In the article that I co-authored with Dr. Goldstein, we would have done better to speak of the "official" Latin text rather than the "original" Latin text. This, though, is no longer an issue because the normative text is the Latin text published in thr AAS. Mr. Ferrara, however, bases his critique upon an assumption that the "generous response" offered to God is a sin. This, though, is not what AL is saying. The generous response is a move away from sin and a move toward God. I explain this in my most recent response to Prof. E. Christian Brugger, which can serve as my response to Mr. Ferrara:

Posted on LifeSiteNews:
Prof. Brugger is a good theologian and a fine man, but he still seems to believe that AL 303 implies that God is asking people to continue to sin in some cases. In his April 22, 2016 article in Catholic World Report, Brugger writes that AL 303 suggests that “God can be ‘asking’ someone to live in a life-state in which they are objectively violating grave matter.” Then in a Sept. 28 ‘17 LifeSiteNews article, he states that “the generous response” owed to God is “a certain state that is objectively at variance with the universal command of the Gospel.” Now Prof. Brugger argues that, because the subject remains “this conscience” in AL 303, this proves that the “generous offering owed to God” is the recognition that one is living “contrary to “the universal command of the Gospel.”

Prof. Brugger fails to see that AL 303 clearly distinguishes between a conscience’s recognition that “a given situation is objectively at variance with the general mandate of the Gospel” and this same conscience’s subsequent recognition of a “generous response owed to God in the present circumstances.” The subject “conscience” might be the same but the object is different. The “generous response” is not the situation that is at variance with the command of the Gospel but an offering that God is asking amid the mass of impediments even though it may not yet be the perfect objective model.

What might be this “generous response?” Pope Francis does not give an example in AL 303 because he’s speaking in general terms of the dynamics of conscience. Moreover, he knows that concrete cases vary widely. In our Sept. 26 article in La Stampa, Dr. Goldstein and I provided a hypothetical example of a couple in a purely civil “marriage” recognizing that God is calling them to live in continence. We chose this example deliberately to demonstrate that “the generous response” could be the ending of a particular sin. Our example was an attempt to show that Professors Brugger and Seifert are wrong to believe AL 303 implies that God is asking some people to continue to live in an objectively sinful state. It’s really just the opposite. AL 303 teaches that conscience will come to recognize that God is asking for a step in the right direction away from sin. Pope Francis explains this again in AL 305 when he says “a small step, in the midst of great human limitations, can be more pleasing to God than a life which appears outwardly in order, but moves through the day without confronting great difficulties.’”

In a recent interview (http://www.lastampa.it/2017..., the Italian philosopher, Rocco Buttiglione, provides this example for AL 303: “Imagine a father who has a sick son and the child improves. He still has fever but has stopped vomiting; the child manages to keep in his stomach what he eats and has started a therapy that seems to work. The father is happy. Is he happy about the fact that the child is sick? No, he is pleased that his son gives symptoms of improvement and healing.”

This is what Pope Francis is saying in AL 303. God is not happy with situations that are objectively at variance with the command of the Gospel. God, however, is happy when people in such situations discern in conscience that He is asking them to make a choice that moves in the right direction—even if they still need to progress further toward a more complete fulfillment of His will. This is the law of gradualness not the gradualness of the law. It is sad that this beautiful and compassionate message of AL 303 has been so completely misunderstood by scholars who have failed to grasp its true meaning.

I certainly agree that the Latin text is the normative text even if it comes later. I certainly do not agree that the Latin text eliminates the grave problems with Amoris Laetitia. Rather, as I show in my article, it only intensifies them.

With all due respect to Dr. Fastiggi, his argument and that of Buttiglione, that a “move away from sin” is what is pleasing to God, even if the moral norm is not adhered to, is sophistical. What constitutes a “move away” from sin if not ceasing to commit the sin? No example is provided in AL because none can be. The notion is nonsensical. Just how nonsensical is demonstrated by Dr. Fastiggi’s claim that by “a move away from sin” in the case of a divorced and “remarried” couple Francis means their agreement to live in continence as brother and sister for the sake of children. But that would be ceasing to commit the sin of adultery altogether as it would involve abandoning the pretense that they are married along with the illicit sexual relation itself. Such a couple could always be absolved and receive Holy Communion under the Church’s constant practice, albeit privately to avoid scandal.

