Corrupt Pastoral Practice Means Corrupt Doctrine - Homiletic & Pastoral Review

When Amoris Laetitia (hereafter AL) was first published in March 2016, Pope Francis’s episcopal cheerleaders insisted that the document has introduced no changes to Church doctrine: it merely explores how we are to understand the “pastoral application” of God’s mercy to “human weakness.” After all, God’s mercy somehow transcends the legalism of mere doctrine (as AL, 311 seems to suggest)–never mind that Church doctrine expresses those truths about what we are to believe and how we are to live that God has mercifully revealed to us for the safe of both our authentic human flourishing and our eternal salvation in Jesus Christ.
It has now become fashionable, therefore, for some prelates to “pastorally” accommodate grave sinners in ways that effectively deny what the Church has always taught faithfully and practiced pastorally. Following AL, they tell us that a pastor should be guided in his “discernment” of sinful situations by the testimony of the sinners themselves regarding …