Cathal BarryThere is mounting speculation that the Church may reverse its ban on Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics, writes Cathal Barry
If recent headlines are to be believed, the Catholic Church may soon change her discipline about divorce and remarriage.
Speculation about a change in practice has grown since Pope Francis told reporters accompanying him on his plane back from World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro last July that the next Synod of Bishops would explore a “somewhat deeper pastoral care of marriage”, including the question of the eligibility of divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion.
Pope Francis added at the time that Church law governing marriage annulments also “has to be reviewed, because ecclesiastical tribunals are not sufficient for this”.
Such problems, he said, exemplified a general need for forgiveness in the Church today.
“The Church is a mother, and she must travel this path of mercy, and find a form of mercy for all,” the Pope said.
The Vatican subsequently announced that an extraordinary session of the Synod of Bishops will meet October 5-19, 2014, to discuss the “pastoral challenges of the family in the context of evangelisation”.
However, amid rising expectations at the time that the Church might make it easier for divorced and remarried members to receive Communion, the Vatican’s highest doctrinal official reaffirmed Church teaching barring such persons from the sacrament without an annulment of their first, sacramental marriage.
The then Archbishop Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, acknowledged that a “case for the admission of remarried divorcees to the sacraments is argued in terms of mercy,” but wrote that such an argument “misses the mark” in regard to the sacraments, since the “entire sacramental economy is a work of divine mercy and it cannot simply be swept aside by an appeal to the same”.
Cardinal Müller also ruled out the argument that “remarried divorcees should be allowed to decide for themselves, according to their conscience, whether or not to present themselves for Holy Communion”.
“If remarried divorcees are subjectively convinced in their conscience that a previous marriage was invalid, this must be proven objectively by the competent marriage tribunals,” he said.
Validity
“Marriage is not simply about the relationship of two people to God, it is also a reality of the Church, a sacrament, and it is not for the individuals concerned to decide on its validity, but rather for the church, into which the individuals are incorporated by faith and Baptism.”
Compounding the confusion more recently, Cardinal Walter Kasper, President emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, told the world’s cardinals the Church needs to find a way to help divorced and remarried Catholics who long to participate fully in the life of the Church.
He said the Church must be realistic and acknowledge “the complex and thorny problem” posed by Catholics whose marriages have failed, but who find support, family stability and happiness in a new relationship.
“A pastoral approach of tolerance, clemency and indulgence,” he said, would affirm that “the sacraments are not a prize for those who behave well or for an elite, excluding those who are most in need.”
In an attempt to shed some light on this complicated issue ahead of the Synod of Bishops on the family in October, The Irish Catholic sat down to thrash it out with expert canonical theologian, Prof. Ladislas Orsy, SJ.
Prof. Orsy, a Hungarian Jesuit who has taught Canon Law at an infinite list of prestigious universities across Europe and the US, is well placed to address what is widely regarded as one of the most controversial laws of the Church.
He has authored hundreds of journal articles and several books on theology and canon law, including Marriage in Canon Law (1986); The Church: Learning and Teaching (1987); and Theology and Canon Law: New Horizons for Legislation and Interpretation (1992).
He began by outlining the need for regulations within the Church.
“You can never have an organisation without some sort of room for order, this is just ordinary human need. It’s not some special Church need. It is the natural need of humanity.”
Organisation
“If we want to work in community we need some organisation. Canon law is nothing else than satisfying this human need in the Church. If you do not have it everything becomes chaotic,” he said.
Ironically, however, despite these laws, ‘chaos’ is exactly how many would describe the debate around the eligibility of divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion.
Therefore, in the case of Communion for the divorced and remarried, is canon law too restrictive?
“Yes, it could certainly be opened up a little more but this issue is not just a canon law issue, it is more an issue of morality and theological perception,” he said.
“Canon law is not like secular legislation where you make a law and the people follow it. In the Church it is somewhat different. Usually you try to find a vision and then you adjust the law to that.
“Canon law in the Church does not have the same primary importance as the vision of faith and laws of charity,” he said.
Prof. Orsy was in Dublin to give the third Michael Hurley Memorial Lecture; ‘Divorce, Remarriage, and the Eucharist – the State of the Question: A Lecture Exploring the Limits of God’s Mercy’ which drew a huge crowd to Milltown Institute last week.