At any rate, the “brother and sister” approach to the situation, which is that of Familiaris consortio 84, is certainly not the one advocated by Francis. As my article shows, Francis has made it quite clear that he approves of admitting to the sacraments divorced and “remarried” people who will continue to live as if they were married, including sexual relations, while “discerning” their situation, this “discernment” being a mere fig leaf to conceal the proposed toleration of public adultery in the Church. Thus Francis thanked the Maltese bishops for their AL guidelines, which literally mandate admission to the sacraments of divorced and “remarried” people who believe themselves to be “at peace with God.” And, as he told the bishops of Buenos Aires in writing, “there is no other interpretation."

No amount of verbal artifice can conceal what is happening in the Church thanks to AL: Public adulterers are being admitted to Holy Communion without an amendment of life and the bimillennial discipline of the Church--which John Paul insisted involves a moral norm, not a mere ecclesiastical law, to which everyone is bound in conscience "without exception"---is being overthrown in place after place.

It is a great disservice to the Church to maintain the pretense that there is nothing problematical about AL. A moral catastrophe is self-evidently underway and it is not possible honestly to deny its cause.

Thank you for your response. You write well but you do not reveal a proper understanding of what Pope Francis is saying in AL 303. I can only ask that you to study the matter more carefully with an open heart and mind.

Tell that to the four cardinals, the 800,000 faithful, the 45 theologians and the 61 other original signers of the correctio, all of whom you insult with your superficial and I must say entirely sophistical attempt to explain away what Francis is clearly doing.

Irony of ironies, the latter-day Pharisees and legalists Francis sees around every corner are hard at work defending Amoris Laetitia at the very moment it is being cited by bishop after bishop as their sole authority for admitting public adulterers to Holy Communion---while Francis does nothing but approve.

I think you should follow your own advice about studying this matter with an open heart and mind, but above all with open eyes, for you have clearly shut them to what is going in the dioceses in the name of AL.

A brilliant reply, Dr. Fastiggi. When you can't answer an opponent's arguments, just shout "You don't understand!"

Dr. Goldstein? A JEW woman teaching about Our Lord?
¡¡¡Jajajajaja!!!

A troll, obviously.

Holy Mary, Mother of God is both Jewish and a woman and taught and teaches us about Our Lord, Her Son.

Dawn Eden Goldstein converted to Catholicism in 2006 and in "May 2010, she received an M.A. in theology from Dominican House of Studies after defending her master's thesis, a critique of Christopher West's presentation of Pope JP2's Theology of the Body. Three months later, after Alice von Hildebrand cited Goldstein's research in her own critique of West, Catholic News Agency made the thesis available for download." In "May 2016, Goldstein became the first woman in the University of St. Mary of the Lake's history to receive a Doctor of Sacred Theology degree." From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

A great many of the faculty teaching in our so-called "Catholic" colleges and universities are non-Catholics, and in some cases anti-Catholics.

It's one thing to hire a non-Catholic to teach chemistry or mathematics. But hiring a non-Catholic to teach theology or dogmatics is ecumenism gone berserk.

My own alma mater, the Jesuit Fordham University, is today no more Catholic than Brandeis. The head of Fordham's theology department is an open homosexual who is "married" to his male partner. I refuse to send the school a dime in contributions, and I publicly urge all Fordham alumni to also withhold any contributions.

Dawn Goldstein is a Catholic. Geez, at least read her bio instead of just looking at her last name.

To TM:

I have no interest in Dawn Goldstein's religion or lack of it. Hapsburgo-Lorena raised the issue of non-Catholics teaching at a Catholic school. I was pointing out the undeniable FACT that Catholic colleges and universities are right now employing large numbers of non-Catholics and anti-Catholics as teaching staff.

