Communion for the Remarried. Francis Has a Yes "In Pectore"

The pope has given the go-ahead for discussion. He doesn't say whether he is on the side of those in favor or those against, but he appears to be much closer to the former than to the latter. An Australian theologian explains why

by Sandro Magister




ROME, September 8, 2014 – The latest to call for a radical change in the Church's practice and doctrine on marriage is the Belgian bishop of Antwerp, Johan Jozef Bonny.

He did so in early September with a thirty-page memorandum in multiple languages, which he also sent to Pope Francis.

Because the presumed support of Jorge Mario Bergoglio is inevitably part of the arguments of the cardinals, bishops, and theologians who are calling for the change, which would mean granting Eucharistic communion to the divorced and remarried: a key argument of the synod of bishops on the family set to have its first session in Rome this October.

Pope Francis has never said explicitly what his position is in the dispute - to which he intentionally gave free rein - between the proponents and opponents of the change.

When, for example, he defended in strong words the encyclical of Paul VI "Humanae Vitae," he disappointed the innovators, who see that very encyclical as an emblem of the disastrous detachment of the magisterium of the Church from the spirit of the times and the practice of the faithful themselves.

But on the contrary there are are increasingly numerous testimonies on how Bergoglio, as an archbishop, encouraged his priests to give communion to the cohabiting and remarried. He himself, as pope, spoke by telephone last April with a civilly divorced and remarried woman of Buenos Aires and advised her to “go receive communion in another parish if her pastor did not give it to her.” This according to the woman's account, which has not been refuted.

In any case, there is evidence for the idea that Pope Francis leans more to the side of the innovators in the appreciation that he has repeatedly expressed for Cardinal Walter Kasper, foremost among supporters of the change, whom he charged with introducing the discussion on the theme of the family at the consistory of cardinals last February.

The charge given to Kasper was itself enough to mark a turning point. In the early 1990's the German cardinal, who at the time was the bishop of Rottenberg, together with bishop of Mainz Karl Lehmann and of Freiburg Oskar Saier was the protagonist of a memorable clash with the then-prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, Joseph Ratzinger, precisely on the question of communion for the divorced and remarried. The clash ended with a victory for Ratzinger, who had the full support of John Paul II. And for a couple of decades Kasper didn't say any more on the topic. But since Bergoglio has been pope, the 81-year-old cardinal has gone back to the front lines to present his ideas, this time with the manifest support of the successor of Peter.

Bishop Bonny, before being assigned to the Belgian diocese of Antwerp in 2009, had been a close collaborator of Kasper at the pontifical council for Christian unity, headed by the cardinal. And in the memorandum with which he is now calling for change not only in the practice but also in the doctrine of the Church on marriage, citations of Pope Francis abound. All interpreted in favor of the change.

This brings up the question: up to what point is it plausible to assign Francis to the camp of the innovators, on the question of communion for the remarried? And if this convergence exists, is it just superficial or of substance?

This question is answered by a theologian who has already spoken out on this website to illustrate the innovations of method in the most representative document of pope Bergoglio, "Evangelii Gaudium": Paul-Anthony McGavin of Australia (in the photo), age 70, a priest of the archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn and an ecclesiastical assistant at the University of Canberra.

McGavin leans toward a change and does not conceal his agreement with Kasper's positions. But this is not what he has written about. He instead dedicates his essay to demonstrating the affinity between the proposals of innovation and the “methodology” of Francis, intolerant of any "closed system," whether pastoral or doctrinal.

According to McGavin, Ratzinger also had an equally “open” methodology. And in the initial part of his essay he amply develops this affinity between the two most recent popes. To the point that the reader is induced to think that Francis is preparing to realize what Benedict XVI had also been predisposed to do.

But it is on the reigning pope that expectations are focused. Because in the end, after the two synods, it will be he who decides the path to take, on marriage in general and on communion for the remarried in particular.

A path of pastoral innovation, if not also doctrinal, that - according to McGavin's arguments - Francis already has in mind.

The complete text of the essay by the Australian theologian:

> Reconciling anomalies: a hermeneutic on divorce and remarriage

And the following is an extensive extract from this.

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RECONCILING ANOMALIES: A HERMENEUTIC ON DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE

by Paul-Anthony McGavin



There have been moves and counter-moves for the upcoming Synod on the Family to look again at the Latin tradition on divorce and remarriage. Both directions of movement have been promoted by Pope Francis.

Cardinal Müller as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was published in "L’Osservatore Romano" of 25 October 2013 refuting the ideas of those who want to permit second marriages while the first spouse is still alive.

