Did the Pope just admit remarried Catholics to communion?<\/p>\n
Strictly speaking, no.<\/p>\n
Did he make it possible for others to make decisions in that\u00a0direction?<\/p>\n
Most likely.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s start by backing up a bit:<\/p>\n
So far as I understand, when the Pope speaks of \u201cconscience\u201d, there are two ways in which he might<\/em> be referring to a remarried Catholic receiving communion in good conscience, absent an annulment or \u201cliving as brother and sister\u201d: \u00a0either he refers to a person who believes in their heart that the first marriage was invalid, though it can\u2019t be proven (because, in the end, annulments are<\/em> tricky, requiring as they do some interpretation of not just one\u2019s own intentions but another\u2019s, too \u2013 I yammered on at length about this previously<\/a>), or of someone who rejects church teaching on marriage, despite, to the best of their ability, reading, reflecting and praying about the issue with an earnest desire to seek the will of God rather than their own desire. \u00a0In the former case, there\u2019s a sort of \u201cbenefit of the doubt\u201d issue, and in the latter case, well, it\u2019s all about the question of the definition of a mortal sin in the first place.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what the Catechism has to say:<\/p>\n For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: \u00a0\u201cMortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.\u201d<\/p>\n Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments, corresponding to the answer of Jesus to the rich young man: \u00a0\u201cDo not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and your mother.\u201d . . .<\/p>\n Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent. \u00a0It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God\u2019s law. \u00a0It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice.\u201d \u00a0(Paragraphs 1857 \u2013 1859)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And, so far as I understand, \u201cfull knowledge\u201d means more than just having an intellectual knowledge of what\u2019s on the \u201csin list,\u201d but does take into account the ability of a person to, in their own conscience, understand that it\u2019s sinful. \u00a0And \u201cconsent\u201d is broader than just the legal sense: \u00a0\u201cthe promptings of feelings and passions can also diminish the voluntary and free character of the offense\u201d (paragraph 1860).<\/p>\n So all of this is nothing new, just a matter of emphasis.<\/p>\n But, so far as I can tell, the debate has moved beyond this. \u00a0Bishops and priests appear to be seeking permission\/justification\u00a0to \u201capprove\u201d their parishioners to receive communion, not\u00a0as a matter of the parishioner weighing his conscience in the matter, nor assessing the validity of the first marriage, but even in cases where the first marriage is acknowledged\u00a0as having been valid and the parishioner is looking for guidance in forming his conscience.<\/p>\n The phrasing I\u2019m reading repeatedly is that the Pope is offering priests and bishops the opportunity to\u00a0\u201coffer Communion on a case-by-case basis\u201d (e.g., the article at the L.A. Times<\/a>, printed in the Chicago Tribune). \u00a0Locally, the Tribune quotes Archbishop Cupich:<\/p>\n Cupich called the document \u201ca game changer for the way we as a diocese are going to work with people.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s not really any doctrine as such that\u2019s changed, but there is, I think, a very fresh way that will strike Catholic people in the pews and the priests about how we pastorally deal with people, especially those people whose lives are really very complicated,\u201d Cupich told the Tribune.<\/p>\n The document, though, should not be read as an open invitation for everyone who is divorced and remarried to automatically receive communion, Cupich said. Rather, it invites them to a conversation and a discernment process with their pastors that could lead them to communion one day.<\/p>\n Cupich said he hopes the pope\u2019s guidelines show divorced and remarried Catholics that they do still belong in the church and give license to priests, like himself, who have been taking that approach for a while.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a mindset within the life of the church among Catholics that if in fact they do have marriage breakups and they get into a second marriage that its kind of over for them unless they can get an annulment. The pope is saying that\u2019s not the case,\u201d Cupich said. \u201cI do think that maybe some priests have been working with people in their own counseling. This is an official way in which we\u2019re being encouraged to stay close to those people and reach out to them.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n What, exactly, does Cupich mean with \u201clead them to communion one day\u201d? \u00a0What do Cupich and like-minded bishops and priests do when counseling parishioners (to the extent that they have conversations with individual parishioners)? \u00a0What criteria does he have in mind? \u00a0Does Cupich, in private, tell parishioners that, if your second marriage is strong, and you treat your spouse well, and meet all your obligations to your first spouse and children, and are otherwise well-behaved and right with God, you\u2019re good to go, as Kasper and Marx had proposed in Germany (in the previously-linked post)?