Do you deny that? Or do you just want to continue virtue-signalling?

Again, Holy Mother Church (in Rome) ain’t! Pray
for poor Jorge, Support SSPX.
Aloha,
Mike Powers, Mission of Our Lady of Lourdes,
Honolulu,HI

Yeah, "Pro multis" was mistranslated also.

Yeah that one always got me. If you don't know the difference between "some" and "all" you have no business translating.

"Haec autem conscientia agnoscere potest non modo statum quendam ab universali Evangelii mandato obiective dissidere; etiam sincere honesteque agnoscere poteste quod sit liberale responsum in praesenti Deo reddendum atque eadem conscientia firma quadam morali certitudine intellegere illam esse oblationem quam ipse Deus requirit inter rerum impedientium congeriem, quamvis perfectum nondum sit obiectivum exemplar."

Here is how I read this paragraph.

--However, this conscience (moral sense) is able to recognize not only that a certain state be objectively at variance with the mandate of the Gospel; it is also sincerely and honestly able to perceive what is the generous response for the present which should be returned to God, and the same firm (steadfast) conscience with a certain moral certitude (?is able) to understand this to be an offering which God Himself demands amongst a heap of impediments/entanglements, although the objective example/model may not yet be perfect.--

Liberale means generously or bountifully and I've checked Stelten's dictionary and it doesn't give 'freely' as an Ecclesiastical meaning (which is what I presume it's supposed to
mean). Also, the 'offering' is demanded by God. 'reddendum' carries a meaning of obligation/duty, not ability or suggestion.

So I understand here that a person is magnanimously responding to God's demand for this offering and that he or she can be morally certain that due to the burden of the impediments of sinful situations, God should count Himself lucky and be grateful that He's being offered .....er....... the continuance of a sinful situation as an offering which He Himself has demanded .

Interesting that this 'offering', to be made ?freely to God OUGHT to be rendered to Him. So basically, if the person decides that no 'generous response' need be returned to God because of the mess they've got themselves into, then they are ?absolved from doing anything.

"although the objective example/model may not yet be perfect." Shouldn't that be subjective anyway? How can the objective model not be perfect? It is surely the subjective example
'offered' by this person which is not perfect?

Is 'poteste' in the original text? If it is, isn't it Italian? May be a genuine typo though - I'm assuming it's supposed to be 'potest'.

Who in this situation can have a 'firm' conscience when he or she has possibly never been taught anything and is 'entangled' in sin anyway? Same goes for 'moral certitude'.

So the Latin, which isn't the original, quite clearly says what the English translation makes more confused. I've no idea what the Italian, which I presume was the original, says.

Personally, I feel it is a waste time and paper arguing too much over what it all 'means'. Whatever it is supposed to mean, we know it isn't Catholic but just part of the 'anti'-Church or 'New' Catholicism and so not applicable to Catholics - unless you want to be a fake
Catholic! Better to just keep putting the correct teachings side-by-side with their new counterparts and make sure they are prominently on view and easily available online so people can make their own comparison if they wish to. If you're trying to reach those who might listen if they knew more about what was going on, then the shorter the better. Most people aren't going to wade through lots of discussions on these things but they might notice short 'bullet point' type of comparisons.

A clear demonstration of the need to have an ecclesiastical language that is not the same as any of the vernacular languages, as it provides a single point of reference for all to attempt to understand in the same way! That is, Latin!!

It is ludicrous to have a vernacular original, then to translate that into Latin. What is the point?

The point? Confusion!!

A very good analysis of the Latin. I too thought that "poteste" must be a typo for "potest."

Your larger point is right on target. We can argue about the absurd velleities and grammatical imprecision of this paragraph, but the basic fact is this: IT ISN'T CATHOLIC. It is pure Nu-Church blather.

I also think we need to start putting together a clear, scholastic definition of a new heresy: Bergoglianism.

You're kinder than me - my first thought was that the writers hadn't noticed they were writing in two languages! As far as clarity is concerned they might as well do that.

