Multiple Contextual Perspectives of Amoris Laetitia

Abstract

Not a few of us in Asia view the promulgation of this Apostolic Exhortation as a “release from” and “removal of” the “magisterial hermeneutical power” from the curial descateries that pride themselves on relentlessly defending an erstwhile euro-centric orthodoxy that is untenably indefensible in a globalized church. Particular contexts and communities with their cultures have to be attended to, as Amoris laetitia (AL) emphatically asserts, “each country or region, moreover, can seek solutions better suited to its culture and sensitive to its traditions and local needs. For ‘cultures are in fact quite diverse and every general principle... needs to be inculturated, if it is to be respected and applied’” (AL, 3). The document further emphasizes, “different communities will have to devise more practical and effective initiatives that respect both the Church’s teaching and local problems and needs” (AL, 199).