Cardinal Kasper was invited by Pope Francis to give an inaugural address to the Consistory of on the Family where he argued that it was not enough to consider the problem only from a sacramental perspective.

Müller’s document presumably invoked the permission of the Pope, and Kasper’s address was reportedly praised by the Pope as “profound and serene” theology.

These seemingly polar positions are not easily reconciled. This article draws upon the methodological approaches of Joseph Ratzinger and of Jorge Bergoglio to suggest a way toward reconciling these anomalies. […] Pope Emeritus Benedict is a scholar of immense breadth and depth in a way that Pope Francis is not. But in their different ways, each demonstrates a reaching for a manner of theological practice that presses the boundaries of thinking that operates in singular philosophical or canonical manners of reasoning.

Their mentalities are not of the closed-system kind. […] Neither the methodology of Ratzinger nor of Bergoglio is simply phenomenological. […] Ratzinger captures a sense of the congruity of philosophy and empirics in his 2004 essays in "Truth and Tolerance" when he argues the essential truth of the Torah by quoting the Apostle Paul:

"When the gentiles who do not have the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law (Roman 2:14-15)".

This is essentially a restatement of natural law. Yet it is not natural law as understood in syllogistic philosophical terms, nor in terms of positive law, but natural law as understood in a congruency between premise (which may be a deontic articulation of law as in the Decalogue) and empirics that witness to the coherence and integrity of a living witness. Such an integral approach is not the “desk bound theology” that Bergoglio decries in "Evangelii gaudium" (n. 133). Pope Francis is not always temperate in his expressions, but viewed methodologically his approach is congruent with a Ratzingerian perspective.

It is this manner of natural law approach to moral theology that is challenged by those who are unsettled by suggestions arising under Jorge Bergoglio for reconsideration of divorce and remarriage.

The more serious challenges are usually directed at Walter Kasper, rather than Pope Francis.

One of the first challenges came from Cardinal Burke, Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, who in an EWTN interview of 20 March 2014 declared: “In my estimation as a canonist, I do not think it is possible… that the Church’s approach [on the matter of divorce and remarriage] can change”, and: “We’re talking about the very words of Christ himself in the Gospel in which he taught the indissolubility of marriage”.

The issues raised in this brief interview excerpt of Cardinal Burke make clear that the question of divorce and remarriage also traverses canon law, dogmatic theology, sacramental theology, and biblical theology. Granted that the issues are complex and range across a wide field, this brief interview points to a certain narrowness in response. Over the years, the canon law of the Church shows some amazing responses to pastoral anomalies. Just to name a few: solemn religious vows to God can be dispensed; those in holy orders can be “laicised” and contract valid marriages; Catholics who contracted invalid marriages can obtain retroactive validation; and those who contracted civil marriages with canonical irregularity can after civil divorce contract another marriage with ecclesial validity. Simply to say, “I do not think it is possible” seems unduly determinative in excluding further development across the range of considerations involved.

Even the reference to the dominical texts: “What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder”, and: “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her” (Mark 10:9, 11), are cited in a deontic manner that seems to involve no hermeneutic. […] The inclusion of “except on the grounds of fornication [porneias]” in the first of the Matthean text on this topic (Matthew 5:31-32) may refer to “indecency” in Deuteronomy 24:1, but may also capture something of matrimonial jurisprudence in the early Church. Certainly, the Pauline treatment makes clear that matrimonial jurisprudence was not simply a settled issue in the apostolic era (1 Corinthians 7:10-15). My purpose in these observations is not to diminish the received dominical teaching on the nature of marriage. It is to make clear that receiving this teaching still involves interpretative acts and reasoning, requires a "hermeneutics of continuity". […]

Nor does a noetic sacramental theology or moral theology close the issue, and Pope Francis is unlikely to be daunted by such attempts at closure or – in the expression of Joseph Ratzinger – to accept a view of orthodox theology as “merely repeating magisterial statements of doctrine and traditional formulae”. […] An impressive example of such argumentation is a lengthy article by John Corbett O.P. and seven collaborators as published in the Summer 2014 issue of "Nova et Vetera": “Recent Proposals for the Pastoral Care of the Divorced and Remarried”.

