Cardinal Wuerl: 'Don't deny the doctrine, but apply it to people'

[Sirach2]

I assumed you knew the sin involved with a second marriage was not the ceremony itself but the sexual relations that ensued.** If the partners do not intend to stop having sex** they cannot be said to show contrition, therefore their sin - that of adultery - cannot be absolved.
And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” (Mt 19:9)
Ender

I thought we concluded that matter a few posts ago, saying that for those who are NOT having sex, there is no restriction to receiving the sacrament. I’m puzzled why you keep bringing this up, as though nobody in a second marriage – not even those who are living in continence – can receive the sacraments.

 

[Megan7]

Good article from a divorced/remarried faithful to Jesus and His Church’s teaching…

wdtprs.com/blog/2014/10/the-church-while-it-strives-to-emphasise-mercy-cannot-do-so-by-encouraging-sin/

Thanks for the link. Everyone should read this. I will keep her in my prayers.

 

[ProVobis]

Everyone should read this. I will keep her in my prayers.

Indeed. Thanks for refreshing. I probably would have missed it.

 

[LongingSoul]

Thanks for the link. Everyone should read this. I will keep her in my prayers.

I think Fr Z was remiss not to emphasis that the Synod will under no circumstances be allowing Communion to those divorced and remarried without an annulment. This whole issue is being discussed in the light of a revised annulment process.

Also I don’t understand what could possibly prevent the woman at least seeking annulment. She seems to be perfectly situated for grace and forgiveness. As I was reading her story, I wondered whether she is being more hard on herself than God or the Church ever would be. I pray that she applies for annulment post haste to correct her situation.

 

[Teelynn]

I agree. It sounds like they’re trying to figure out how to build square circles. Here is Cardinal Wuerl:it’s one thing to doctrinally state the obvious. It’s another thing to take that and get it to work in the concrete order where people live.
I cannot get by the feeling that this is nothing more than an expression of a desire to sidestep the doctrine, as in “Yes, that’s what we believe…but…”

If it is doctrinally obvious that the divorced and remarried cannot receive communion then what are we discussing? This is perhaps the most annoying part of the “discussion”: there is no specificity, every statement is generalized and vague. Phrases like “where people live”, the “application of discipline”, mercy, etc are thrown out. What is not addressed are the specific doctrines involved and how they would have to be changed, reversed, or ignored in order for communion to be received by those in “irregular” marriages.

Ender

This is EXACTLY what I see going on in this Synod Ender. They seem to be side stepping doctrine. Doctrine will stand on it’s own, but if a particular situation with a particular couple (or whoever) gets in the way of Doctrine, then they want to ‘meet people where they are’. I sure hope they get more specific than THIS! I have read where Pope Francis has said (this was prior to the Synod however) that the priests and bishops need to ‘travel with the people’, and ‘accompany them in their difficulties’. I would presume this may have led into the ‘gradualism’ we are hearing about. To me, this means to accept them to full unity with the Church but ‘guide’ them on their ‘journey’ to full conversion and good standing? I don’t know…I’m just trying to put 2 and 2 together in this thing, but it sounds like that’s where they are going with it. The problem with this that I can see is: How does anyone know these people will ever come into full union? Are they going to allow them to Communion in the meantime? This doesn’t sound right to me at all. Something is very ‘off’ about the way this Synod seems to be going. We will see how it all ends up, but at this point it’s a tad troubling.

We all need to pray for the Synod!!

 

[McCall1981]

The message that is consistent is that our doctrine will not change so I am having a very difficult time understanding what is really hoped to be accomplished. I would greatly appreciate someone helping me understand how you don’t change the doctrine but somehow make people who disagree with it come around to accepting it after this synod is completed. No sarcasm intended just a serious concern.

It’s because when they say “the doctrine wont change”, some of them mean “giving communion to the remarried does not change the doctrine”, and some of them mean “we can’t give communion to the remarried because doing so would be changing the doctrine”.

I think Fr Z was remiss not to emphasis that the Synod will under no circumstances be allowing Communion to those divorced and remarried without an annulment. This whole issue is being discussed in the light of a revised annulment process.

Also I don’t understand what could possibly prevent the woman at least seeking annulment. She seems to be perfectly situated for grace and forgiveness. As I was reading her story, I wondered whether she is being more hard on herself than God or the Church ever would be. I pray that she applies for annulment post haste to correct her situation.

I wish I had even the tiniest bit of your confidence.

 

[CradleJourney]

Pardon my cynicism, but I like to get to the bottom of everything (it’s a fault), but WHY are they doing this. What can possibly be the motive. These are intelligent people who understand doctrine. Have they now concluded that we are so weak, stupid and mediocre that we can no longer accept and understand the truth as it has been proclaimed for 2000 years?

Let’s say you have a 50 or 60 something year old Catholic who married in the church when she were young and the marriage later failed. AT THE TIME, it was common belief (here) that getting a divorce was equivalent to being excommunicated. The woman, who had no choice in the divorce (husband left or she had to escape abusive situation), and who was not a fervent believer in the first place, now believes she is no longer part of the Church, and/or is being held to blame by the Church for the marriage failure. Either way, she moves on with her life, maybe raising kids as a single mom, she attends other churches, meets a guy who gives her the approval and admiration she yearns for, and gets married - without a thought to the Catholic viewpoint because she believes herself permanently separated from the Church. Years go by - the marriage may last, it may not. Perhaps even a third marriage happens, since even “good” people have faults and failures and issues. More and more time goes by.

