Ed Pentin http://www.ncregister.com/
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Regarding the first passage, Francis says defense of the “innocent unborn needs to be clear, firm and passionate,” but adds that “equally sacred” are the lives of the “poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection.”
(...)Professor Claudio Pierantoni, a patristics and medieval philosophy scholar at the Universidad de Chile, said although there is “seemingly no theological error” in the Pope’s words, abortion is an “intrinsically evil action, monstrously justified” by its legalization, whereas issues such as immigration are matters of “prudential judgment.”
His view was shared by professor Roberto De Mattei, a Church historian and president of the Rome-based Lepanto Foundation, who said the Fifth Commandment prohibits the killing of the innocent, but no divine law requires welcoming the immigrant, especially when such persons harbor views antithetical to Christianity.
Gnosticism and Pelagianism
The second element in the document causing vigorous debate relates to what the Pope describes as two “subtle enemies” to achieving sanctity — the heresies of Gnosticism and Pelagianism.
Today’s gnostics, he writes, “judge others based on their ability to understand the complexity of certain doctrines.” They also “reduce Jesus’ teaching to a cold and harsh logic that seeks to dominate everything.”
On contemporary pelagianism, the Pope says this involves telling the weak that “all things can be accomplished with God’s grace,” while giving the idea that “all things are possible by the human will” and failing to realize “that ‘not everyone can do everything.’”
The “new pelagians,” he continues, have an “obsession with the law,” a “punctilious concern for the Church’s liturgy, doctrine and prestige,” and “give excessive importance to certain rules,” rather than wishing to spread the “beauty and joy of the Gospel and seeking out the lost.”
The Holy Father asks that the Church be “set free” from these two heresies blocking the “path to holiness.”
Seifert criticizes Francis for vaguely identifying rigorism with orthodoxy in these passages. But Seifert hopes the “noble moral tenor” of the document as a whole indicates that Francis implicitly rejects the “new papal moral theological paradigm” of such theologians as Father Maurizio Chiodi, who recently used the Pope’s exhortation on the family, Amoris Laetitia, to argue there is nothing “intrinsically immoral” about contraception.
Others take a darker view. Pierantoni said the document has “beautiful and useful pages about holiness,” but he considers the section on Gnosticism and Pelagianism “central” to the exhortation and its “weakest and most dangerous” part.
He sees it as directed at those who adhere to “orthodox doctrine and commandments” — a “counterattack” against the cardinals who issued the dubia (a requested clarification of parts of Amoris Laetitia) and against those who issued the filial correction last year, accusing the Pope of spreading heresy, especially through Amoris Laetitia and its interpretations.
Pierantoni said such attacks on defenders of orthodoxy serve to “support the error of situational ethics,” which denies the existence of intrinsically evil acts — something he believes is the “principal heresy of our times.”
Both Pierantoni and De Mattei say the Gnostic and Pelagian characteristics Francis describes have nothing to do with true Gnostics and Pelagians but, according to De Mattei, distort “the foundations of authentic Christian spirituality.”
The pelagian, De Mattei said, is someone who believes he can be saved by his own strength, without God’s grace, whereas Francis’ definition is of someone who erroneously believes grace helps him to observe divine law in all circumstances and without exception — an “unrealistic ideal,” according to the Pope, a belief which De Mattei believes is no different from what Martin Luther thought.
Pierantoni, who noted that the Ten Commandments are never mentioned in the text, called the Pope’s use of the label “pelagian” “preposterous” and “grotesque,” as Francis applies it to people who “speak warmly of God’s grace.”
As for the term “gnostic,” Pierantoni said it is “gratuitously attributed” to those who “oppose situation ethics” and who insist there are intrinsically evil acts and divine commandments that cannot be changed.