I urge you to read the entire piece over at First Things.
I’ll throw you some highlights:
Chaput writes that Lumen Fidei, while being Pope Francis’ first encyclical, was actually Pope Benedict’s final encyclical with a few flourishes by Francis. Chaput writes:
The rich quality of Lumen Fidei stands in unhappy contrast to every other document of the Francis tenure.
Ouch. True but ouch.
It becomes hard to avoid the conclusion that an undercurrent of resentment is one of the distinguishing and most regrettable marks of the Francis pontificate. Regrettable, because it damages the dignity of the petrine office. Regrettable, because it creates critics and enemies, rather than reconciling them. Regrettable, because it undercuts every pontificate’s central task: providing a credible, faithful source of Catholic unity. And the advisers, apologists, and ghostwriters who surround this pontificate have been instrumental in adding to the problem.
Chaput then turns to Víctor Manuel Cardinal Fernández. He agrees with Spanish priest and theologian Jose Granados that Fernandez’ view of Catholicism’s goal are essentially materialist, rather than spiritual.
Granados goes on to observe that Fernández, “in describing charity, insists that its main external manifestation is to help our neighbors improve their material needs.” But for the Christian, though a person’s material needs are important, they’re not charity’s primary focus. Authentic charity, and its expression in mercy, consists of “helping [others] to live in union with God, which also includes external acts like fraternal correction.” Moreover, “for Aquinas, the virtue of obedience, inasmuch as through it we offer our will to God, is greater than all the moral virtues, including mercy.” We rightly feel compassion for persons locked in sinful situations. But compassion is not a license to minimize, or excuse, or bless the destructive behaviors involved therein.
I completely agree. (As if Chaput needs a chubby blogger to agree with him.) I think too many forget that we serve the poor to help us and help the poor. It is not merely the exchange of the material good, it is the spiritual connection that truly matters.
Chaput concludes:
Blaise Pascal, the seventeenth-century Catholic mathematician, scientist, and philosopher, is often remembered for his comment that “the heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.” The human heart is our counterbalance to the brutality of cold logic and truth without love. But it is not infallible. And feelings—including compassion—when they become sovereign in the discernment of moral good and evil, can be dangerously flawed guides. No “new paradigm” or “development of doctrine” can result in an alibi for sin in the light of God’s Word and the wisdom of the Church’s long experience.
The heart does indeed have its reasons. And sometimes they’re wrong.
Chaput is brilliant and good. Please read the entire thing at First Things.