As part of his lecture, the renowned canon lawyer created a hypothetical couple, Nancy and Henry.
Nancy is a practising Catholic, and a good mother and wife whose husband leaves her and her two children for another woman whom he remarries. After some time, Nancy meets Henry and they fall in love and she remarries and they have two more children. She wants to receive the Eucharist, but under current Church law she cannot.
However, according to Prof. Orsy, there could be room for a resolution within Church teaching.
Citing a 1972 article by the then Joseph Ratzinger, Prof. Orsy notes that taking this particular route one’s methodology moves away from deducing from laws, or from notions of dispensation. It involves a ‘leap’ to another level, which emerges from the capacity of the Church to sense an invitation of the Spirit and act upon it. It is a supernatural instinct that recognises there are human situations for which there are no human solutions. In this case the Church has the capacity to perceive God’s mercy and has the power to open the way for it.
Orsy noted that Ratzinger speaks of the requirement that a second marriage prove itself over a long time as “a moral greatness” lived in the Spirit of faith.
He quotes Ratzinger: “If in the second marriage moral obligations to the children, to the family, and so also to the woman have arisen, and no similar commitments from the first marriage exist, and if thus for moral reasons the abandonment of the second is inadmissible, and on the other hand practically speaking abstinence presents no real possibility… the opening up of community in Communion after a period of probation appears to be no less than just and to be fully in line with the Church’s tradition.”
So, should the Church show more mercy on this issue?
“Yes,” Prof. Orsy responds firmly, “but you have to work out how to do that first”.
“Do not expect that the Church will have a new law that from now on divorced and remarried are expected to come to communion,” he warned. “Do not expect any such thing.”
“If the Church comes out and says marriages are not forever it would be so destructive in the human society at large. It would undermine the family which the Church is trying to uphold as it is being attacked from every side today,” he said.
“The Church has a greater task than just to preach the gospel. The Church has the task also to preach how to be human.
“So, even if the Church is free to make a precise change it will have to do it without destroying greater values, and that is not easy.”
To find a remedy, Prof. Orsy maintains that the Church has to focus on individuals, dealing with the situation on a case by case basis.
“The only way I can see it happening is if the Church deals with individuals, in certain cases in certain parishes with certain families.
“General legislation that applies to all does not work. You must address this situation with an individual approach to individual cases. It’s a matter for the local Church,” he said.
The charismatic canon lawyer is convinced that change is possible within the Church.
“Change is not only possible, it is necessary,” he said emphatically.
“The Church is a living organism and just like in a human person there should be continuous change in the Church. The Church lives in history and if you familiarise yourself with Church history the changes are enormous,” he added.
Prof. Orsy is similarly convinced that the Church is open to altering its stance on the eligibility of divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion.
“At the moment openness is already indicated by the very fact that it is disputed,” he said referring to ongoing clashes among the cardinals on the issue. “And that is the right approach.”
“I think if the Church does not change the Church is dead, because only a dead body does not change. The question is the extent of change, the type of change, and what exactly you are changing.
“It takes a great deal of wisdom to know what the correct way of changing is and what the wrong way is,” he said.
Pope Francis, according to Prof. Orsy, certainly leans towards a more pastoral approach to the issue of divorced and remarried Catholics to receiving Communion.
However, he warns that the pastoral approach for the Pope “might be different for him than people generally perceive”.
Secular press
Issuing caution around reports in the secular press on the Pope’s unscripted utterances, Prof. Orsy notes that, to date, the Pontiff has “followed the traditional line” on matters of Church teaching.
“He has not addressed the issue professionally so to speak. He made some remarks here and there and some people have read into them too much,” he said.
Despite this, Fr Orsy acknowledges Francis “seems to be bent on change”. “He indicated that on the first day of his papacy.”
So then, what is likely to happen at Synod of Bishops in October?
“I have no idea,” Orsy admits. “I really do not know because there are endless social consequences. So the synod will have to consider all the aspects and ultimately it will be put to a vote.”
And will a decision be forthcoming?
Prof. Orsy expects the synod will not rush to conclusions, admitting he wouldn’t be surprised if the bishops push their decision on this issue to their second meeting in 2015.
In the interim; intrigue increases; speculation mounts; October awaits.
