The Casuistry of the Man in Black

 

For a good reason there is a Jesuit pope for the first time since Saint Peter. Following the Reformation, Casuistry is a characteristic of the Jesuits. And this pope is a Jesuit. For the first time we have a pope in black, fulfilling in this way the prediction of Our Lady of La Sallete.

Casuistry is a branch of moral theology developed at the end of XV century by the Jesuits that gave a chance to Jansenists to attack the Church, as it approached cases of conscience as mere “juridical issues”, and introduced notions as “mental restriction” (that makes lying to be legitimate), and “intentional direction” (which justifies a crime according to the subjective motivation allegedly intended).

The real difference between Benedict XVI and Francis I is that the former had a scientific mind and an objective and consequentialist ethics, and the second has a dogmatic mind and a subjective and “intentionality ethics”. For Francis, is the subjective that is important — notwithstanding the fact that we cannot objectively measure a person's moral intentions.

Francis wants to change the Church doctrine by means of a cultural “war of attrition” (cultural war against orthodoxy). This is quite obvious and evident. And his ambiguity is a consequence, not a cause. The cause is his notion that the Church needs a cultural change according to the zeitgeist.

Everything that is physically possible seems morally plausible to modern man — and Francis wants somehow to partially adapt the Church to modernity using the old Jesuit casuistry. If this good or bad, it's up to everyone of us to judge — in-spite of the “judgment denial” manifested by Francis faithfully according to the old casuistry principles.