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Question 

Father, please,  I really need  an answer from you because I honestly  can no longer understand anything. I am feeling really sad and I am tired of this situation. I wanted to understand the reasons for certain things. Please, help me because you know more than me surely. I am attaching the accusations of heresies against the pope. Are they real, Father?

Please, pray for me.

Lately the more I try to understand the more I feel bad.

I just want to do God’s will here on this earth and not judge anyone at all: 

  1. A justified person has not the strength with God’s grace to observe the demands of divine law.
  2. A Christian believer can have full knowledge of a divine law and voluntarily choose to break it  even in regards to a serious matter, but not be in a state of mortal sin as a result of this action.
  3. A person, while  obeying to a divine prohibition, might commit  sin against God by that very act of obedience.
  4. Conscience can truly and rightly judge that sexual acts between persons who have contracted a civil marriage with each other, although one or both of them is/are sacramentally married to another person, can sometimes be morally right, or requested or even commanded by God.
  5. It is false that the only sexual acts that are good f and morally licit are acts between husband and wife.
  6. Moral principles and moral truths contained in the  divine revelation and in the natural law do not include negative prohibitions that absolutely forbid particular kinds of action, inasmuch as these are always gravely unlawful on account of their object.
  7. God not only permits, but positively wills, the pluralism and diversity of religions, both Christian and non-Christian.

Priest’s Answer

  1. We know a priori that the Pope cannot be wrong in his teaching in matters of faith and morals.
  2. The Lord in fact said : “ Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat.  But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” ( Lk 22, 31-32 ). He also said : “ And I tell you that you are Peter,and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.  I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.(Mt 16,18-19).
  3. The statements you wrote were not uttered by Pope Francis. But they derive from an arbitrary and incorrect interpretation of some of his teachings. In fact, the Pope’s Magisterium must be read in continuity with what the Church has always believed. This was reiterated by John Paul II in Veritatis splendor: The development of the Church’s moral doctrine is similar to that of the doctrine of the faith. The words pronounced by John XXIII on the occasion of the opening of the Second Vatican Council (11 October 1962) also apply to moral doctrine. “ authentic doctrine (= the integrity of Christian doctrine ) , which, however, should be studied and expounded through the methods of research and through the literary forms of modern thought. The substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, and the way in which it is presented is another.(VS, 100)” even if both should maintain the same meaning and importance. 
  4. Pope Francis himself says that : “Therefore, while clearly stating the Church’s teaching, pas- tors are to avoid judgements that do not take into account the complexity of various situations, and they are to be attentive, by necessity, to how people experience and endure distress because of their condition”. (Amoris laetitia 79). This has always been taught by the Church, which affirms that serious matter, full awareness of the mind and deliberate consent of the will are required to subjectively commit a grave sin. And it is for this reason that under the pontificate of Paul VI the Congregation of the Clergy published a declaration in which it was recalled that “ the particular circumstances that accompany an objectively evil human act, while they cannot transform it into an objectively virtuous act, can make it innocent or less guilty or objectively justifiable”(26.4.1971). That is the usual doctrine.
  5. Don’t let yourself be misled by those who want to poison your heart with feelings contrary  to charity, especially  against the Pope.

I Bless you and I remind you to the Lord.

Father Angelo