Dulcor Misericordiae. Justicia y misericordia en el ejercicio de la autoridad canónica. II. El capítulo octavo de Amoris Laetitia

Abstract

Chapter 8 of Ap. Ex. Amoris Laetitia has given rise to different, sometimes contradictory readings. However, it cannot be said that the papal document extends Eucharistic communion to divorced people who have entered into new unions. Chapter 8 requires careful interpretation in altum (in full and in depth). The object of mercy is not only suffering, but first of all situation of sin; and the subject of mercy is not only the one currently experiencing misery, but anyone who may experience such fragility and misery in the future. Mercy implies that moral and legal norms be applied without any sense of cruelty, not that such norms be ignored. Marriage does not admit of indiscriminate analogical varieties, because it is not merely an ideal model. In the case of so-called irregular situations, reception of the Eucharist always requires the provision of a change in life.