According to today’s Tribune, Chicago’s Archbishop Cupich (whom I’ve been skeptical of ever since, upon his arrival, he said that immigration, not violence in the city or declining Catholic school enrollment or church attendance, was his top priority) is all in favor of rewriting the rules so that divorced-and-remarried Catholics — as well as gay couples, cohabitating couples, etc. — can participate fully in the sacraments.
Per today’s article, “Cupich emerges as strong voice in synod,
Cupich told reporters in Rome he favors pathways to offer Holy Communion to divorced and remarried Catholics. He said the church must respect the decisions those Catholics make about their spiritual lives and he believes the same is true for gay Catholics in relationships.
With respect to gay couples in particular,
“My role as a pastor is to help them discern what the role of God is by looking at the objective moral teaching of the church and yet at the same time helping them through a period of discernment to understand what God is calling them to at that point,” he said.
And both at his prior diocese in Spokane and here in Chicago, he’s been busy even before the synod:
In both dioceses, priests discussed how to welcome the many different families they see in their parishes, including divorced couples, parents who never married and same-sex couples. As background, they were briefed on canon law and were asked to read “The Gospel of the Family,” a prominent proposal by German theologian Cardinal Walter Kasper to support and welcome back into the fold families that have failed.
The article then quotes priests who are implied to be expressing Cupich’s point of view, e.g.,:
Cupich told priests that navigating canon law is just one piece of the puzzle. He said the church must engage in a theological discussion about the definition and purpose of the sacraments.
“Are sacraments rewards for good behavior or are sacraments, as the pope would say, medicines for mercy?” said the Rev. Ken Simpson, pastor of St. Clement in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. “That’s a really important conversation. … Then you begin to answer questions about who ought to share in those.”
The National Catholic Reporter has more extended quotes from this press briefing. Of the Kasper proposal to welcome the D&Rs to communion, he says:
“I think that he has reasoned this proposal well, given the theology that he offers,” said Cupich. “I do think that we should look at a way in which people are not just accompanied but integrated and reconciled.”
“We have to believe in the mercy of God and the grace of God to trigger conversion, rather than having it the other way around as though you’re only going to get mercy if you have the conversion,” said the archbishop. “The economy of salvation doesn’t work that way. Christ receives people and it’s because of that mercy that the conversion happens.”
So: wow.
First of all, the Kasper proposal cited, as summarized here, is what I cited from Marx yesterday: that a D&R who’s sorry about having, say, left his wife, can begin receiving communion after some sort of waiting period.
Fundamentally, there are two issues here.
First, the idea of conscience is being mutated into an excuse to skitter away from the idea of any objective moral teaching at all. For Cupich to suggest that he counsels gay Catholics to believe that God may be calling them to something other than chastity, say, maybe instead diminished promiscuity, instead, is an abdication of his responsibility as a Catholic priest. To speak of conscience without simultaneously acknowledging the responsibility of those in positions of pastoral care to instruct so as to properly form the conscience, is a cop-out.
Second, the role of sacraments is being transformed. Remember the wedding feast, when the host invited the all manner of stragglers and strangers? — Yet those without a proper wedding garment were kicked out.
The sacrament of baptism, in the case of adults and children beyond the age of reason, requires a willingness to profess the faith.
The sacrament of the Eucharist requires that one have faith in the real presence of Christ, and be in a State of Grace.
The sacrament of reconciliation requires that one be penitent (which itself requires the intention to abandon the sin).
The sacrament of marriage requires the intent to be faithful, commit to each other in a lifelong way, and to welcome children to the marriage.
The sacraments are not tools to bring in nonbelievers, or to convert sinners. One might wish they worked that way, that baptism would inspire belief, that the Eucharist would produce a State of Grace, that reconciliation would bring about penitence, and that the sacrament of marriage could create the resolution to be faithful. It would certainly be nice to have these tools — to sprinkle water on unsuspecting passers-by and have them enter in on Sunday morning, or lay hands on a sinner and have them change their ways, or give a notorious womanizer a ring and have him stay faithful. And it is also true that the the sacraments should strengthen faith and help seeds grow. But to imagine that we can reinvent the sacraments into what we’d like them to be, as outreach tools, is a perversion of Christian doctrine beyond these smaller issues of divorce and remarriage.
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