Pope Francis, Civil Unions, and Moral Truth

Pope Francis, Civil Unions, and Moral Truth
(AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Moral truths are what they are. Human beings can fail to grasp them. They can defy them even if they do grasp them—people have free will. Human beings cannot, however, change them.

Catholics believe that the Church is a reliable teacher of moral truth and that when it teaches something definitively (by its own explicit criteria for “definitive” teachings), it is, by the grace of God, protected from teaching moral error. Under certain circumstances, the pope can do so in the name of the Church. By the Church’s own understanding of morality and truth, however, the Church herself cannot—and the pope cannot—make what is inherently morally wrong permissible. It—and he—cannot change moral truth. Nor can the Church—or the pope—change teachings about moral truth (or other matters of faith) on which the Church has taught definitively.

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