Timothy Gordon on Amoris laetitia and the death penalty: the record holds, two dates slip

Francis’s letter of 5 September 2016 told the Buenos Aires bishops that their guidelines for chapter VIII of Amoris laetitia fully explain it: “No hay otras interpretaciones” (letter). In December 2017 Catholic News Service reported a note by Cardinal Pietro Parolin saying the Pope wanted both texts published in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, describing them as “authentic magisterium” (CNS). In October 2023 the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, answering questions from Cardinal Dominik Duka, said the same: the two documents were published “as authentic Magisterium” (Vatican News).

Walter Kasper, then a diocesan bishop in Germany, signed a 1993 pastoral letter with other German bishops urging that divorced and civilly remarried Catholics be allowed back to the sacraments (Wikipedia). The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith answered in September 1994 that such faithful cannot receive Communion while the situation lasts (CDF letter). John Paul II had set out the alternative Mr Gordon describes, living “in complete continence”, in Familiaris consortio 84 (1981) (text).

The Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aimed at abolishing the death penalty, was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1989 (Wikipedia). The 1983 instrument was Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights, a Council of Europe treaty, not a UN one (Wikipedia).