Key African prelate backs Communion for divorced, remarried

[gilliam]

Pastors in Africa, he said, actually face a wide variety of marital situations, and some flexibility in dealing them would be helpful. He said the landscape includes not just conventional divorce, but also levirate marriage, under which a widow is required to marry her dead husband’s brother, and polygamy.

“I’ll tell you, the Church in Africa is not just saying ‘divorce, no’,” he said. “If we look at our own pastoral challenges, there must be room to listen and to see how we can pastorally accompany whoever wants to belong more and more to Christ.”

Palmer-Buckle described a case of a woman who’s been married to the same man for 35 years, raising children with him, even though he has one or two other wives.

“If I want to apply the law as is, I must tell her to quit the marriage,” he said. “But if I do that, she and her children are going to say, ‘The Church destroyed my family.’ As a bishop, I tell you, I have sleepless nights.”

In that context, he said, a bishop ought to be able to act like a doctor, looking at all the “medicines the Church has on the shelf,” and deciding which one works best for a given patient. He suggested that’s the outcome Pope Francis seems to desire.

cruxnow.com/church/2015/02/11/key-african-prelate-backs-communion-for-divorced-remarried/

Interesting

 

[otjm]

It seems to me that determining whether there is culpability for mortal sin is not the issue here. The issue is whether or not someone is still married to a former spouse. If a bishop, rather than a tribunal, wants make that decision on a one on one basis, fine, but then let him issue a decree of nullity if that is his decision.

Both John Paul 2 and Benedict in the past have critiqued the tribunal process, and found that it was becoming altogether too pastoral, to the point, it appeared, of doing not much more than lip service to the facts of cases, if that much.

I can’t critique the critique; I am not a Canon lawyer, nor have I seen the cases histories themselves.

Having said that, I am not too sure how thoroughly either Pope was aware of and appraised of the abysmal status of all too many Catholics regarding any sense what so ever of what the Church teaches. In particular, I refer to what happened starting about the early 1970’s when the Baltimore Catechism was thrown out, and we got into a catechesis that was not much more (especially for grade school kids) a “we all must be nice people and love one another and take care of the environment”, with no or almost no teaching as to the sacraments, doctrine, and morality.

And I say that having met all too many younger adults who literally have no clue whatsoever of what the Church teaches, and why, of doctrine, sacraments, and morality. Hint: how many go to Mass weekly? To Reconciliation even once a year? Have some reasonable knowledge of the Eucharist?

And if they have no clue, it is hard to understand how they can make a covenant relationship, intended as permanent, exclusive, and open to children on the wedding day. They are not much more than baptized pagans.

So I am caught between to horns of the dilemma; on one side, wondering in all seriousness how many have failed to confect a valid marriage on that wedding day; and the other side, of having heard, from the powers that be, that tribunals were, to put it politely, sloppy.

When 85% of Catholics who are divorced have never even started the process of having their marriage reviewed, we have a massive problem on our hands; I just don’t want to see the process get to some sort of “revolving door”, if you will.

I would on one hand favor an expedited process; on the other hand, I don’t want it to become sloppy. We really need the guidance of the Holy Spirit in this.

 

[otjm]

I think I see your point. But that’s because we seem to think everyone, including polygamists, still needs to be converted to the doctrines of the Church in order to be saved. That’s not what Vatican II says, nor the Baltimore Catechism for that matter.

The Church is growing rapidly in Africa; and much of Africa, if not most of it, is still ruled by dictators, who are jockeying amongst tribal leaders and tribes, and flat out few of them can make a move to our Eurocentric concepts with any sense of completeness. The Archbishop makes a point; and a whole lot of people whose entire world is based on the last 2000 years from Jerusalem north, and west to the Americas haven’t even a strong intellectual grasp of what he is saying, let alone any emotional or psychological grasp.

