps the reasoning behind the very private nature of the seminars had a bit to do with the invitation list of the theologians who were hand-picked to present on various topics relevant to Amoris Laetitia. Among the select group of theologians were Msgr. Jack Alesandro, a canon lawyer of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, New York, who calls for changes in the way the Church views the validity of marriages; liberation theologian Natalia Imperatori-Lee of Manhattan College, who sees many aspects of helping laypeople form their consciences as a form of colonial oppression; and ethicist Kate Ward of Marquette University, who has been a board member of the dissenting organization Call to Action that advocates for the ordination of women to the priesthood.
(...)
Heralds of the New Paradigm
As a group, the theologians who took part in the seminars are all well-known in Catholic academic circles. Several will be speaking at the upcoming annual meeting of the Catholic Theological Society in June, several were presidents of the society, and all of them can be described as active in the most progressive circles of current theological thought.
What this tells us is twofold. First, the radical ideas regarding the sacraments, conscience and morality are very widespread across Catholic institutions of higher learning. Second, the ideas of the “new paradigm” are not exactly new. The interpretations and implementation of Amoris Laetitia that seek to change Church teachings on marriage and divorce, conscience, sexuality, gender and even the sensus fidelium and Tradition have been around for a long time and can be traced to the revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s that many had hoped were a thing of the Church’s anguished years after the Second Vatican Council. What these Amoris conferences have done, however, is to create a safe space for dissenting theologians and their patrons to place their longtime dissent under the umbra of interpreting a new papal document. And much of it is being conducted behind closed doors, in conferences that prohibit all transparency, virtually all Catholic media and any recognized authorities in the Church on family life, moral theology and sexuality who might challenge the ethos of dissent.
Where can Catholics turn to understand the potential ramifications of this worldview? Recent commentaries by the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, and moral theologian Christian Brugger provide important and detailed descriptions of where embracing the “new paradigm” offered by the Amorisconferences must inevitably lead.
As George Weigel reminded all of us, the Church doesn’t do paradigm shifts.
“Something is broken in Catholicism today and it isn’t going to be healed by appeals to paradigm shifts,” Weigel said in his trenchant commentary for First Things. “In the first Christian centuries, bishops frankly confronted and, when necessary, fraternally corrected each other. That practice is as essential today as it was in the days of Cyprian and Augustine — not to mention Peter and Paul.”
The group of theologians invited is noteworthy not because of their expertise on the topics of marriage and family, but because of their public opposition to some of the Church’s long-taught traditions.
Called “New Momentum Conferences on Amoris Laetitia,” the seminars were spearheaded by Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, fresh from his February speech on Amoris Laetitia at Cambridge University in England, and coming on the heels of a conference on the apostolic exhortation at Boston College last October.
Catholic News Agency reported Feb. 12 that it had obtained a letter from Cardinal Cupich inviting some U.S. bishops to the conferences. The gatherings offered a “tailor-made program that goes from why Amoris Laetitia provides ‘New Momentum for Moral Formation and Pastoral Practice’ to how to provide formative pastoral programs.”
The seminars brought together several selectively invited bishops “to have a conversation with the aid of theologians” at Boston College, the University of Notre Dame and Santa Clara University. The events were by invitation only and were closed to the media.
Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta attended the Boston College event. Cardinals Joseph Tobin and Blase Cupich were to present at the University of Notre Dame, and Bishops Steven Biegler of Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Robert McElroy of San Diego were to present at Santa Clara University.
Perhaps the reasoning behind the very private nature of the seminars had a bit to do with the invitation list of the theologians who were hand-picked to present on various topics relevant to Amoris Laetitia. Among the select group of theologians were Msgr. Jack Alesandro, a canon lawyer of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, New York, who calls for changes in the way the Church views the validity of marriages; liberation theologian Natalia Imperatori-Lee of Manhattan College, who sees many aspects of helping laypeople form their consciences as a form of colonial oppression; and ethicist Kate Ward of Marquette University, who has been a board member of the dissenting organization Call to Action that advocates for the ordination of women to the priesthood.
(...)
Heralds of the New Paradigm
As a group, the theologians who took part in the seminars are all well-known in Catholic academic circles. Several will be speaking at the upcoming annual meeting of the Catholic Theological Society in June, several were presidents of the society, and all of them can be described as active in the most progressive circles of current theological thought.
What this tells us is twofold. First, the radical ideas regarding the sacraments, conscience and morality are very widespread across Catholic institutions of higher learning. Second, the ideas of the “new paradigm” are not exactly new. The interpretations and implementation of Amoris Laetitia that seek to change Church teachings on marriage and divorce, conscience, sexuality, gender and even the sensus fidelium and Tradition have been around for a long time and can be traced to the revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s that many had hoped were a thing of the Church’s anguished years after the Second Vatican Council. What these Amoris conferences have done, however, is to create a safe space for dissenting theologians and their patrons to place their longtime dissent under the umbra of interpreting a new papal document. And much of it is being conducted behind closed doors, in conferences that prohibit all transparency, virtually all Catholic media and any recognized authorities in the Church on family life, moral theology and sexuality who might challenge the ethos of dissent.
Where can Catholics turn to understand the potential ramifications of this worldview? Recent commentaries by the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, and moral theologian Christian Brugger provide important and detailed descriptions of where embracing the “new paradigm” offered by the Amorisconferences must inevitably lead.
As George Weigel reminded all of us, the Church doesn’t do paradigm shifts.
“Something is broken in Catholicism today and it isn’t going to be healed by appeals to paradigm shifts,” Weigel said in his trenchant commentary for First Things. “In the first Christian centuries, bishops frankly confronted and, when necessary, fraternally corrected each other. That practice is as essential today as it was in the days of Cyprian and Augustine — not to mention Peter and Paul.”
Matthew Bunson is a Register senior editor.