Paradigm Shift Chapter Six, "A New, Subjective Morality Without Absolute Imperatives"

“Philosophical relativism and the primacy of praxis” (accepted practice or custom) “inevitably lead to ethical relativism, according to which there are no moral absolutes.”  I agree completely with this opening statement by Jose Ureta in Chapter Six of Paradigm Shift.  Yet Pope Francis seems to say it’s not a real problem.  Responding to Eugenio Scalfari who asked, “Your Holiness, is there a single vision of the Good?  And who decides what it is?”  Francis responded,

“Each of us has a vision of good and of evil.  We have to encourage people to move toward what they think is Good….

…..everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them.” 

We might then guess that if contraception is not evil for you then it would be ok.  Or if pornography or abortion isn’t in your own definition of evil then you would be ok with that too.  If evil is only evil IF I CONCEIVE IT TO BE then I get to decide for myself what my personal moral code will be and don’t have to obey the Ten Commandments or the teachings of Christ. 

Professor Josef Seifert published an article in the German theological and philosophical journal AEMAET cited by Ureta titled “Does Pure Logic Threaten to Destroy the Entire Moral Doctrine of the Catholic Church?”  Seifert says, regarding #303

“Amoris Laetitia is a moral theological atomic bomb that threatens to tear down the whole moral edifice of the Ten Commandments and of the Catholic moral teaching.

If only one case of an intrinsically immoral act can be permitted and even willed by God, must this not apply to all acts considered ‘intrinsically wrong’?

Must then not from pure logic euthanasia, suicide, or assistance to it, lies, thefts, perjuries, negations or betrayals of Chirst, like that of St. Peter, or murder, under some circumstances and after proper ‘discernment’ be good and praiseworthy because of the complexity of a concrete situation (or because of a lack of ethical knowledge or strength of will)?”

What he is saying is a single precedence sets the stage for any other sin to be given a pass if the situation seems too difficult in human terms to eliminate from our lives. 

Professor Seifert is not the only one who sees the danger in this thinking.  Cardinal Pietro Parolin said in an interview with Vatican News, “Amoris Laetitia represents ‘a new paradigm’ through which the pope calls for ‘a change in attitude.’

Cardinal Kasper said, “One only understands Amoris Laetitia if one understands the paradigm shift that it undertakes.”

Cardinal Blasé Cupich of Chicago agreed in February 2018, in a lecture at the University of Cambridge, England which he titled, “Pope Francis’s Revolution of Mercy:  Amoris Laetitia as a New Paradigm of Catholicity.”  The lecture itself contained this quote:

“…families are a privileged place of God’s self-revelation and activity, then no family should be considered deprived of God’s grace…. [since] whenever there is a family striving to live together and to love one another, the Spirit is already present.”

Only Cupich didn’t define family as one man and one woman. What he is referring to could have been two men or two women.  He may have meant any two people regardless of their marital status who are “striving to live together” out of wedlock or divorced and remarried.  

Transgerdered woman on right of Francis,

invited guest at the Vatican with her female fiancée 

This is born out in the pope’s infamous statement “Who am I to judge.”  In 2015 Francis held an audience with a transsexual from Plasencia, Spain named Neria Lejarraga after calling her on the phone and inviting her to come to Rome all expenses paid.  This “he” who now calls himself “she” brought along “her” fiancée.  The pope welcomed them both and posed for the cameras.  They are not the only same sex couple to get official receptions at the Vatican.  There have been others. 

To go along with these “modern families” is a new sex education textbook for kids that was made available in 2016 at Youth Day in Poland.  The book does not mention the Ten Commandments nor does it mention, according to Ureta, “the sinful and unnatural character of homosexual relations.”  The book was featured in an article by Stephanie Block writing for Spero News titled, “The Poverty That is the Vatican’s new Sexual Education Program.”

American psychiatrist Rick Fitzgibbons, a professor at the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and the Family at Catholic University had this to say about it:

“I was particularly shocked by the images contained in this new sex education program, some of which are clearly pornographic.  My immediate professional reaction was that this obscene or pornographic approach abuses youth psychologically and spiritually.  Youth are also harmed by the failure to warn them of the long term dangers of promiscuous behaviors and contraceptive use.  ……what I found particularly troubling was that the pornographic images in this program are similar to those uses by adult sexual predators of adolescents.” 

The Holy See has set up a “work team” to study the history of Humane Vitae which was written fifty years ago.  Roberto de Mattei is concerned that any recommendations coming out of this study may do for this document what Amoris Laetitia did for marriage, making the choice of contraception no longer a “no” in all cases. 

While Francis understands he might never get changing the definition of marriage over the goal line, he has hinted that there might be another way of accepting sodomy.  In an interview with Dominique Wolton he said,

“What to think of same-sex marriage?  ‘Marriage’ is a historical word.  It has always been a man and a woman in humanity and not only in the Church.  That cannot be changed….

That cannot be changed.  It’s the nature of things.  They are like this.  Let’s call it civil unions….

Let’s say things as they are:  Marriage is a man with a woman.  That is the precise term.  Let’s call the same-sex union a ‘civil union.’”

A statement below from Ureta is one with which I completely agree.

“It is surprising that Francis affirms that ‘marriage is a historical word’ as if it were a human, not a divine institution.  The immutability of marriage does not derive from the fact that it has always been this way in history but from the Divine will.  …… His proposal to call a partnership founded on unnatural vice a ‘civil union’ is equally disconcerting, for it legitimizes such unnatural unions in the eyes of the public, especially the youth.” 

Whatever happened to sodomy is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord? 

If you think now that the Church under this pope is ever going to condemn the disordered sexual behavior of priests in all our parishes around the world, think again.  If he’s willing to wink and nod at the behavior, why would he ever forbid it to occur between priests or priests and their queer boyfriends?

There is even a discussion, which Francis could have stopped, but hasn’t, about a kind of ceremony or “blessing” of some kind for people “in these unions.”  If they are talking about it now, how long before it is rolled out in a diocese near you?  If you recall the review of Chapter five, you are familiar with the now “living and growing” character of the Catechism. 

God, help us.