Querida Amazonia: Enabling Ecclesial Change

I am collecting here my comments on Querida Amazonia and its aftermath and implications. Originally I posted these things on Facebook, but I need to have them in one place for future reference.

The time leading up to Humanae Vitae was traumatic, and like all serious trauma, the effects are long-lasting and reappear at odd times. We now approach papal documents to see whether they meet the lowest bar of not going against Church teaching. Amoris Laetitia only reinforced the syndrome (and some still have not confronted the fact that it does not uphold Church teaching). 

Thus, people anticipated Querida Amazonia (and feared what it might say) the way a beaten child reacts to a sudden noise. The fact that the apostolic exhortation did not explicitly call for the ordination of women came as a huge relief to many, though they did not quite read it for what it does not say; and they didn't read it carefully at all. They simply checked the box labeled "does not call for women's ordination or even married priests in the Roman Rite" and moved on, full of gratitude for a fight avoided.

Finding the document free of radical change gave rise to a lot of scolding of the fearful, which was not only an uncharitable and unjust reaction -- it was wrong. Where the approach to Querida Amazonia was binary -- "celibacy vs. married priests" -- that reader was not paying attention and was perhaps focused on scoring points, instead of defending the splendor of what has been handed down by nature and revelation. 

In a mild article in the Catholic Herald entitled Is this Pope Francis’s ‘Paul VI moment’? C.C. Pecknold optimistically wrote, 

"After months of agitation around the Amazonian Synod, the Holy Father’s post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation Querida Amazonia was received with relief by many. 

Pope Francis simply ignored the radical reforms demanded by rich, bourgeois liberals in Germany."

He ended his piece thus: 

"By saying that Querida Amazonia is the closest thing to a Paul VI moment yet, I only mean that it is a moment in the pontificate of Francis in which you can hear a certain “click”— both in those relieved and those disappointed — the “click” of false expectations adjusting. It’s a moment to trust that the Holy Spirit never disappoints." 

I wrote in response to this well meaning but misguided opinion:

If this is Pope Francis' Paul VI moment, then those of us who cleave to the teachings of the Church should pray all the harder and be all the more wary. 

The reality is that Humanae Vitae contains within it the seeds of its own denial in Church practice, and coupled with the instantaneous subversion of its core restatement of Catholic teaching by whole bishops' conferences, this weakness prevented it from being the panacea we hoped for*. 

Yes, HV held the line in terms of doctrine. But let's face facts: 50 years on, the vast majority of Catholics practice contraception with their pastors' blessing (if they even seek it) -- that fix was in early on, thanks to Cardinal Suenens.

Humanae Vitae has nothing approaching the *positive* teaching and vision of Casti Connubii on the deep meaning of the sacrament of marriage for all mankind. Its tone is regretful and apologetic (and in this way, Querida Amazonia differs, in having a "joyful" tone). It established a fatal legalism that we have yet to confront.

*panacea afterwards, when the relief that it wasn't a betrayal subsided and we tried to make the best of it. Now it has reached the status of holy writ; I suggest re-reading it in a less ultramontanist light.

The truth is that we have a right to expect more from a papal document than not outright promoting a false teaching.

My husband, Phil Lawler, wrote an article explaining that "Pope Francis did not, as some journalists reported, “close the door” on the possibility of ordaining married men. He left the door precisely as it was: ajar."

Phil warned that if liberals were not outraged by Querida Amazonia, that was your sign that it did not shut the door to the things we worried about. Right away, in fact, Pope Francis's close friend Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernández, main contributor to Amoris Laetitia by all accounts, published an article on whether Querida Amazonia dismisses married priests (which simply reading it shows it does not): 

"Someone claimed that Francis "closed the doors" to the possibility of ordering some married men, as well as excluding other proposals from the synod. The truth is that Francis on this issue has not closed or opened doors, he has only avoided proceeding with hasty solutions."

"This higher level, in the discussions of the Synod, gradually took shape as the possibility of developing an "Amazonian rite" which in fact would be the appropriate area for better discerning the possibility of ordering some "viri probati"."

 

Regarding further developments (Pope Francis Admits Women to Ministries of Lector and Acolyte in New Motu Proprio [and in January of this year actually performed this rite]), I said:

I'm a housewife. I'm not an academic. 

But I can read.

Not one theologian or academic I'm aware of (please prove me wrong) read Querida Amazonia and reported on what it does not say:

It does not mention the family and the woman's irreplaceable role in it, as every previous reflection on the Church in the world has done. 

It does not mention mothers and their role in forming children. It does not mention fathers as providers and protectors.

But it does speak of women as sort of parallel apostolic agents who ought to be recognized as such. 

In other words, it speaks -- very clearly for those who have ears -- of a new ecclesiology in which traditional apostles -- men who are priests -- must give way to and work with and often under -- women in apostolic roles.

This ecclesiological vision is what is behind Cardinal Ouellet's letter on women [more on this below] being given equal roles in seminaries.

And it is behind this move reported here -- note that Querida Amazonia is referenced by Pope Francis in his letter to the CDF) to codify in Canon Law the long-established role of women as lectors and women and girls as acolytes. (As always with progressives, questionable praxis knowingly precedes formal legislation.)

So no, Querida Amazonia was not the anodyne letter proving that the orthodox needed to apologize for worrying about Pope Francis's destructive tendencies. In fact, it was one more wedge in the modern fissure threatening the bulwark, the Church. 

When women start to think of their "baptismal dignity" as being proven and perfected in the sanctuary, the work of these corrupt shepherds will have been accomplished.

(See also my Foreword in Peter Kwasniewski's book Ministers of Christ on the effect of these changes on ecclesiology -- also of course for his explication of the minor orders of acolyte and lector are, and their importance to the Church's hierarchical identity.)

"ME: Cardinal Ouellet's letter is part of a plan, advanced in embryo in Querida Amazonia, to make men and women equal in "positions of power" in the Church, establishing quotas and continuing to avoid the real issues in the seminaries

PEOPLE ON MY FB: Why can't you understand that women have gifts

ME: Don't get distracted; try reading Querida Amazonia without your JPII lens

POMFB: Let us explain women's gifts my dear

ME: Fr. Thomas Reese SJ on Twitter: "Many parishioners who attend a Communion service presided over by a nun refer to it as “sister’s Mass,” to the horror of the bishops [Horror? I doubt it]. If the nun or layperson preaches & prays more fervently than they are used to from a priest, many will prefer that “Mass” to Father’s.⁦"

POMFB: Leila, seminarians need more female influence

ME: Fr. Thomas Reese SJ on Twitter: "If married men and women preach and preside just as well as the priests, we will see a growing groundswell for ordaining them."

POMFB: Leila, have you ever heard of Theology of the Body

ME: Headline: "German Bishops choose as new president reformer in favour of optional celibacy, more power for women" -- News report: 'Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich, chairman of the German bishops conference, said: "There are no stop signs from Rome."'

POMFB: You see, my dear, seminarians have needs and women can help them, why do you hate women

ME: <headdesk>