 

[otjm]

Maybe it’s a both-and here. Maybe, just maybe, people who are discussing in an INTERNET FORUM have ALREADY been praying to the Holy Spirit, already KNOW that the Holy Spirit guides the Church, and are simply discussing a situation instead of having ‘hissy fits’. Again, labels are so convenient to use because it shuts discussion right down. Once you’ve put a person firmly in his or her WRONG “box”, that person has nothing more to contribute.

The remarks I have seen are so thoroughly Eurocentric that it shows a total lack of understanding of other cultures. I am referring not to you, but to some people on other threads, who are pounding the table and responding in a way that is indicative of no understanding whatsoever of other cultures.

Let me give an example that is not about marriage; but represents the hubris of the West. I know one of the attorneys who went to Afghanistan to teach about jurisprudence and constitutions. he and others went to people who are still tribal based, whose roots are in their tribe; and they may have gone to university, but they come from tribalism which is ruled by theocracy. It takes a phenomenal amount of hubris to think that we can “convert” tribes to open societies; that we can erase tribal memories that are in many instances literally thousands of years old, and that we can take people whose whole world view is that a theocracy is God given and immutable, and teach them about western juridical and political concepts in a way that they will adopt them. That attorney would have saved himself a whole lot of time and trouble had he simply gone outside and tried to teach the bricks in the wall - and he would have been equally successful.

Another example was our "support’ for free elections in Egypt; and the people there replaced a dictator with a group dictatorship that had all the markings of being even more repressive, by our standards, than the dictator they replaced. The Muslim Brotherhood was/is an ideological and theological ultra conservatist group with sharia as its law and jurisprudence. And we stood there with our mouths agape. They went from a dictatorship to a more repressive system.

We don’t get it.

Too many in Africa are, today, where the Jews were, or the precursors of the Jews were, 3,000 or more years ago. Marriage concepts were refined through the Jewish faith over what - starting 1,000 years before Christ, but the rest of the world didn’t get in on it.

Several hundred years after Christ, some of our relatives were crawling out of caves, painting their faces blue, getting a pony, picking up their spear, and making war with their neighbors. They, however, got carried along with the changes that were occurring, and moved out of that milieu.

Vast swaths of Africa have not. And how does a Church which has been essentially Eurocentric, and based upon Greek and Roman philosophy and civilization communicate truth, and Truth, to a culture (or really a number of them) which has little or no common language, philosophy, or moral code? That is what the archbishop is saying, in so many words.

Why does the Church, and why do NGOs, make so little progress in so many areas there? In part, because we are going in with 3,000 years of history and growth, and trying in a generation or two to bring others who have had none of that, up to speed.

 

[Pulvis]

Pulvis, today’s culture is very ungodly in many ways compared even to 50-75 years ago. Remember in Gone with the Wind when the audience gasped as Gable said “I don’t give a damn!” F words are now rampant. This is a tiny example, but the rampant divorces, children born out of wedlock, single parent homes, abortions, drug culture, are things we never envisioned or dealt with in prior ages. These must be addressed pastorally in today’s society, and are critically important.

Thank you Sirach2,I am fully aware of the cultural slide into perdition.I Remember Laugh-In, and the sitcom Soap, which started many tongues wagging.I have watched it unfold over my 60 years. And I know that the teaching of the Faith is very difficult in today’s realm. Our current culture is diametrically opposed to Church Teaching.
I guess what I am really trying to say is which is more an act of true Charity: Teaching the hard truths, or watering down the teachings to try and accommodate sinners, hoping that once included, then the real work can begin? It is most certainly a difficult, confusing time.

 

[ARSpade]

I’m amazed at the amount of ink and bra(name removed by moderator)ower is being spilled over the simple and plain words of Christ on this subject.

It all smacks of Phariseeism to me. “How can we massage the law to get out from under God’s plain words while still being somewhat technically correct.”

 

[SWolf]

I’m amazed at the amount of ink and bra(name removed by moderator)ower is being spilled over the simple and plain words of Christ on this subject.

It all smacks of Phariseeism to me. “How can we massage the law to get out from under God’s plain words while still being somewhat technically correct.”

Bingo.