Now she’s older, facing the reality that maybe she doesn’t have that much longer to go in life, maybe the effort and burden of trying to do it all (without God) is becoming too much. Maybe prayers are finally taking effect. She happens upon a story about Pope Francis, or she’s finally ready to listen to that voice of her guardian angel. She’s ashamed (still) of the failure of her first marriage but also defensive because she’s angry that people (her family, her ex) blamed her for it’s failure though it wasn’t her fault. But she’s feeling a pull to come back home to the Church. It’s a nerve wracking and tough decision to call, but she makes contact with a priest …

…and now what? Is she greeted warmly and with dignity and respect? Are her feelings and hurts and misunderstandings addressed? Is she (and even hubby #2 or #3) welcomed into the parish and into the parish life? Is she told of how much God loves them and how they’ll be supported on the road to regularizing their situation?

Or is she told she was weak and stupid and didn’t understand the doctrine properly the first time, but here fill out these 70 to 80 questions, gather witnesses, and if a judge (whom you have no knowledge of in an office perhaps hundreds of miles away) says that well, that first marriage never really happened (no matter how “real” she thought it was), then they can look at this marriage (or repeat the process for marriage #2) and see if it can be made legitimate - and this may take several months to a couple years or more - but hey, the important thing is don’t dare be intimate with this guy whom you’ve believed to be your current spouse for the last 16 years because hey, that makes you completely unrepentant, and an adulteress. And if you can’t handle that - then leave?

I have several close family members in variations of the above situation. I’d love to invite them to come home but trust me, they would not currently dream of doing so because they’re convinced they’re excommunicated and/or no longer Catholic. And if I could convince them to speak with a priest, I’d sure like the first scenario to play out rather than the second.

Note: It’s not that having to refrain from receiving communion until things are regularized. It’s about being told you’re in mortal sin, absolutely doomed to hell, your “marriage” isn’t real - at all, on any level - no matter how “real” it seems to you. That’s the problem. Welcoming, encouraging, supporting, helping, guiding - these are the ways we can make the doctrine understandable to the people.

That’s why I love the talk about gradualness. Get people like my family members in the church, let them start hearing the word, speaking with a priest, taking a bible study, learning the catechism. Then they can start to comprehend what we mean by marriage, why we teach what we do regarding all the sacraments, why there is an annulment process and get them to reach the point where they have the ability to be truly repentant and can decide to forgo intimacy, and make it thru the annulment process and be able to live with whatever is decided.

 

[ProVobis]

Note: It’s not that having to refrain from receiving communion until things are regularized. It’s about being told you’re in mortal sin, absolutely doomed to hell, your “marriage” isn’t real - at all, on any level - no matter how “real” it seems to you. That’s the problem. Welcoming, encouraging, supporting, helping, guiding - these are the ways we can make the doctrine understandable to the people.

I’m sure most of them know the doctrine. Is the problem that they seem unwanted in the church, with or without communion? Or might they be giving their situation an excuse not to go? Is the church really the culprit for these situations, though? Many seemingly-happy Catholic couples seem to have left the Church or have lost their enthusiasm for Mass, etc. Maybe they’re the ones who need help (too).

 

[Sirach2]

Let’s say you have a 50 or 60 something year old Catholic who married in the church when she were young and the marriage later failed. AT THE TIME, it was common belief (here) that getting a divorce was equivalent to being excommunicated.

You are correct that the Church maintained that view. Here’s an article noting the change in that discipline.

In 1884 Third National Council of Baltimore, the excommunication invoked in Canon 124 of the same council automatically excludes all remarried divorcees from the sacraments. This hard and fast ruling precludes any pastoral accommodations. In 1918 the new Code of Canon Law deals with the issue of remarried divorcees in Canon 2356, “Persons guilty of bigamy-- that is an attempted marriage, even by mere civil ceremony, by persons validly married–are automatically branded with infamy. If they do not heed the admonition of the Ordinary, but continue to live in the unlawful union, they are liable to be punished, according to the gravity of their guilt, either with excommunication or personal interdict.”

This raises a painful question for the contemporary theologian. In the spirit of post-Vatican II, the Canon Law Society of America in the proceedings of the 31st annual convention in 1969,** passed a resolution to request the bishops of the US to strike the rulings of Baltimore III from the books.**

It encouraged me to find that in just over 100 years, our Church has moved to become slightly more pastoral. The initial part of this report [not disclosed in this post, for brevity] mentioned that the policies of both the Eastern Church and the Anglican Church [which is closest to the RCC] have a pastoral policy that “those who have remarried after divorce may be admitted to Holy Communion on the recommendation of the incumbent and at the discretion of the bishop.” (A.R. Winnet, The Church and Divorce, London, 1968)

Author of this report, Rev. Francis Wieser, of the Religious Studies Department of the University San Diego, examined the tradition of the Church to determine whether divorced persons who have remarried are automatically excluded from the sacraments. He concludes that even in the “juridical” Western Church there is room for the “pastoral” approach to the problem long customary in the Eastern Church. This article first appeared in the Nov. 19, 1970, issue of “The Southern Cross,” the newspaper of the Diocese of San Diego.
He continues…

On one hand, all remarried divorcees are classified as unworthy and excluded from Communion, and on the other hand, the same people are openly invited to participate in the celebration of Holy Eucharist. A clear separation between Mass and Communion was theologically feasible at the time these laws were formulated. Holy Communion used to be offered more as a reward for the perfect Christian. Also the distribution of Communion took place mostly outside of Mass, either before or after Mass.

Theology of today no longer supports such a dichotomy. Holy Communion is seen as an integral part of the Eucharistic celebration. All the faithful are encouraged to full participation, and Communion is no longer regarded as a reward but as the necessary strengthening of the weak pilgrim.

The ambivalent pastoral policy which openly invites divorcees to the Eucharistic celebration and, at the same time, categorically excludes them from Communion would seem to be an anachronism.