the Heart of the Dictum

 That structure is built thus: that Being precedes Truth, and that Truth precedes the Good. Indeed, the living fire at the heart of the dictum is the central mystery of Christian theology: that the Father begets the Eternal Word, and that the Holy Spirit proceeds out of the Father and the Word.”-- Josef Pieper

Truth and love can never be opposed.   The object of both of them is God.    Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life; no one can come to the Father but by me".   

But truth and love taken together are also one of those both/ands that comprise a bigger picture.   By taking the extreme of one thing, you not only neglect the other one; you end up distorting even the one you chose.    The corollary of "seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; then all these things shall be added unto you,"   is that if you choose solely one of "all these things" you will end up losing even that one.

Truth spoken without charity is not really truth.   Charity that rests on deception is not really charity.    

The faculty in humans that balance out the operations of this balance is called Prudence.   Here is Pieper again:  

Christian ethics, on the contrary maintain that man can be prudent and good only simultaneously; that prudence is part and parcel of the definition of goodness; that there is no sort of justice and fortitude which runs counter to the virtue of prudence; and that the unjust man has been imprudent before and is imprudent at the moment he is unjust. Omnis virtus moralis debet esse prudens — All virtue is necessarily prudent.“

The reason I'm thinking about this is because of the situation in the Catholic Church these days, which is a situation in all the world religions and in contemporary culture as well.  

Specifically, the situation we are in where it's almost impossible to ignore it.   Even a decision to flee the conflict is just that, a decision.    St Benedict decided to flee Rome.   This was a pivotal decision in the history of Christendom as it turned out, but the key for him was truth in love -- the motive was Quaerere Deum, to seek God.   

As soon as one starts a blog, or starts writing a book, or evangelizing, or pretty much anything that involves talking, one has to make a decision what one should say or not say.

And even if one is not talking, if one reads or listens, one still can't avoid making decisions on how to understand and receive things that are said.

So that's what the past few posts on here have been about, because it seems like this is a meta-theme of Catholic communication.

Amoris Laetitia and the preceding synod on the family has been called a paradigm shift, and it is for paradigmatic purposes that I have been reading about it recently.  ... that is, as a pattern or model of the way discourse takes place in the Church of this millenia.   You see a huge variety of responses, and also of responses-to-responses, that bring up all sorts of issues beyond the purported one of dealing with Christian families.

But more specifically, it brings up the question of how I personally should respond.    Because this is a prudential decision, what is proper in my case might differ from what is proper to someone else.   In other words, there is a range of different possible options.   

However, this is nothing like relativism or the extreme form of "you do you".    As mentioned above, this range is ordered to the True and the Good.    And each of us is accountable.    Newman talked about how even a faulty conscience can be a guide to something better, not in the faultiness of its grasp on things, but in the sincerity of its intention. He illustrated this from his own life and conversion from conventional liberality, to evangelicalism, to Anglicanism and finally to Catholicism. 

Of course, this is somewhat parallel to the material controversy about Amoris Laetitia.   So that's why I am reading about it as a kind of fulcrum or touchpoint.     The stories about different people who have spoken about the theological issues are fascinating and in my opinion historical.    

And they include a "meta" element, unavoidably.   That's the historical part, the part you see whenever you read Church history -- the embodied working out of truth.