What does the Church Teach? Your guess as good as mine!

So in yesterday's post, I showed how a Catholic Group were interpreting Amoris Laetitia to break with Church teaching. In that discussion on Facebook, I found myself arguing vociferously for the fact that the Pope has not contradicted Church teaching, and indeed, he has not in any official way. The problem is that he has constantly appeared to push the Kasper proposal, as you can see from numerous posts of mine, such as this, where I have noted some action of the Holy Father which appears to do this and brought it to your attention, dear reader.

This has led to a situation where the Bishops of Beunos Aires have suggested a very narrow route for divorced and remarried persons to be re-admitted to Holy Communion and Confession without the need of a firm resolve to avoid further sin or scandal and the Maltese Bishops to go much further, asserting the primacy of conscience, a direction firmly condemned in Magisterial teaching.

If further evidence is required, one might cite, for example, this article in The Gruniard, which, while not famous for its intellectual grasp of Church teaching, frankly asserts that:

"Burke, who is one of four cardinals who signed an open letter to Francis last year questioning new guidance allowing priests to decide whether divorced and remarried believers should be able to receive communion"

I mean, job done, surely? What The Guardian reports isn't the case, as strongly asserted by Cardinal Mueller last week. But the German Bishops have said that it is the case as one would expect, following the Maltese and today Cardinal Marx explained that he could not understand any other interpretations!

While the Pope is Silent about this, confusion will reign. And it seems so obvious that confusion, or rather the Maltese/ German/ Argentinian direction is what the Holy Father wants, because he has not told them they are wrong. But I suppose he has been busy. With the Superbowl and all. And that is very important, obviously. Much more important than this.

Today I read this blog, which addresses an article in the Maltese press wherein a priest argues that if the Maltese bishops were wrong, the CDF would have corrected them, but as the CDF has not corrected them, they must be right. The blogger goes on to argue, as I did in the Facebook thread I cited yesterday, that the prefect for the CDF has in fact done just that, and in no uncertain terms, referring to bishops teaching the Maltese direction as the "blind leading the blind". However, Mueller's interview isn't official, is it? It is opinion, not formal correction, so how much weight does my argument and the blogger here carry in real terms?

I mean Archbishop Scicluna is clearly wrong- there's no doubt about it: as reported here, Archbishop Scicluna, In a homily on the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul in Birkirkara, Malta, Jan. 25, said:

"Whoever wishes to discover what the true will of Christ is for him, the true heart of Jesus, he should ask the Church, not blogs.”
“He must ask the Pope and the bishops who are in communion with the Pope,” he added. “Whoever wishes to discover what Jesus wants from him, he must ask the Pope, this Pope, not the one who came before him, or the one who came before that. This present Pope. "

This is complete nonsense as the wise & erudite Fr John Hunwicke pointed out today:

Archbishop Scicluna of Malta has preached, it is said, in a way totally irreconcileable with Christian doctrine, suggesting that to hear Jesus one must listen solely to the present pope, not to Benedict XVI or to John Paul II. I shall comment on this in a month's time, so that I shall be able to take account of any retraction he may make, or any correction the authorities in Rome may by then have made. His reported words are such a grave matter that I consider an immediate response to be less appropriate than something carefully considered.

Stay tuned to Fr John's blog for that carefully considered response I say!

Goodness me what times we live in! Those who place Christ at the centre of their lives are deeply hurt by the reality that Cardinal is directly pitched against Cardinal, Bishop directly against Bishop. The faithful on the peripheries that Pope Francis is so intent on reaching out to that he is determined to excoriate all those who try so hard to be true to Christ's teaching seem to revel in his every word, while observing from a position of confirmed Atheism or at least agnosticism. Even the gentleman who started the Facebook thread I alluded to yesterday ultimately posted:

How extraordinary that a pope who has focused so much on dialogue has refused to discuss what he really means, and that a pope so focused on unity has caused so much pain and confusion. How will we recover? It might take a Great Council to get us out of this mess!