Emmanuel
least excusable.”
Fifth: Can conscience assume the role of granting “exceptions to
absolute moral norms that prohibit intrinsically evil acts . . . ?” Some
priests have fashioned creative pastoral solutions based on the
supremacy of conscience. In their view, a person may know very well
that he is engaged in adultery on the objective level, but it is possible
that God may really be calling him to commit adultery. Of course, the
role of conscience is never to remake the moral law, but only to judge
the morality of a particular concrete act in light of existing ethical
norms.
Sin has terrible consequences, whether one has repented or not;
and those who engage in invalid second marriages must suffer the
consequences. Mercy is powerless to alter the results of this sin. As
one cardinal remarked, “How can we be more merciful than the Lord?”
Mercy cannot excuse an invalid marriage, or make it valid.
Given the premises adopted by the cardinals, these arguments make
a certain amount of sense. Can sensibility contribute anything to the
discussion?
b. Sensibility
Pope Francis has yet to reply to the dubia, but that neglect does not
imply acquiescence. Famously, Pope Francis has championed mercy
as the forgotten virtue in Christian thought and practice today.
Although aware of abstract principles, mercy attends primarily to
concrete circumstances. There is no law of mercy. No recipe exists for
when and how it should be applied. Mercy subsists in a different realm.
It pertains to concrete circumstances that need individual assessment.
Mercy resists legal formulation. Nor is mercy an alternative to law.
Mercy is, rather, a way of applying laws. Jurisprudence that attends
only to abstract principles, therefore, can result in a mean-spirited
application of the law.
In Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote of the villain,
Raskolnikov, that “. . . he was young, abstract, and therefore cruel . . .”
(Part 4, Chapter 4). Those who do not value experience sufficiently grow
too confident in abstract principles. They simply do not appreciate
the concrete dilemmas that people can face. For them, the abstract
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