One thing people forget when accusing people of being a Pharisee for sticking to the law is that Jesus actually made the law harder. His teachings on Marriage were harder than the Mosaic Law, so were his opinions on violence, lust, etc. If anything, he made the law more strict.

The only caveat I see is the Sabbath, and that was to show their hypocrisy in accusing him of doing something they themselves did.

 

[Tigg]

you quoted the above:

Fundamental misunderstandings here, IMO.

FIRST: the Church does NOT tell her she must ‘quit the marriage’. The option is there, especially for those spouses who have had children, to live ‘as brother and sister’.

SECOND, just ‘who’ is ‘destroying’ this marriage? The Church? No. With respect, usually the people who go into these marriages either know that they are not valid in the eyes of God, or had the opportunity of knowing. It’s not as though for 2000 years Christians --nonCatholic Christians as well as Catholic Christians–lived in a happy state where they could divorce and remarry and go up for communion, and only NOW is there some kind of man-made ‘crackdown’. If these cases are between Catholic Christians and non-Catholic Christians, it’s part of the bitter fruit of the so-called Reformation whereby Christians became ensnared by so many man-made doctrines culminating in the 20th century ‘loosening’ of divorce laws’ which are purported to be ‘real Christian’ that they DO think they can marry and divorce and receive. The answer to that problem is not to kowtow to wrong doctrine, but to reinforce correct doctrine. If the cases are between Catholic Christians and nonChristians, once again, this is not a matter where we accommodate wrong doctrine as though it were ‘equal’ to correct doctrine.

I am sorry for those who marry, and divorce. (Before the stones get thrown at me, I’m one of them. I did not remarry, not even after I received a decree of nullity, although my ex-spouse did). Had I been lucky enough to ‘fall in love’ again, I would still have waited to pursue any kind of matrimonal relationship until/unless I received that decree. But because I trust Christ (and His Church) **I didn’t expect the Church to accommodate itself to me and what my ‘needs’ might be, as though having suffered in a marriage ‘unfairly’ I was somehow being deprived of my ‘right’ to be married whenever I chose, even if in God’s eyes I was not free to do so. **

Once again, I find the real trouble in society is that we simply do not trust God to ‘do right’ by us. If WE think that we NEED something, and God says ‘no’, well, we’ll do our best to find loopholes and ways to wiggle through, and finally,.we’ll just do as we please and expect God to forgive us because hey, after all, it’s just too HARD to follow His teachings and He should understand. IN fact, He’d better change those teachings like all the rest of the world has done, if He still wants to have followers. . .and sadly it seems some of His own bishops think that Christianity isn’t about having people follow Christ, but having Christ follow what the people need.

Thank you TE, for your wonderful witness. As a society, we want what we want and the level of antagonism against anything that would dare thwart our desires is absolutely frightening to some of us and completely antithetical to the spiritual life. It is the teaching of Christ we need to keep our eyes upon at this moment, not the bishops arguing among themselves which further splits the Church into camps and alienates the Body of Christ.

 

[Tigg]

I’m amazed at the amount of ink and bra(name removed by moderator)ower is being spilled over the simple and plain words of Christ on this subject.

It all smacks of Phariseeism to me. “How can we massage the law to get out from under God’s plain words while still being somewhat technically correct.”

***Those who fear the Lord seek to please him, those who love him are filled with his law.

Sirach 2:16***

 

[LongingSoul]

I’m amazed at the amount of ink and bra(name removed by moderator)ower is being spilled over the simple and plain words of Christ on this subject.

It all smacks of Phariseeism to me. “How can we massage the law to get out from under God’s plain words while still being somewhat technically correct.”

That’s not a description of the sin of the Pharisees. They were the ones who rigidly espoused the letter of the law very publically for others whilst being internal hypocrits. Their sin was more a hardness of heart rather than care for the needs of the suffering.

 

[Pulvis]

That’s not a description of the sin of the Pharisees. They were the ones who rigidly espoused the letter of the law very publically for others whilst being internal hypocrits. Their sin was more a hardness of heart rather than care for the needs of the suffering.

Correct!