I find the scholarship of this article impressive in its reach and exactness. But it seems to me to typify the recall by Ratzinger of his seminary theology: “The crystal-clear logic seemed to me to be too closed in on itself, too impersonal and ready-made". Across the areas of sacramental theology, selected Church history, and magisterial documents, the authors are impressive in mounting arguments that are syllogistically tight, but less sure in terms of soundness. […]

Although it seems a harsh thing to say, it is as though Corbett and his collaborators have never sat in the confessional. […] In the confessional the heartbreaking stories of marriage failure largely do not focus on “uncleanness” of one kind or another. The main issues are things like lack of communication, sustained meanness, deep unkindnesses, on-going diminishment of the person by treating as a commodity or as a supplier of goods and services, and the deathliness of cohabitation that is not a marriage. […] A confessor’s understanding conveyed implicitly or conveyed in few words often leads to tearfulness by the penitents. And tears not so much tears of repentance and grief, as tears of relief that someone has listened with a sympathetic ear, and conveyed a sense of mercy as learned from Jesus.

Those mounting a contra-position to Cardinal Kasper are concerned about “false mercy”, and one should be concerned about mercy that is unjustly practised and falsely conceived. But mercy nevertheless must be at the heart of every action of the Church and the ministers of the Church. A small book of Cardinal Kasper bears the title: "Mercy: the essence of the Gospel and the key to Christian life". I am not here going to mount a critical appreciation of that work. But the fact is that Pope Francis acclaims: “This book has done me much good". […]

We have to seek the good in the proposals put by Kasper, and to respond searchingly and wisely to discover how we may be instruments of authentic mercy. […] My experience across the years leads me to observe that those who continue to practice the faith after civil divorce and civil remarriage are generally not the “serial monogamy” types, but are people who in phenomenological terms have experienced the death of a marriage. The marriage partner may still be alive, but the marriage not. […]

Those who look at the issue only in canonical terms and in terms of technical sacramental theology cannot accept the death of a marriage. Viewed from the contra-position to Kasper, narratives such as I recount from penitents are simply phenomenological statements, and not “reality” statements. From the contra-position, the celebration of the marriage contract effects an ontological change – just as the valid celebration of baptism effects an ontological change in the baptised person, and just as the valid celebration of the sacred mysteries effects an ontological change that is explained as transubstantiation.

This is a real quandary, because the Church has never dealt simply in phenomenological terms. In phenomenological terms, for example, Jesus was “son of Joseph”; and in phenomenological terms Jesus suffered a death that shattered all the hopes of those whom he chose as Apostles. The verities of Christian faith know otherwise. So, too, in phenomenological terms one may encounter enactments of a spouse or of spouses that are starkly in contradiction to what is professed of the matrimonial state. Those in the contra-position hold that the matrimonial state remains in the face of these violations and in the face of phenomenological death.

The very day after writing this section of this paper, I noticed the following in the 17 August 2014 address in Korea of Pope Francis to the Bishops of Asia:

"Then too, there is a [another] temptation: that of the apparent security to be found in hiding behind easy answers, ready formulas, rules and regulations. Jesus clashed with people who would hide behind laws, regulations and easy answers... He called them hypocrites. Faith by nature is not self-absorbed; it 'goes out'. It seeks understanding; it gives rise to testimony; it generates mission. In this sense, faith enables us to be both fearless and unassuming in our witness of hope and love. Saint Peter tells us that we should be ever ready to respond to all who ask the reason for the hope within us (cf. 1 Pet 3:15). Our identity as Christians is ultimately seen in our quiet efforts to worship God alone, to love one another, to serve one another, and to show by our example not only what we believe, but also what we hope for, and the One in whom we put our trust (cf. 2 Tim 1:12)". […]

The fact remains that it is such closed-system perspectives that were challenged in a spearhead way when early in his consistory address Cardinal Kasper said:

"It is not enough to consider the problem only from the point of view and from the perspective of the Church as a sacramental institution. We need a paradigm change and we must… consider the situation also from the perspective of those who are suffering and asking for help".

In effect, Kasper is saying that a received paradigm of sacramental theology cannot be our sole paradigm for addressing complex situations that cannot be dealt with from this perspective. And in his interview published 7 May 2014 in "Commonweal" he said: “We have our own resources for finding a solution”.

