Dr. Edward Sri explains that he thinks Pope Francis’ intentions in Amoris Laetitia and elsewhere are to “reach out to the lost,” and why it is important for people in formal moral leadership positions to be “interiorly living in harmony with Christ” on all of the Church’s hard teachings.
Transcript:
Host: Mark in Bradington, Florida listening on EWTN. Mark, you are on with Dr. Edward Sri, what’s your question?
Caller: My question is in regards to Pope Francis’ Amoris Laetitia, and what appears to be his opinion opposing relativism, but there seems to be, in my opinion–help me understand–a major contradiction in how Pope Francis seems to be suggesting that we, as the laity, and the priests, deal with Catholics who are divorced and remarried civilly, and I wanted to ask first–and I have a follow-up–do you think there is actually an oxymoron present within Pope Francis’ encyclical in regards to relativism as it relates to the traditional marriage definition from the Gospels, if you will, (Matthew 19)? Dr. Sri?
Dr. Sri: Yeah, I don’t think that the–I would say “oxymoron” sounds strong. I would say there’s a lot of subtleties. It’s a complex document and it’s a complex issue. It’s a messy issue, I mean marriages that are people going through divorce, and then they remarry, but they want us to be right with the truth– all these things are very very messy, so it’s not surprising that you find in the document different angles, different, you know, subtleties there. There’s a lot of debate about the document, too. I want to really recommend–I know Catholic Answers has some great things on this, you should check out their website. That’s where I would go to, you know, really encourage you to read up on that.
But in terms of relativism, I would say Pope Francis is actually very strong on this point. And when it comes to marriage, he’s super strong on, you know, the divorce culture, and, you know, all these ideological movements that are undermining marriage. What I always tell people is, I think we have to see Pope Francis is just wanting to do all he can to reach out to people in these complex situations–“Can the Church just do a little bit more? What can we more possibly do to bring these people back into the fold?”
And that’s a great intention. We have to just applaud that and, you know, how we practically do that is, you know, he’s trying to look at different avenues there, and there’s a lot of vagueness in the document–I read something from Archbishop Chaput, he just wrote something in the recent months about that as well–but in general, the intention is to go out and reach out to the lost, you know, that are–and bring them back. I think we just have to always remember that, but always remember the Church’s teachings on marriage, they come from Jesus, they’re not going to change. Those are always there. How we practically reach out to them, there’s gonna be people debating about that moving forward.
Host: And Mark, you said you had a follow-up question?
Caller: Yes, and thank you, and I really appreciate and personally would associate myself with your remarks of the complication. But let me ask you, in your opinion, a practical reality based on the analogy you used earlier about being advised as a young person to “Be yourself!” or, you know, “Do what you think is right!” What do you think about–like in a parish, so you have a divorced person who is civilly remarried, that is actually teaching in the Catechism program–I mean what do you do? Do you allow that? Or do you speak up? Is that something that we consider to be right, if you will, within the construct of the Roman Catholic Church and the teachings of Jesus and the Gospels?
Dr. Sri: Wow, yeah, talk about complex there. I’m just gonna shoot from the hip a couple things I have. First of all, let me ask you, is this someone you know? Is this someone you have a personal relationship with?
Caller: Well I have–there are several, and yes I do, and also anecdotally, the point is that these types of complications are more and more common today than they were when I was going to Catholic schools, and even going to Catholic universities, where we’re told, when you even see these types of relationships–whether it be a civilly remarried divorcee teaching Catechism or an openly active gay priest speaking what seems to be anathema–what do you do, just look the other way and “Be yourself?”
Dr. Sri: Yeah yeah, okay, I’ll give you– here’s a general principle. This is something–you know, I don’t know how familiar you are with FOCUS, the Fellowship of Catholic University Students. We talk about this a lot when we’re raising up our student leaders, and the young adults that help us on this missionary work on college campuses. You know, we welcome everyone to participate in what we’re doing. I don’t care what color you are, what race you are, what religion you are, what your beliefs are, what your moral life is for; we’re called to go out and be open and evangelize everybody and share the love of Christ with them.
Now when it comes to a student, say on a college campus, that’s thinking, “I’d like to lead a study. I want to be a leader in this movement, I want to be a Bible study leader,” that’s where we say, “Hey, you know, we–” again, everyone has a potential for that, but if someone’s gonna actually be in a leadership role, where they’re standing up and representing the Catholic Church, what’s absolutely crucial is that they have the moral authority to do that. And I would say it doesn’t matter how smart someone is, how much they’ve–they could have memorized the Bible and the Catechism– but if they’re not interiorly living in harmony with Christ, you know, on a significant issue–we’re all struggling and we all have our own sins and all–but when it’s, when I am not in harmony with in my moral life, I don’t have the moral authority to stand up and do that.
So for example, let me just give an example, let’s say if I were having an affair– I’m not, but let’s just say I were having an affair–and I were to go speak at a marriage conference. And even if nobody knew about it, I’m not going to be an effective instrument of the Gospel. I might speak all this truth, and maybe there’d be some people that would benefit from that, but the impact that God would want to have through that presentation is gonna be greatly diminished, and that’s because my life is not fully yielded to that.
And you can say the same thing about whether it’s a, you know, college student that’s sleeping around. You know, we challenge the students, “Hey you wanna be in leadership? Just want you to know, you know, some of the big issues college students struggle with is, you know, chastity, and we want to make sure you’re living a chaste life. You’re gonna be standing up and representing Christ.” Or you’re gonna be, let’s say, you know, another big issue on college campuses is drunkenness. And you know, if you struggle with, you know, is it okay to have a beer if you’re twenty-one? Absolutely, but are you getting drunk? You know, because that’s serious sin according to Church teaching. And so these are issues we challenge the students on, because we have to say, you know, if you’re going to stand up as a teacher, you’re held to even higher standards, as the letter of James points out for us. So I would keep those principles in mind.
You know, I think that for the good of everyone, we want to make sure we’re living fully in harmony in the Church when you’re standing up in official position. That being said, could there be somebody who is just struggling with alcoholism? Maybe they’re not going to assume a formal leadership role, you know, at the parish or, you know, in FOCUS or whatever organization you might have, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be a witness at all, because maybe they sincerely are trying, they want to live a good life, and they really love God, and God looks at them very mercifully, and they keep going to Confession, you know, and so they can still be evangelists; they’re just–do we want to put them in a formal leadership role? I think that’s a different thing. And I would apply that to a whole array of issues, including the ones that you mentioned there.
So I hope that general principles are helpful and then you can apply them to particular situations in a prudential way in your own discernment.