" [13] But woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men, for you yourselves do not enter in; and those that are going in, you suffer not to enter. [14] Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites: because you devour the houses of widows, praying long prayers. For this you shall receive the greater judgment. [15] Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you go round about the sea and the land to make one proselyte; and when he is made, you make him the child of hell twofold more than yourselves.

[16] Woe to you blind guides, that say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but he that shall swear by the gold of the temple, is a debtor. [17] Ye foolish and blind; for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? [18] And whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gift that is upon it, is a debtor. [19] Ye blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift? [20] He therefore that sweareth by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things that are upon it:

[21] And whosoever shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth in it: [22] And he that sweareth by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon. [23] Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you tithe mint, and anise, and cummin, and have left the weightier things of the law; judgment, and mercy, and faith. These things you ought to have done, and not to leave those undone. [24] Blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel. [25] Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you make clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but within you are full of rapine and uncleanness.

[26] Thou blind Pharisee, first make clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, that the outside may become clean. [27] Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you are like to whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead men’ s bones, and of all filthiness. [28] So you also outwardly indeed appear to men just; but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. [29] Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; that build the sepulchres of the prophets, and adorn the monuments of the just, [30] And say: If we had been in the days of our Fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.

[31] Wherefore you are witnesses against yourselves, that you are the sons of them that killed the prophets. [32] Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. [33] You serpents, generation of vipers, how will you flee from the judgment of hell? [34] Therefore behold I send to you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them you will put to death and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city: [35] That upon you may come all the just blood that hath been shed upon the earth, from the blood of Abel the just, even unto the blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias, whom you killed between the temple and the altar.

[36] Amen I say to you, all these things shall come upon this generation. [37] Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not? [38] Behold, your house shall be left to you, desolate. [39] For I say to you, you shall not see me henceforth till you say: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord."

From drbo.org/index.htm

 

[ProVobis]

The Church is growing rapidly in Africa; .

It is growing while it’s hurting in Europe and other places. But I would hate to think it’s because the Church feels forced to change its doctrine in order to bring in membership. The Church as I understand things is concerned for the salvation of all, whether they are Catholic or not. At least that’s what ecumenism means to me.

 

[Pulvis]

It is growing while it’s hurting in Europe and other places. But I would hate to think it’s because the Church feels forced to change its doctrine in order to bring in membership. The Church as I understand things is concerned for the salvation of all, whether they are Catholic or not. At least that’s what ecumenism means to me.

Good point. Look at our Protestant brethren, who have accepted much of the societal reforms for the sake of full buildings.

 

[otjm]

It is growing while it’s hurting in Europe and other places. But I would hate to think it’s because the Church feels forced to change its doctrine in order to bring in membership. The Church as I understand things is concerned for the salvation of all, whether they are Catholic or not. At least that’s what ecumenism means to me.

Hurting in Europe? You are charitable by too far.

 

[Rubia]

The vast majority of African bishops who are deeply aware of Africa’s problems are against a change in the discipline despite all those problems referred to here. I defer to them.

Since the early church, the church has converted entire cultures and it was not through changing the truths of our faith to conform to them but through calling them to conform to the truths of our faith while believing in the power of Jesus Christ of Nazareth to enable all that, not in ours or their sheer human strength. It seems to me that some in the hierarchy and laity have lost faith in the power of Jesus to enable people to make the transformations to which he has called us. They now speak as if only human strength is needed to live our faith. If that is the case then of course the discipline is impossible. But we are called Christians because there’s a difference between us and everyone else, at least there’s supposed to be one…we are BELIEVERS. Those who speak as if asking the remarried to conform to the faith is some form of mental torture clearly have lost faith in the church and her sacraments as carriers of grace. In the power of God to help us do what he has asked. No wonder so few miracles happen any more. We act and think like world-lings instead of the fools for Christ we claim to be.

 

[ProVobis]

The vast majority of African bishops who are deeply aware of Africa’s problems are against a change in the discipline despite all those problems referred to here. I defer to them.