It is not my purpose here to “find a solution” – that, among other things, is the challenge of the upcoming Synods of the Church and the Holy Father in communion with the whole Church. But I will say that it is arrogant and specious to speak dismissively of the Orthodox practice of oikonomia, “economy”, that may allow for a second non-sacramental marriage, after the manner of Cardinal Müller: “This practice [of oikonomia] cannot be reconciled with God’s will"; nor after the manner of Corbett and his collaborators. […]

I would also add that it is wrong for the contra-position to imply any correspondence between Anglican practice and Orthodox practice (Corbett). The collapse of Anglican marriage discipline is contemporary and has occurred within my ministerial lifetime. Orthodox matrimonial jurisprudence is long-standing and, although the world area of Orthodoxy is far smaller than that of Latin Catholicism, one does not need to engage in sophisticated demographic studies to observe that matrimony in Orthodoxy has displayed and continues to display a general stability that is being lost in Latin Catholicism. I am not proposing Orthodox practices as a panacea, but it seems to me evident that engaged conversation between Orthodox and Latin perspectives would be very helpful in the present conflictual circumstances.

It is engaged conversation that is needed. What Cardinal Kasper has said is not “the last word”. Our present Holy Father often speaks "ad libitum", and his words are only “last words” under restrictive circumstances. But such as Cardinal Burke and Father Corbett and his associates have endeavoured to give finality to words that are argumentative rather than conversing.

I began this paper in terms of the congruency between the methodologies of Ratzinger and Bergoglio. […] The following quote from "Evangelii gaudium" is an example of the manner of thinking of Pope Francis that is holistic, concrete, and pastoral:

"There… exists a constant tension between ideas and realities. Realities simply 'are', whereas ideas are 'worked out'. There has to be a continuous dialogue between the two, lest ideas become detached from realities. It is dangerous to dwell in the realm of words alone… So [another] principle comes into play: realities are greater than ideas. This calls for rejecting the various means of masking reality: angelic forms of purity, dictatorships of relativism, empty rhetoric, objectives more ideal than real, brands of ahistorical fundamentalism, ethical systems bereft of wisdom" (n. 231).

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The previous article from www.chiesa on this issue, with links to the main texts on the dispute:

> Müller: "These Theories Are Radically Mistaken" (29.7.2014)

And the essay in "Nova et Vetera" in which McGavin presents his arguments:

> Recent Proposals for the Pastoral Care of the Divorced and Remarried: A Theological Assessment

In addition to John Corbett, the authors are six other Dominican Fathers: Andrew Hofer, Paul J. Keller, Dominic Langevin, Dominic Legge, Thomas Petri, and Thomas Joseph White, plus Professor Kurt Martens.

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In the United States, Ignatius Press is preparing to publish a book in this issue, entitled: "Remaining in the Truth of Christ: Marriage and Communion in the Catholic Church".

The volume collects the replies of five cardinals, of the archbishop secretary of the Vatican congregation for the Oriental Churches, and of three scholars on the ideas supported by Cardinal Walter Kasper in the opening discourse of the consistory in February 2014.

These are the nine chapters of the book:

1. The Argument in Brief
Robert Dodaro, O.S.A.

2. Dominical Teaching on Divorce and Remarriage: The Biblical Data
Paul Mankowski, S.J.

3. Divorce and Remarriage in the Early Church: Some Historical and Cultural Reflections
John M. Rist

4. Separation, Divorce, Dissolution of the Bond, and Remarriage: Theological and Practical Approaches of the Orthodox Churches
Archbishop Cyril Vasil’, S.J.

5. Unity and Indissolubility of Marriage: From the Middle Ages to the Council of Trent
Walter Cardinal Brandmüller

6. Testimony to the Power of Grace: On the Indissolubility of Marriage and the Debate concerning the Civilly Remarried and the Sacraments
Gerhard Ludwig Cardinal Müller

7. Sacramental Ontology and the Indissolubility of Marriage
Carlo Cardinal Caffarra

8. The Divorced and Civilly Remarried and the Sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance
Velasio Cardinal De Paolis, C.S.

9. The Canonical Nullity of the Marriage Process as the Search for the Truth
Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke

The Augustinian Robert Dodaro, the editor of the book, is head of the patristic institute "Augustinianum" in Roma. The Jesuit Paul Mankowski is a professor at the Lumen Christi Institute in Chicago. Professor John M. Rist teaches ancient history and philosophy at the University of Toronto and at the Catholic University of America in Washington.

The founder and director of Ignatius Press is the Jesuit Joseph D. Fessio, a member of the Schülerkreis, the group of former theology students of Joseph Ratzinger.

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The previous essay by Paul-Anthony McGavin published on www.chiesa, on the innovations of method in "Evangelii Gaudium":

> The Joys and Sorrows of Francis's Magisterium (15.4.2014)

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English translation by Matthew Sherry, Ballwin, Missouri, U.S.A.

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For more news and commentary, see the blog that Sandro Magister maintains, available only in Italian:

> SETTIMO CIELO



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8.9.2014 

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