"You just don't understand." is the last refuge of the desperate dissident caught in their dissidence. Anyone remember how when "Theology of the Body" was put under a critical lens and when Alice von Hildebrand took Christopher West to task, it came out that the standard operating procedure was to tell people "you don't understand." Malachi Martin used to say about the moderns, "They finesse the language. When you ask them if they believe in the infallibility of the Pope, they says, 'Of course I believe in infallibility, but it's not what you think it is.'"

Dawn Eden Goldstein converted to Catholicism in 2006 and in "May 2010, she received an M.A. in theology from Dominican House of Studies after defending her master's thesis, a critique of Christopher West's presentation of Pope JP2's Theology of the Body. Three months later, after Alice von Hildebrand cited Goldstein's research in her own critique of West, Catholic News Agency made the thesis available for download."

How does it feel to feel correct and superior? Does not sound like the Gospel to me. Name calling ( adulterer) and deciding who is worthy ( who is worthy?) to receive the sacraments, you are in dangerous grounds playing God. The Pharisees and the Scribes murmured, because Jesus ate with sinners ( Luke 15). May God open your heart and remind you that for those who show mercy, they will receive mercy.

If someone steals a car, he or she is a thief (a mortla sin); if someone has sex with someone who is not his or her spouse, he or she is either a fornicator or an adulter (also mortal sins). There is nothing vague or gray here. For such a person to receive Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin is yet another mortal sin. Where is the mercy in convincing people that they can stack sin upon sin without jeopardizing their eternal souls?
As Jola indicated in her response, God chiseled in stone His guideline for avoiding soul killing behavior so that we may better recognize and avoid evil acts. In their clarity and precision ten Commandments were an act of mercy; vagueness and gray, fuzzy language on morality endangers souls.

Goodness gracious, Mr. Ramirez, it's not about feelings ! 😃😊😞😐😒😠😱😲 It's about obedience to God. May God open your eyes, Mr Ramirez , and remind you that the Ten Commandments are WRITTEN IN STONE. ☝

How does it feel to be divorced and remarried?

Holy Apostles Seminary also formed Father John Corapi S.O.L.T.. I don't know what happened to him. There are now rumors that Pope Francis is considering the attenuating of, or even “doing away” with, the Traditional Latin Mass. So much is changing in today's church.

What does Burke call CUPICH
TOBIN
FARRELL?

These 3 Cardinals are for women priests and gay marriage!

The gentleman below summed it up when he said, "they are not apologists for the Catholic faith; they are apologists for the pope."

Thank You Dr. Jamun.

Fastiggi and Goldstein are teaching pure heresy at these two seminaries. In the Accounting world we call this GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). These two professors should be fired.

Fastiggi and Goldstein are just damage-control functionaries. We sometimes call them the Nu-Church Cleanup Crew. They follow Bergoglio and his entourage of Conciliar Church toadies with a broom and a dustpan, sweeping up any messes that they leave. And like George Weigel at First Things and Akin at Catholic Answers, they keep saying "No problem here! Nothing to get worried about!"

This only covers up the fact that they are really terrified of the incipient Catholic reaction against Bergoglianism.

Why do Fastiggi and Goldstein only criticize those who interpret the document the same way as those who abuse Church teaching do, but warn against such abuse?

Since F & G believe their "translation" nonsense (well exposed by CF and others), wouldn't their Catholic duty mandate that they provide a copy of their article to the Bishops of Buenos Aires and Malta et al....to let them know that they have been promoting/allowing an abuse because they have "mistranslated" AL as well? Perhaps they have done so, but they should then let the rest of us know that they have so engaged the abusers who cannot be expected to read a US journal article. If they have not done so, then we are back to what I set forth in the first paragraph.

Right on target. There is no excuse for Pope Francis to break tradition.

" MISTRANSLATION " ? hahahaha! I wonder what their interpretation of " lukewarm " is, since God didn't provide any details in Fahrenheit or Celsius. And, just because Goldstein & Co. can't see HERESY in that footnote, it doesn't mean it isn't in plain sight. I can see it . Yep, it's there !

