be two sides of the same coin.
a. Sense
On September 19, 2016, four cardinals privately issued a set of five
questions seeking clarification on issues raised in AL, the so-called
“dubia” that require “yes or no” answers. After receiving no reply from
the pope, they made their letter public and disclosed the five dubia,
together with an explanatory note. 1
The first of the dubia asks how the document can be squared with Saint
John Paul II’s Familiaris Consortio, 84, which imposes three conditions
on couples living in an invalid second marriage. The couple may
live together if: 1. the persons concerned cannot separate without
committing new injustices; 2. they abstain from acts that are proper
to spouses; and 3. they avoid giving scandal. The teaching is based on
Matthew 19:3-9, where the Lord proclaims, “And I say to you, whoever
divorces his wife, except for porneia, and marries another commits
adultery. . . .”
Second: “Does one still need to regard as valid the teaching . . . on the
existence of absolute moral norms that prohibit intrinsically evil acts
and that are binding without exceptions?” Intrinsically evil acts bind
a person in all circumstances without exception. Does AL now claim
there are no intrinsically evil acts?” 2
Third: “Is it still possible to affirm that a person who habitually lives in
contradiction to a commandment of God’s law . . . , finds him- or herself
in an objective situation of grave habitual sin. . . ?” In other words, AL
seems to allow for mitigating circumstances for at least some couples
living in irregular marriages. Their objective circumstances seem
no longer to count. Such couples may still enjoy sanctifying grace,
with the right to receive Communion. The cardinals rely on, inter
alia, Canon 915, which states that people who “obstinately persist
in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”
Unable to detect a person’s subjective state of grace, the minister
of Communion must rely exclusively on publicly known, objective
criteria when denying Communion.
Fourth: Does one still need to hold that “circumstances or intentions
can never transform an act intrinsically evil by virtue of its object into
an act ‘subjectively’ good or defensible as a choice”? Similar to the
second dubia, this question asks whether circumstances can transform
an intrinsically evil act into something that is “commendable or at
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