New Archbishop of Newark and Cardinal-designate (red hat in less than 12 hours) Joseph Tobin chimes in:
“Amoris Laetitia cannot simply be reduced to a question of ‘yes or no’ in a specific pastoral situation. The Holy Father is capturing the work of two synods so if four cardinals say that two synods were wrong, or that somehow the Holy Father didn’t reflect what was said in those synods, I think that should be questioned. He believes that what he published is rooted deeply in that reflection, which was not an easy one. I was not a member of that synod but reading the documents and knowing a little about the participants, I realise it was not easy but you are dealing with difficult pastoral questions. Just to simply reduce it to a “dubium”, I think it is at best naive.”
Instead, Cardinal-elect Tobin explained, Amoris Laetitia is about “addressing the challenges Catholics in their moral life and their ministers face” and trying to show that “it isn’t simply a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ [but] a whole manner of arriving at the proper conclusion for an individual”. HERE
“Addressing the challenges Catholics…face” — you mean, like, the Commandments? Because those are pretty much full of Yesses (Thou Shalt) and Nos (Thou Shalt Not).
Also, since you weren’t at the synod, let me remind you that massive numbers of cardinals and bishops voted against the very provisions in question, but then Francis included those in the Post Relatio anyway, and finally into Amoris Laetitia. So these ideas were not at all “rooted deeply in that reflection”, on the contrary, a massive battle took place.
+Tobin is another one of these “One of the heads of the beast appeared to be fatally wounded. But the mortal wound was healed, and the whole world was astonished” from Rev 13:3. After serving as Superior General of the Redemptorists, he was appointed to a curial role. But then he got bounced by BXVI, less than three years into his assignment, for intentionally botching the visitation into the apostate LCWR and then trying to block the report from the CDF. He was sent packing from Rome to Indiana in what was an obvious rebuke and demotion.
At the very start of his curial role, answering a question about the relationship between Rome and the particular churches, he said this:
“But my hope is that the Vatican’s relationship with the local churches can be a sort of creative tension. I think life without tension would be very boring and useless…The challenge is to recognise the diversity of gifts and the plurality of churches and the one spirit that unites us. And I think that is the adventure of a lifetime.” HERE
In August of 2011, with the LCWR at the height of the blowback from the pantsuit sisters, +Tobin went public by blaming the Vatican for all the troubles:
Archbishop Tobin, who was appointed as Secretary in May last year, said that the Visitation has nearly finished its work and that the progressive religious orders will have nothing to fear.
“Certainly, on our side of the river or our side of the pond,” he said, “we had created an atmosphere” where the prospect of canonical penalties was thought possible, and in which the possibility that some communities would be closed down “didn’t seem to be so outlandish.”
“It’s like preaching; it’s not what you say, it’s what they hear … and what a lot of these women heard was someone telling them their life was not loyal and faith-filled,” he added.
Shortly after his appointment last year, Archbishop Tobin told veteran Vatican journalist John Allen that he hoped to offer the Vatican a “different picture” of U.S. women religious.
Archbishop Tobin’s comments to CNS are unusual for high-ranking Vatican prelates, who rarely openly criticize their former superiors. He said, “I believe a visitation has to have a dialogical aspect, but the way this was structured at the beginning didn’t really favour that.”
“I’m an optimist, but also trying to be realistic: The trust that should characterize the daughters and sons of God and disciples of Jesus isn’t recovered overnight. I think women religious have a right to say, ‘Well, let’s see,’” he said. HERE
But in a few hours he will be a cardinal, because old Joey had an ace up his sleeve. Ten years ago, he spent a week of tender caresses with, you guessed it, Jorge of Buenos Aires, as they sat next to each other in a Spanish language discussion group at a synod of bishops.
One day during a coffee break Tobin told Bergoglio that while they were all happy with the election of then-Pope Benedict XVI, who had become pope a few months earlier after the death of John Paul II, “in all honesty, Cardinal, you were my mother’s favorite candidate” to be chosen. (Bergoglio was reportedly a strong contender in that 2005 conclave.)
Bergoglio was surprised at hearing this. “How does your mother know me?” he asked. Tobin explained: “Well, she read in the newspaper that you pick up after yourself, you cook your food, and you drive a modest car. And frankly, she’s had it up to here with princes of the church!”
Bergoglio laughed, but never forgot. HERE
I wish I could forget this whole wretched mess.