A backdoor justification to promote wrong, including sexual actions (yes, I meant that.)
So sick of this

I too am sick of this garbage from Holy Apostles & Sacred Hearts Seminary!

One doesn't even need to go through this whole routine of exposing this absurdity. They are using the Latin text as though it is normative and as though the English and other versions were translations from the "original Latin". But this is patent nonsense. Amoris Laetitia was published first in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. Since we know the most problematic parts were ghost written by +Fernandez, the dubiously named "theologian" who gave us his homoerotic poetry in a book about kissing, we can be fairly sure they were authored in Spanish. The Latin version was not produced until fully 15 months after the document was released.

Their entire argument is meaningless. It has been decades since there has been any such thing as a "normative Latin text". These Neocons really don't keep up, do they.

Right. Still, they could have an argument if the Latin text said something other than the vernacular originals. Even if published after the vernacular, the Latin text is still the Church's official text unless the Pope declares otherwise. In like manner, the definitive Latin text of JP II's catechism corrected errors in the original vernacular versions.

Here, of course, the later Latin text is arguably worse than the vernacular. Thus, it is worth addressing.

Per my point above, this is a complete nonsense. How can you have a normative text that is not the original?? Surely to be normative it must be the original?

Of course, you have to remember JPII added a "J" to Latin when signing his name. There isn't anything that these modern Popes won't fiddle with and eventually destabilize. :)

Just thinking...an authoritative text that comes out 15 months after the thing is released.

That gives me hope for a revised Latin text of paragraph 161 of Evangelii Gaudium that puts man in his place below God and correctly quotes Jesus...

I'll be patient.

Considering such things as the US ambassador to the Vatican being whisked back to Rome instead of facing child porn charges, the gay party on Vatican grounds being exposed, and Cardinal Pell facing charges shows clearly the degeneracy that Francis allows and fosters. The only thing that keeps me from utter despair is Jesus' words in Matthew 16:18. Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us. Immaculate heart of Mary, pray for us. St. Michael, defend us in battle.

This is all so silly that I can't see any value in the hierarchy.

Wake me up when the Russians or Muslims slaughter them in Rome and burn the place down. Maybe then we can get someone at least half sensible and perceptibly Catholic.

The False Church sitting on a City of seven hills pervaded by Wolves in Sheeps clothing and the Smoke of Satan has become the Harlot of Babylon and she will give herself over to the Anti-Christ forcing God to destroy her one day. The True Catholic Church God will protect and keep hidden until the final day of days.

Just so we are clear: "Chris F" is not I.

Firstly; before God or anybody I'm a nobody and respectfully I never give much importance to qubbling over the semantics of first and last names or initials other than humbly recognizing the respect of an individual for who she or he is. Nowhere in this forum have I tried to plagiarize your name if this is of such great importance to you Sir. To reiterate before God or anybody I'm a nobody.

Love your comment - my feelings exactly!

There is one saving grace: hardly anyone in Novus Ordo Land knows or cares about any of this stuff. So for these two dopes to make things even more complicated really doesn't matter. Even in my FSSP parish there are many families who do not have TV or computers. They hear our priest blasting away at this mess every Sunday but they are not really plugged in at all.

In my experience N.O. parishioners, with some few exceptions, don't read blogs that would inform them of what's going on, and they don't hear a peep from their priests.

Our Lady prophesied that this would happen. We are not surprised, even though it causes pain to know what's happening. There are two Churches developing before our eyes. I thank God that in His Infinite Wisdom He allows many to know and spread the Truth. Thank God for Chris Ferrara and Michael Matt, and a handful of others who are able to spread the Truth without being uncharitable.

I don't quite know how that's a "saving grace" though the observation is true - I bring this up among my Catholic circles and hardly anyone cares. Once I even got mocked for my concerns regarding the current Catholic conflict!

I guess it's like most news stories - people generally don't care unless it affects the world they know.