In my opinion, the two intellectual giants in the Church in the United States are Ed Feser and Fr. Chad Rippinger.
In philosophy Feser is the top mind while in spirituality and psychology Fr. Rippinger tops Feser.
Feser and Rippinger disagree on rather Catholics and Moslems worship the same "God." I am sure that their disagreement is as Feser says because he is talking about the issue in the "philosophy of language" and not about the Catholic and Moslem "deep disagreements about the nature of God."
Despite that I would love to see a debate between the two on the subject.
I have seen Feser totally destroy, with a devastating intellectual knock out Mark Shea (which is pretty easy), theologian Massimo Faggioli (a bit harder) and on YouTube win an impressive victory over a very intelligent Atheist.
I feel like I am getting into the ring with Mike Tyson when he was knocking everyone out in the first round, but I think Feser is wrong on the Open Letter.
First, I need to say, as aways, his post on the Open Letter was overall very impressive and as always intellectually fair and even handed.
But, I disagreed with his statement that the Open Letter was "rashly made."
The main reason I disagreed with that statement is because he wrote:
"For example, Pope Francis has made many statements that at least seem to contradict traditional Catholic teaching on divorce and remarriage, conscience, grace, capital punishment, and a variety of other topics."
(Edwardfeser.blogspot, "Some comments on the Open letter, May 6, 2019)
It appears to me that Francis doesn't just "seem to contradict traditional Catholic teaching on divorce and remarriage," but explicitly "contradict[ed] traditional Catholic teaching on divorce and remarriage" when he in a "official act as the pope" placed the Argentine letter in the the Acts of the Apostolic See (AAS) in which he said of the Buenos Aires region episcopal guidelines:
"There is no other interpretations."
"There is no other interpretations."
The guidelines explicitly allows according to LifeSiteNews "sexuality active adulterous couples facing 'complex circumstances' to 'access the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.'"
(LifeSiteNews, "Confusion explodes as Pope Francis throws magisterial weight behind communion for adulterers, December 4, 2017)
In a article on OnePeterFive, specialist in Magisterial authority Dr. John Joy said "It means that it is an official act of the pope."
Moreover, the article said:
"Dr. Joy pointed out that adding the letter to the AAS could, in fact, damage the credibility of Amoris Laetitia by potentially removing the possibility that it could be intercepted in an orthodox way, via its publication in the official acts of the Apostolic See, that the unorthodox interpretation is the official one."
(OnePeterFive, "Pope's Letter on Argentinian Communion Guidelines for Remarriage Given Official Status," December 2, 2017)
The "official act of" Francis is a "unorthodox interpretation."
It doesn't just "seem to contradict traditional Catholic teaching."
The "official act of the pope" is a "unorthodox interpretation" which means it contradicts traditional Catholic teaching which is just another way of saying by "official act the pope" is teaching heresy.
Now, let us quote Feser:
"(1) Adulterous sexual acts are in some special circumstances morally permissible... these propositions flatly contradict irreformable Catholic teaching. Proposition (1) contradicts not only the perennial moral teaching of the Church, but the teaching of scripture itself."
(Edwardfeser.blogspot, "Denial flows into the Tiber," December 18, 2016)
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church.
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