The assumption behind the Catholic debate

The biggest news about the just-concluded Synod on the family in Rome is that there is new wiggle-room for divorced Catholics.

The language is ambiguous in the final statement, but nonetheless opens the door for a priest to permit a divorced person to receive Holy Communion after careful discernment and (perhaps) penance.

But at the heart of the debate is a false assumption–that Jesus banned all divorce.  Most commonly Jesus’ words in the gospel of Mark are trotted out to support this assumption: Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. And if the woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery. (Mark 10.11-12)

These words do indeed seem straightforward.  And if all we had were Mark’s gospel, we might agree with Rome that discipline is needed in every case, and easy-divorce-and-remarriage in the church should be proscribed.  Even if Rome does not recognize, as she should, that some are innocent partners and therefore victims of divorce, not perpetrators of it.

But Jesus said more.  In his famous Matthean exceptions, Jesus twice (Matt 5.32 and 19. 9) said that divorce could be permitted in cases of porneia, sexual infidelity.  When we take into account everything else Jesus said, He seems to have meant unrepentant sexual unfaithfulness.

Paul added that desertion is another case in which divorce could be permitted to the partner who was deserted (1 Cor 7.15).

It should be added that the rabbis were in general agreement that if divorce is legitimate, then remarriage is also legitimate.  Jesus and Paul give no sign of having disagreed with that rabbinic consensus.

If the whole Bible was given to the Church by the Holy Spirit, and each part is to be interpreted in the light of all the rest, as orthodox biblical interpreters have agreed, then it is unbiblical to treat all the divorced, including the innocent victims of unfaithful partners, as unworthy of Holy Communion.