<\/p>\n The Pope scolds those looking for clarity: \u00a0\u201cBy thinking that everything is black and white, we sometimes close off the way of grace and of growth,\u201d the LA Times quotes. \u00a0And he seems to even toss this back, as the opposite of Obama\u2019s comment about abortion and when life begins being \u201cabove my pay grade\u201d: \u00a0the National Catholic Register<\/a> quotes an introductory section, saying \u201che says in the introduction that not all discussions of doctrinal, moral or pastoral issues \u2018need to be settled by interventions of the magisterium,\u2019 but that \u2018each country or region\u2019 can seek solutions \u2018better suited to its culture and sensitive to its traditions and local needs\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n But he is the leader<\/strong> of the Church, and owes Catholics some leadership. \u00a0He might wish he could defer this discussion to the next Pope, he might prefer not to be on point here, in the same way as Obama never had any interest in dealing with crises in the Middle East, but if his intentional vagueness is interpreted as license to change by those looking for it, and if priests and bishops in fact decide to create \u201cfacts on the ground\u201d in the way that they counsel parishioners, perceiving the Pope as having given them permission to do so \u2014 well, what then?<\/p>\n (But incidentally, from what I\u2019ve told, priests and bishops shy away from making categorical statements of any kind when asked by parishioners for guidance on what\u2019s right and what\u2019s wrong, and waffle when asked about contraception, or pre\/non-marital sex, and every now and again a woman telling her \u201cI had an abortion\u201d story will say that her own priest gave her the OK. \u00a0I don\u2019t know from experience, but, then again, I don\u2019t even know to what extent priests counsel individual parishioners, vs. them being shunted off to deacons or pastoral associates, or not even feeling like a priest would have time for them in the first place.)<\/p>\n The Pope\u2019s approach seems to be, \u201cmeet people with mercy, compassion, and love, and all the rest will follow \u2014 they\u2019ll find healing for what troubles them and ultimately seek to do God\u2019s will in their lives, and look to the teachings of the Church for guidance.\u201d \u00a0But at the same time, how are they to even learn what the teachings of the Church are, if everyone\u2019s afraid to teach them, for fear of causing offense, or if they become mere \u201cideals\u201d in the same way as, ideally, I ought to exercise consistently and eat more vegetables? \u00a0And is Francis\u2019s program of calling for mercy and compassion enough? \u00a0Is it really working? \u00a0Is it bringing people (back) to regular worship, or to belief in God, or to conversion? \u00a0Or are people hearing his words as \u201cFrancis tells me I\u2019m just fine the way I am\u201d or, alternatively, angry that an explicit statement of acceptance (e.g., of gay marriage) isn\u2019t forthcoming? \u00a0Francis strikes me as indifferent to this question \u2014 he just doesn\u2019t want it to be on his agenda, he wants to be able to presuppose that his constituency isn\u2019t going anywhere, so that he can deal with the agenda he wants to create, that of calling that constituency to setting out on\u00a0the mission he prescribes for them.<\/p>\n And in the meantime, locally, Cupich is beginning a renewal effort<\/a> of his own. \u00a0Whether this is just a structured way of managing the decline and closing churches and schools with the least resistance, or whether he\u2019s able to figure out the magic formula for true revitalization, getting more people in the pews, active in ministries, and believing in the teachings of the Church, I don\u2019t know, but I don\u2019t think anyone else has figured that out, either. \u00a0The Methodists have an ongoing advertising campaign called Rethink Church (this blog post<\/a> is over a year old, but they started running their ads again recently), which tries to attract members by promoting itself as a social service\/volunteerism club, but I\u2019m doubtful that people would be willing for their social service club organizers to tell them about morality. \u00a0Will it work to say, \u201clet\u2019s just stop talking about morals and maybe no one will notice what we believe\u201d?<\/p>\n So I am not an expert. \u00a0I don\u2019t really know what would bring people back to Church. \u00a0Heck, I don\u2019t really understand people all that well in general. \u00a0I\u2019m just giving you my reactions. \u00a0What are yours?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Did the Pope just admit remarried Catholics to communion? Strictly speaking, no. Did he make it possible for others to make decisions in that\u00a0direction? Most likely. Let\u2019s start by backing up a bit: So far as I understand, when the Pope speaks of \u201cconscience\u201d, there are two ways in which he might be referring to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[69,368,317],"class_list":["post-4294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-archbishop-cupich","tag-divorceremarriage","tag-pope-francis"],"yoast_head":"\n