Jesuit Superior Claims Jesus' Words on Marriage in Gospel of Matthew Not 'Black and White'
The Superior General of the Society of Jesus, a Jesuit order, has claimed that Jesus Christ's words about marriage were not "recorded," and so the issue should not be "black and white" for the Church.
Father Arturo Sosa Abascal reportedly insisted that despite his beliefs, he's not trying to contradict Roman Catholic Church doctrine, or the definition of marriage according to Pope Francis, though the latter has been firm on the matter.
Abascal spoke with Vatican journalist Giuseppe Rusconi of the Italian Catholic blog Rossoporpora earlier this year, with an English translation only recently making the rounds.
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LifeSite News reported on Wednesday that the interview included the topic of remarriage following divorce. Abascal was asked by Rusconi about Jesus' teaching regarding marriage in the Gospel of Matthew, which is when Abascal asserted that Christ's words need to be "contextualized" and "discerned."
Rusconi said to Abascal, according to Breitbart News, "that the prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, Cardinal Gerhard Műller, observed the words of Jesus were clear, and that 'no power in Heaven and on Earth, neither an angel nor the pope, neither a council nor a law of the bishops has the faculty to modify them.'"
Abascal replied, saying, "Human reality is much more nuanced" and "never black and white."
The Jesuit superior from Venezuela, who was installed in October 2016, then quoted Jesus' words in Matthew, saying: "Have you not read that He Who made them in the first place made them man and woman? It says, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and will live with his wife. The two will become one.' So they are no longer two but one. Let no man divide what God has put together."
Abascal insisted, however, that at the time "no one had a recorder to take down His words," and said that Jesus' words were "expressed in a language, in a specific setting, they are addressed to someone in particular."
As to whether Jesus' words have "absolute value," he replied: "Over the last century in the Church there has been a great blossoming of studies that seek to understand exactly what Jesus meant to say. ... That is not relativism, but attests that the word is relative, the Gospel is written by human beings, it is accepted by the Church which is made up of human persons."
Abascal continued: "So it is true that no one can change the word of Jesus, but one must know what it was!"
While the interview did not specifically address what Abascal thinks of the Catholic definition of marriage, which is defined as solely between one man and one woman, the Jesuit superior said that he goes along "with what Pope Francis says."
Francis has urged compassion for gay people, but has called traditional marriage "the most beautiful thing that God has created."
In October 2016 he told priests, members and seminarians at the Church of the Assumption in the Georgian capital Tbilisi that "there is a global war to destroy marriage."
The Vatican leader argued that a "great enemy" to marriage is "gender theory," referring to acceptance of someone's choice of identity as male or female, both or neither, irrespective of their biological sex.
"Today you do not destroy with weapons, you destroy with ideas," Francis warned at the time. "It is ideological colonization that destroys."
