The paragraphs 300-305 belong to the most controversially discussed quotations of the Pope’s Francis Exhortation Amoris laetitia. A suggestion appears in them, that people living a non-sacramental unions can find themselves subjectively unable to act differently without causing a new harm, though at the same time they are fully aware that their present living conditions are objectively a grave sin. Such people – so the Pope says – are not deprived of the divine grace and could under some circum-stances received the sacraments. These statements are interpreted in different ways. According to the first interpretation the particular circumstances can change the moral character of the person’s act so far that the life in a non-sacramental union can no more be assessed as an adultery i.e. a grave sin. The supporters of the second inter-pretation claim that the particular circumstances could cause a grave moral constraint which – like other forms of constraint too - can diminish one’s moral responsibility, though his/her act remain objectively a grave sin. Eventually according to the third interpretation the statements of Pope Francis are in the present article related to the particular category of people living in non-sacramental unions namely those ones who are subjectively convinced that their first marriage was never valid.

A danger of falling into the trap of the naturalistic fallacy seems to unambiguously exclude bodiliness from the search for moral norms . But is it really true that there is no role for the body to play when the intellect occupies itself with formulating moral norms? Undoubtedly the body constitutes – in a sense – the basis of morality, since human freedom can exist only as freedom incarnate. It would be equally difficult to deny that the body constitutes boundaries for morality. Bodiliness may significantly restrain cognitive abilities of men; but it may also reduce their capabilities to fulfill their moral obligations. A major controversy arises over the issue whether the body can influence the content of moral norms. Even if one accepts the validity of the thesis of an intransgressible boundary between the world of facts and the world of values, there is no doubt that man never experiences his body in the same way as he does other material objects. An experience of one’s own body matters significantly in ethical reflection.