A familiar note about divorce
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
NCR Staff Rome
For the fourth time under John Paul II, the Vatican has refused to
relax church rules on the reception of Communion by divorced Catholics who
remarry under civil law. If the past is prologue, however, pressure for change
will continue despite this latest attempt to choke it off.
On July 6, a Vatican agency issued a document reiterating that
Catholics who divorce and remarry without receiving an annulment, a church
declaration that their first marriage was invalid, are barred from receiving
Communion. In itself, experts say, the document adds little to previous
declarations.
What makes the issue unusual is that the most prominent challenges
to the official position have come not from activist groups or dissident
theologians, but from members of the hierarchy, especially European bishops who
have gently but insistently pushed for reconsideration.
At the same time, other bishops welcomed the document as a useful
reminder of church teaching. Compassion, they argue, can never mean confusion
on basic truths.
Approximately 6 million Catholics in the United States, and
several million more in Europe, are estimated to have remarried without an
annulment, creating an immense pastoral challenge. Experts say that most
Catholic divorcees never attempt the annulment process. Some report they find
annulments either disingenuous because they are asked to claim that their
marriages null under church law, to some, tantamount to a ruling that the
marriage never existed. Others find the process demeaning because of the
personal detail they are asked to divulge. Some also complain of excessive
delays and expense.
Offense to sacraments
The July 6 document came from the Pontifical Council for the
Interpretation of Legislative Texts, an agency charged with interpreting canon
law. It was presented as a clarification of canon 915, which says that people
who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin cannot receive the
Eucharist.
The document insists that remarried divorcees fall under the
canon, and that allowing them to receive Communion creates offense both to the
sacraments of Eucharist and marriage and to those Catholics who faithfully
follow the rules. It asserts that church teaching on the point is a matter of
divine revelation and cannot be changed.
The document adds that Catholics in a second, civil marriage
cannot receive the Eucharist unless they separate or agree to abstain from sex.
In the latter case, because the second marriage is visible to the public while
the vow of chastity is not, the document warns that these Catholics must be
careful to avoid scandal.
Though the principle that remarried divorcees are ineligible for
Communion predates this pontificate, the Vatican under John Paul has been
unusually forceful in asserting it. The pope first underlined the ban in his
1981 document Familiaris Consortio. The position was repeated in the 1992
Catechism of the Catholic Church and in a 1994 document from the Congregation
of the Doctrine of the Faith addressed to all the bishops of the world.
During the 1990s, several bishops have advocated modifications in
the churchs position. In July 1993, three German prelates - Karl Lehmann
of Mainz, Oskar Saier of Freiburg and Walter Kasper of Rottenburg-Stuttgart -
issued a joint pastoral letter on the subject.
The bishops offered pastoral guidelines for cases in which
divorced and remarried persons might be admitted to the sacraments. They argued
that individual Catholics who, with the guidance of a priest, decide in
conscience that their marriage was invalid but who cannot (or do not wish to)
obtain a decision from a church court to that effect, should be allowed to
receive the Eucharist.
Not helpful
The 1994 document of the Vaticans doctrine office, which
appeared under the signature of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was widely seen as a
response to this initiative.
Kaspar, who is today a Vatican official himself as the secretary
for the Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, said when
Ratzingers document appeared: Pastorally the congregations
answer is not helpful and leaves many pastoral ministers helpless. I think that
theology, the churchs tradition and the Holy Spirit give us the
possibility to reflect more widely upon this problem and to find new solutions
that can be acceptable to the universal church.
Other bishops have echoed the call for change. In 1998 another
group of German bishops proposed that divorced people be allowed full
participation in the sacraments after a period of repentance. At an
extraordinary conference Oct. 16-17, 1999, the Italian bishops called for a
Jubilee gesture of reconciliation toward divorced Catholics. They
also affirmed that divorced people remain full members of the
church.
During the 1999 Synod on Europe, Cardinal Godfried Danneels of
Belgium led the charge for new thinking. In a talk at the French national
church, Danneels said that Catholicism may need to learn from the Orthodox
church, in which the sacraments are understood as medicine for the
soul rather than as a privilege earned by correct application of church
rules.
The Orthodox church permits a second and even a third marriage
following divorce. The liturgy for the second and third marriages, however, is
different from the first. It contains a penitential element, expressing regret
for the collapse of the previous marriage.
During the synod, a group chaired by Danneels noted that many
couples seek a church wedding in order to ritualize an important moment in
their lives, or to offer their marriage stability. Often these couples do not
grasp the full theological meaning of a church wedding. This raises the
question, Danneels group said, of whether their marriages are truly valid
as the church has traditionally understood the term.
Danneels was not alone in raising the issue. Cardinal Carlo Maria
Martini of Milan included the discipline of marriage among his list
of issues facing the church, and the Dominican superior Fr. Timothy Radcliffe
included divorcees among a list of marginalized groups needing greater pastoral
attention. Our words for Christ will not have authority unless we give
authority to their experience, learn their language, accept their gifts,
Radcliffe said.
The latest statement of Vatican inflexibility disappointed
Catholics who work with divorced and remarried persons. To hear many
divorced persons tell their story, especially those who had no choice in the
divorce decision, the church has heaped on additional pain, said Irene
Varley, executive director of the North American Conference of Separated and
Divorced Catholics, a 1,500-member group based in Richland, Ore.
Even if they did all they could
People feel like they are worse than murderers, unforgiven,
unclean because of their divorce, even if they did all they could do to change
things, Varley told NCR. Add remarriage to this and you get an
unworthy person so bad that they cannot even receive Communion. Does this sound
like a church that teaches the love of God?
Denvers Archbishop Charles Chaput told NCR that discussion
of the issue will undoubtedly continue.
One of the most disappointing things about Catholic life in
recent years is how quickly we try to explain away unwelcome teaching, no
matter how explicit it is. The Holy See teaches something - and an industry
seems to spring up overnight to dispute, minimize or circumvent it, he
said.
Chaput said that while the new document is not meant for reading
from the pulpit, it does not lack pastoral sensitivity.
We only make things worse - murkier and more complicated -
when we hedge the truth in the name of a false compassion, he said.
What the church teaches about marriage and divorce is true. Its
very clearly rooted in the teaching of Jesus himself and the long reflection
and lived experience of the church. To water it down would lack both justice
and mercy because ultimately it would wound people far more seriously, by lying
to them.
Chaputs point was echoed by Archbishop Julián
Herranz, head of the council that issued the document. In an interview with the
Roman news agency I Media, Herranz said the church follows the example of
Christ, who pardons the adulterous woman in the gospel and tells her,
Go and sin no more. Christ does not justify adultery, even as he
pardons this woman.
The e-mail address for John L. Allen Jr. is
jallen@natcath.org
National Catholic Reporter, July 28,
2000
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