Since the early church, the church has converted entire cultures and it was not through changing the truths of our faith to conform to them but through calling them to conform to the truths of our faith while believing in the power of Jesus Christ of Nazareth to enable all that, not in ours or their sheer human strength. It seems to me that some in the hierarchy and laity have lost faith in the power of Jesus to enable people to make the transformations to which he has called us. They now speak as if only human strength is needed to live our faith. If that is the case then of course the discipline is impossible. But we are called Christians because there’s a difference between us and everyone else, at least there’s supposed to be one…we are BELIEVERS. Those who speak as if asking the remarried to conform to the faith is some form of mental torture clearly have lost faith in the church and her sacraments as carriers of grace. In the power of God to help us do what he has asked. No wonder so few miracles happen any more. We act and think like world-lings instead of the fools for Christ we claim to be.

Very good post.

 

[Ender]

It sounds to me that the Archbishop would be ok with allowing the Bishops to interview couples one-on-one (themselves) to determine if the sinful situation truly meets all 3 criterium required to be considered a mortal sin.

This approach is more than a simple streamlining of a cumbersome process; it is changes the meaning of what is occurring.* The process for the declaration of nullity of marriage is not just anoth****er procedure: it is essentially connected with the perennial teaching of the Church expressed by canon 1141: “A marriage that is ratum et consummatum can be dissolved by no human power and by no cause, except death.” Underlying this canon are two rotal allocutions of Pius XII and, above all, Gaudium et Spes §48. Moreover, marriage possesses the favor of law: the validity of a marriage must be upheld until the contrary is proven (c. 1060). The procedure for the declaration of nullity of marriage aims at the declaration of a juridic fact (cf. c. 1400 §1) and is a search for the truth. The judge must have moral certitude about the marriage’s nullity in order to pronounce the sentence (c. 1608 §1). The norms of the Code of Canon Law and of the instruction Dignitas connubii safeguard this search for the truth and** protect against the false**** mercy St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI warned against** in their rotal allocutions of 1990 and 2010 respectively. The best guarantee that marriage cases will be handled with both justice and efficiency is for the procedural and substantive norms of canon law to be followed faithfully, and for them to be undergirded by a proper theological understanding. This, however, depends on a proper canonical and theological formation of the tribunal’s ministers, who must sentire cum Ecclesia. *
nvjournal.net/files/essays-front-page/recent-proposals-a-theological-assessment.pdf
Ender

 

[Transformer]

Palmer-Buckle described a case of a woman who’s been married to the same man for 35 years, raising children with him, even though he has one or two other wives.

“If I want to apply the law as is, I must tell her to quit the marriage,” he said. “But if I do that, she and her children are going to say, ‘The Church destroyed my family.’ As a bishop, I tell you, I have sleepless nights.”

In that context, he said, a bishop ought to be able to act like a doctor, looking at all the “medicines the Church has on the shelf,” and deciding which one works best for a given patient. He suggested that’s the outcome Pope Francis seems to desire.

Is the archbishop suggesting that the Church should “tolerate but not accept” polygamy in the same way that Kasper wants her to “tolerate but not accept” remarriage after divorce? If so, surely it would be unjust to admit remarried divorcees and those in polygamous marriages to Communion, but not those in same-sex marriages or polyamorous relationships. After all, the situations of the latter can be just as longstanding and just as difficult as those of the former, and they can involve children too.

 

[PTL]

Being pastoral should never be being negligent. Padre Pio once advised a man in confessional to change his lifestyle otherwise he was in danger of hell. The man said he did not believe in hell. Padre Pio said to the man that he would believe when he got there. Padre Pio was being pastoral by telling the truth. When a Pastor fail to counsel and correct according to the teaching of Christ, there is no true compassion.

Pope Benedict XVI once said that we must “guard against the risk of misplaced compassion, which could degenerate into sentimentality”. There is a difference between being popular and being truthful. The salvation of souls should be the primary concern for any true pastor.

 

[_Abyssinia]

African Archbishop Considers Protestant Approach to Marriage