(A Lenten Reflection)
It helps in the Lenten season for folks to reflect more on themselves and their particular tendencies to better get a grasp of where improvement is needed spiritually as well as otherwise. The purpose of this reflection is to consider those who have repeatedly in social media and elsewhere agitated about the Dubia of the four cardinals and the explicit lack of an answer to it by Pope Francis. Though I addressed this matter years ago, it seems appropriate this Lent to revisit the subject anew. The core flaw of the Dubia can be summarized thusly:
It helps in the Lenten season for folks to reflect more on themselves and their particular tendencies to better get a grasp of where improvement is needed spiritually as well as otherwise. The purpose of this reflection is to consider those who have repeatedly in social media and elsewhere agitated about the Dubia of the four cardinals and the explicit lack of an answer to it by Pope Francis. Though I addressed this matter years ago, it seems appropriate this Lent to revisit the subject anew. The core flaw of the Dubia can be summarized thusly:
- The presupposition from which the Dubia cardinals operate is that all objectively grave acts are automatically actual mortal sins. This error is reflected in the structure of the Dubia's various questions. Such an approach to moral theology is flatly contrary to centuries of Catholic understanding of what does and does not constitute an actual mortal sin.
There are three factors that constitute an actual mortal sin. The first is the involvement of what is called objectively grave matter. However, there are two subjective factors as well. One does not by recognizing the variables which can subjectively affect an individual's culpability for a particular act ipso facto affirm that "divorced persons who are in a new union and who continue to live more uxorio" (cf. Dubia Q1) are automatically in all cases guilty of actual mortal sin. Nor does such recognition of the aforementioned mitigating variables potentially affecting an individual's subjective culpability for a particular act ipso facto deny "the existence of absolute moral norms that prohibit intrinsically evil acts" (cf. Dubia Q2), the idea that there can be "objective situations of grave habitual sin" (cf. Dubia Q3), or consequently affirm that the aforementioned mitigations "transform[s] an objectively grave act into a subjectively good or defensible choice" (cf. Dubia Q4). And of course one who recognizes the variables which can subjectively affect an individual's culpability for a particular act does not necessarily affirm some "interpretation of the role of conscience...that emphasizes that conscience can never be authorized to legitimate exceptions to absolute moral norms" (cf. Dubia Q5). It is not an issue of legitimizing exceptions but instead one of not painting all objectively grave situations with the same level of subjective gravity.
If an objectively grave act is not automatically a subjective actual mortal sin, then the one who committed the act does not necessarily in all cases need to avoid taking communion. As for which situations this could be applicable, that sort of discernment is for individual penitents and their confessors, not those outside the specific situation no matter whom they are.
For those who want to read more on these matters, they can see my notes located here and here. It is actually not hard to answer these questions; however, there is also the factor of expending time on them when those asking the questions will not like or accept the answers given. As Pope Francis is likely aware that most of those who push the Dubia fall into this category and therefore his direct refusal to acknowledge it is actually something that arguably is the correct approach to take.
If an objectively grave act is not automatically a subjective actual mortal sin, then the one who committed the act does not necessarily in all cases need to avoid taking communion. As for which situations this could be applicable, that sort of discernment is for individual penitents and their confessors, not those outside the specific situation no matter whom they are.
For those who want to read more on these matters, they can see my notes located here and here. It is actually not hard to answer these questions; however, there is also the factor of expending time on them when those asking the questions will not like or accept the answers given. As Pope Francis is likely aware that most of those who push the Dubia fall into this category and therefore his direct refusal to acknowledge it is actually something that arguably is the correct approach to take.
