Father Miller was a remarkable talent; Liguori Press, of which he was a driving force, was a remarkable gift for the Church in the United States and the English-speaking world beyond…most especially its publications after Vatican II.
This pamphlet, however, is a product of its time – and, even then, various conclusions drawn and various applications proposed would not have been universally accepted by moral theologians worthy of the name…especially in what concerns attribution of mortal sin or what should be construed as cooperation with moral evil.
Moreover, many of the practices this pamphlet evokes were extremely injurious to family relationships while having quite the opposite effect to being a remedy (or even moving toward a remedy) regarding a person who had ruptured their communion with the Church. Priests have horror stories of trying to heal situations of a person’s contentious relationship with the Church that trace back to these very suggestions and their like…namely, that they be shunned.
I have personally dealt with far too many of them, tragically. This approach led to all sorts of misinformation and truly sad situations where people who were but a few steps from an irregular situation being regularised labored under the idea that the Church door was forever closed to them. They were amazed what little had to be done…but their mistaken concepts had kept them away from the Church for decades because, after all, their family had disowned them.
The Church’s pastoral practices have changed. What is normal now, in terms of pastoral care for the divorced and remarried, would not have been at all the practice in the 1950s. The principles of pastoral theology are not the same as, for example, dogmatic or sacramental theology where doctrinal formulations vary little, if at all.
Nostra Aetate, Unitatis Redintegratio, Dignitatis Humanae, and other conciliar documents fundamentally altered, in a positive way, how we approach and deal with a variety of situations pastorally – and this foundation in turn has been built upon and expanded by the popes during and after the council…in their documents, addresses, and the examples they have set for all of us.
In many cases, the effectiveness of a pastoral practice was re-evaluated in light of new developments, either from pastoral theology itself or from ancillary disciplines. This can result in conclusions that give those who have the care of souls a very different orientation from such as this pamphlet articulates.
This pamphlet today would certainly not guide me in my pastoral work or my advice to those seeking counsel…it has simply been superseded by other realities. To take but one example, “It would be seriously wrong to offer hospitality, assistance or facilities for the honeymoon of the invalidly married Catholic” would place one, in every country I am acquainted with, in direct violation of civil law on discrimination in public accommodation (which is a very different threshold from what was legal and socially acceptable in the 1950s)…as if the hotel clerk, travel agent or airline personnel could discern that the couple were invalidly married Catholics on their honeymoon or that they should even attempt to do so.
We do not live in the 1950s nor is our society and its conventions based upon that era.
Thank you for providing clarity Father.