BREAKING: Cardinal Coccopalmerio is a No-Show at Press Conference

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Where's Cocco?

This morning there was to have been an eagerly anticipated press conference featuring Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, answering questions about his recently published pamphlet endorsing the "liberal" interpretation of Amoris Laetitia.

However, Cardinal Coccopalmerio failed to show up, pleading a "diary clash." This was later explained as a conflict with a meeting at the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

In his short work, published by the official Vatican publishing house on February 8, Coccopalmerio had argued that all the sacraments including communion should be open to those "living in situations not in line with traditional matrimonial canons" including the divorced and remarried and even cohabiting couples.

And the press conference had been anticipated by many as another move in the escalating cold war between the Pope and his opponents.

A short question and answer session occurred anyway in which Don Giuseppe Costa, the director of the publishing house, explained that the Cardinal's book was not an official response from the Vatican and that on Amoris Laetitia, "the debate is still open, we encourage it."

The theologian Maurizio Gronchi then made a joke about the "confusing" passages in the Gospels that homilists attempt to explain every Sunday.

It is virtually certain that Cardinal Coccopalmerio did not cancel because of an appointment clash. But it is a completely open question as to why he cancelled or indeed, why the quasi-official press conference was organized in the first place.

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What is clear is that this growing crisis is in part now a farce. And I'm not just talking about the non-appearance of Coccopalmerio. Consider the general issue: Pope Francis publishes a document that, it is claimed, contains ambiguities that leave open the possibility of an heretical interpretation. The Pope refuses to clarify the meaning of the document in the face of an official query by four cardinals, and a thinly veiled smear campaign is mounted against them by Francis and his allies. Nevertheless, the heretical interpretation is endorsed by various groups of bishops around the world, and these appear to be affirmed by the Pope - either tacitly with silence or in one case via a quasi-public letter. Does that mean that this is the actual meaning of the document? The Pope still won't officially say. But now, what is in effect his own publishing house declares that it "encourages" debate on the question.

The Pope won't explain what Amoris Laetitia means but encourages debate on it.

And yes, some are actually suggesting that this is a good thing - an example of the Pope's openness to dialogue, etc.

Happy Valentine's Day.

V for Vendetta: Anti-Francis Parody of L'Osservatore Romano Emailed to Vatican Officials

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Ideas are bulletproof.

They may even survive assaults of ambiguity. 

A week ago, anti-Francis "Where is your mercy?" posters appeared all over Rome.

Today, a parody copy of L'Osservatore Romano was Emailed to bishops, cardinals and other Vatican officials.

The headline reads, "Ha Risposto!" and the text features the Pope responding to the dubia questions with silly and bizarre statements that are often direct quotations from his own homilies and interviews, culminating in each case with the answer, "yes and no."

The parody also makes fun of Antonio Spadaro, Cardinal Kasper and other Francis allies.

No doubt Francis will meet this event with the "calmness and serenity" he allegedly exhibited when being told of last week's posters. Rumors that workmen are clandestinely removing destroyed furniture from Casa Santa Marta have not been verified.

From Crux Now:

According to the Italian daily Il Messaggero, which reported on the spoof in its Friday print edition, it was sent out via email to “monsignors, cardinals, bishops, and gentlemen” inside the Vatican. 

As an example, the first question posed to Francis in the dubia was whether “after the exhortation Amoris Laetitia, absolution and Eucharistic Communion can be given ‘in certain cases’ to divorced persons who are in a new union and who continue to live more uxorio,” meaning as man and wife. 

The spoof claims the pontiff responded “yes and no”, with the following explanation taken from an address he gave on Nov. 15, 2015: “I make the question my own. I ask myself: ‘The Supper of the Lord is the end of a journey or is it encouragement to walk? There are questions to which only if one is honest with oneself and with the few theological lights that I have, one must respond the same, you see.’ And from there you accept the consequences. It is a problem that each one must answer.” 

The fourth question, in which the cardinals asked whether, after Amoris Laetitia, circumstances or intentions can transform an “intrinsically evil” act into something subjectively good, is answered with an explanation built by a series of famous one-liners from the pope, taken completely out of context. 

“Responsum: Yes and no!” the pope allegedly writes. “Explicatio: Who am I to judge? [June 28, 2013]. I don’t meddle [Feb. 17, 2016]. But if doctor Gasparri, a great friend, said a curse about my mother, he can expect a punch! But this is normal! It’s normal! [Jan. 15, 2015]. God is unfair? Yes, he was unfair with his Son, who he sent to the cross [Dec. 15, 2016].”

Read the rest here.   

Cardinal Aguilar Defends Amoris Laetitia

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"Thanks, I owe you one."

H/t Jane Royal.

Today in the print edition of L'Osservatore Romano, an official organ of the Vatican, a short editorial was penned in the name of Cardinal Sebastián Aguilar, Abp. emeritus of Pamplona, defending Amoris Laetitia and attacking the four cardinals. 

Aguilar was appointed cardinal by Francis in 2014. He is 86 years old and is one of the small number of cardinals who were given a cardinal's hat at the age of 80 or older.

He came under fire a few years ago for publicly reiterating the teaching of the Church that homosexuality was a "deficiency."

Here is the quasi-cleaned up Google translated version of the Italian text: 

A few distinguished gentlemen are suffering because they do not understand what Francis meant in Amoris laetitia and want the Pope to explain it. Their "concerns" are imaginary, because the Pope said what needed to be said with sufficient clarity. 

Just read it slowly if you want to understand. Some say (Amoris Laetitia) expresses personal opinions; others that it doesn't change anything; and others that it changes much. One must be more sincere and open-minded. 

The Pope expressed much about the nature of Christian marriage as a covenant of irrevocable love. And he did so as it had never been done previously in the magisterium of the Church. Taking a very realistic perspective, he says that in today's society there may be people trapped in situations of sin, from which they repent and from which, at a given time, they cannot extricate themselves; and it teaches that these people, if they are truly repentant, can receive absolution from their sins and can therefore receive communion avoiding any scandal. If those who doubt put aside their cards and go to confession, they will understand better.  

Find people who are suffering and sincerely seek God. God loves, God calls, God waits with his peace. How can we dispossess them?

In my view (and I will now speak in the familiar), defenses of Amoris Laetitia come in three basic categories:

1. Amoris Laetitia means X (where X is clear).

2. Amoris Laetitia means X (where X is at least as unclear or ambiguous as the critical passages in Amoris Laetitia).

3. Shut up, you capitalist roader.

I think Aguilar's defense is of the first category, and should be (in a sense) commended for that. People are sometimes "trapped" in second marriages (he argues). Thus it's possible for them to sincerely repent of their past sins without precisely intending to sin again (that they intend to go on fully "living out" their second marriage is not a sin or is only a quasi-sin since they are trapped in it).

You can, so to speak, read out the dubia answers from Aguilar's relatively clear response:

Yes

No

No

No

No

Everyone knows this is how the Pope desires and intends Amoris Laetitia to be interpreted:

Divorced and remarried Catholics may be admitted to communion even if they fully intend to continue (in every way) their "marital" relationship.

This is what the Pope desires and intends. And it is clear as a bell. But he cannot himself say it clearly and "officially" (by among other things, giving answers to the dubia).

That's because it is heretical.

Or not. But if not, then those who defend Amoris Laetitia or this Pope should explain why the Pope doesn't simply answer the dubia and thus clear things up once and for all.

Instead of asking old men who owe him favors to do it for him.