Gerald J. BEDNAR, Mercy and the Rule of Law: A Theological Interpretation of Amoris Laetitia. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2021. xix + 212 pages, pb, $24.95. ISBN 978-0-8146-6655-5. Reviewed by Thomas SIMMONS, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, South Dakota 57069.

In the spring of 2016, the Holy Father promulgated an apostolic exhortation titled Amoris Laetitia (joy of love). It addressed the pastoral care of families along with both the ebullience and the challenges of contemporary family life. One section of Amoris Laetitia reflected on divorce. It caused quite a stir. Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, for example, aired his own criticisms before his death in 2017.

Chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia drew most of the agitation. Even the Vatican’s summary of the exhortation acknowledged: “Chapter eight if very sensitive. In reading it one must remember that ‘the Church’s task is often like that of a field hospital’.”

The author of this book is Father Gerald Bednar who is currently in residence at St. John of the Cross in the Diocese of Cleveland, Ohio. He practiced law in Washington, DC before he was ordained to the priesthood. He holds a doctorate from Fordham.

Although he taught at Saint Mary Seminary for thirty years, much of Father Bednar’s career likely also focused on matters of pastoral care . That background permeates his interpretation of Amoris Laetitia. Indeed, he titles one chapter of his monograph “Entering the Field Hospital.” In it, and throughout the book, he demonstrates a loving pastoral application of mercy to the rule of law and to couples who find themselves in messy, even miserable, circumstances.

Bednar’s analysis of Amoris Laetitia – and its challenging 8th chapter – is thorough, thoughtful, and persuasive. He captures Pope Francis’ teachings on marital dilemmas. But I was most struck but his configuration of mercy, more generally.
Mercy, we often assume, is a softening of the law. If a statute requires a sentence of five years imprisonment and the judge instead imposes a sentence of six months, we might be tempted to see mercy as a corruption of a legally correct outcome; as a deviation from the rule of law; as a watering down of statutory text. We might even classify mercy as an emotional cancellation of logic. But Pope Francis insists on a “logic of pastoral mercy.”

Bednar, too, insists that mercy is not a departure from justice. Nor is it a condiment to be lightly applied to an otherwise just outcome. Instead, as Thomas Aquinas claimed, “mercy constitutes the primary quality of God, stemming directly from his love” (55). Mercy, in fact, stands higher than justice. “Mercy does not negate justice but fulfills it. This calls into question the inclination of some to place more confidence in law than in mercy” (ibid.).

From the perspective of a civil lawyer, this assertion is heretical. I suspect it may even be heretical from the perspective of many canon lawyers. You can certainly sift the course offerings of many law schools and spot courses like Statutory Construction, Constitutional Law, Legislation, Civil Procedure, and so on. You’ll search long and hard to find a law school course titled Mercy. Bednar concedes: “There is no law of mercy in the statutory sense of the term” (41).

Although universal principles exist in a vacuum, moral acts do not. Only with mercy can abstraction be delivered to the concrete world. Jurisprudence, standing alone, is technical. It lacks love. Mercy is essential. It does not change the law. It fulfills it.

Theologically, Bednar explains, only with mercy can the law be correctly applied. Moreover, mercy does not uniformly reduce punishments or suspend retribution. We think of the instance of Jesus inviting those among the condemners who were without sin to cast the first stone at the guilty defendant. John 8:2-11. In that case, the legal outcome (death by stoning) was relaxed. But in others, mercy requires something stiffer. Bednar: “Sometimes mercy will produce a hug and sometimes a kick in the pants” (42). He cites the lesser studied instance of Jesus rejecting the loophole of permitting adult children to not honor their parents so long as they dedicated certain property to the synagogue. Matthew 15:3-6.

Bednar urges discernment. He maintains that subtle and complex circumstances demand a loving, merciful application of canon law. The same could be said of civil law. His book is a masterful demonstration of that approach.