Most of the couples who turn up in my office asking to be married in the Catholic Church are already living together. A large number of Catholics who come to Mass are in second or third marriages. Some of them have received nullity decrees, many have not. Soon same sex couples will come to Catholic churches and schools expecting full membership. Some who attend Mass are living openly with another man or woman with no intention of seeking marriage. Others are promiscuous yet exercise full membership in the Church.<\/p>\n
To put it bluntly, our marriage and family discipline in the church is all over the place. The situation is complicated in that our marriage disciplines, while derived from natural law and the Sacred Scriptures, have also been understood within the social context (for most people) of a supportive small local community which was comprised of a few extended families. That kind of community has its own bedroom police. For the most part everybody knew what everybody else was up to. If Johnny started having sex with Ginny, Ginny\u2019s dad and brothers would go around to pay Johnny and his folks a visit. If a girl was \u201cloose\u201d her reputation would be spoiled and she wouldn\u2019t get a good husband. Taboos were in place which helped form adolescents in a Christian morality. The Church was the centerpiece of such local communities and Christian teaching from the Church, supported by the extended family and without the ease of artificial contraception, kept sexuality within acceptable boundaries.<\/p>\n
Sure people misbehaved. All the old sins that break marriage were available, but there was condemnation, exclusion and punishment by society for sexual wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not suggesting we go back to those days because we can\u2019t. However, I can express my frustration as a Catholic priest in trying to grapple with the laws of the Church on marriage and the reality of modern day society. In the area of sexual behavior so many are so far from the Catholic ideal, and so far from even understanding the Catholic ideal that I feel like I am paddling upstream all the time. I am therefore hopeful that the bishops\u2019 synod on the family may help us find some way through the morass\u2013maybe they\u2019ll establish C.L.A.S.P\u2013Catholic Liason and Sex Police\u2026.squads of former nuns in jackboots who respond at a moment\u2019s notice and invade divorced people\u2019s homes to make sure they\u2019re living as brother and sister\u2026<\/p>\n
Seriously, it gets worse: the Catholic priests themselves are not united in what to do. First there is Father Hardline\u2013who upholds Catholic law to the letter. If a person is divorced and remarried they have to live together as brother and sister until the decree of nullity comes through. \u201cYou bet we have bedroom police haven\u2019t you heard of C.L.A.S.P??\u201d \u00a0Same sex couples? There\u2019s the door. Couples co-habiting and asking for a church wedding? \u201cCome and see me once you\u2019ve been living separately for six months. Inner forum? What the heck is\u00a0that??\u00a0<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Then, on the other end of the spectrum is Father Luvme. \u201cThe Church needs to be welcoming! We accept everyone! Waiting for your annulment before you are received into the church? Nah, we\u2019ll do that this week. We welcome all! Living together before marriage? That\u2019s okay. Praise the Lord that you now want to affirm your love before him! Divorced and remarried? Mistakes happen. We can live with your pain and walk with you! Divorced and re-married again? No problem. You are clearly the victim\u2026\u201d You get the idea.<\/p>\n What Father Hardline and Father Luvme don\u2019t see is the pain, anger, confusion and frustration they are causing. Father Hardline drives people away from the church with his harsh legalism and probably doesn\u2019t give two hoots. He likes Benedict XVI\u2019s idea that the church will be smaller and more pure, and if he can help bring that about all the better.<\/p>\n The real sneak is Father Luvme. In his utter conviction that he is probably one of the world\u2019s nicest people he surrounds himself with his adoring fan club of people he\u2019s been kind to, and why has he been so lax with them? Was it really to be nice to them or because he needs the love baby?<\/p>\n What he doesn\u2019t see are all the other people who are scandalized, confused and angry with his behavior. He doesn\u2019t see (or perhaps doesn\u2019t care) about the feelings of the couple who\u00a0have\u00a0waited for two years before being received into the church because they respected the marriage discipline of the church\u2013in fact the marriage discipline of the church is one of the things that made them want to be Catholic. Fr Luvme \u00a0doesn\u2019t even know people like that exist\u2013much less that he has slapped them in the face.<\/p>\n What he doesn\u2019t see is that for every person who thinks he\u2019s Mr Wonderful for cutting them some slack and bending the rules for them there are five other people who think he\u2019s a hypocrite, a false teacher and his own little pope who thinks he can make up the rules as he goes along. He doesn\u2019t see the people who think his lax attitude is causing scandal by teaching their children that the marriage discipline of the church doesn\u2019t matter and more than that\u2013the authority of the church doesn\u2019t matter. In being nice to a few people Fr Luvme is damaging many more in ways he can\u2019t see.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t pretend to have the solution. I\u2019m a fairly young priest and a convert to the Catholic faith. However, it seems to me that there can be a middle way. It is possible to explain the marriage discipline of the church to people and \u201cwalk with them in their pain\u201d through the nullity process. A fellow priest told me about his conversation with a woman who was divorced and re-married and wanted him to be Father Luvme and admit him to communion:<\/p>\n He said, \u201cI\u2019m sorry for your situation, and to tell you the truth, I wish I could just wave a magic wand and make it different. I also wish that I was given the authority to decide whether you should come to communion or not, but I don\u2019t have that authority. All I can do is offer you the teaching of the Catholic Church. I know the teaching is hard to live up to. I realize it will be a challenge to you and your husband, but let\u2019s aim for the best! If you explain to your children why you are not going to communion and that you are living with the discipline of the church, let me tell you that they will respect you enormously and they will probably keep the faith. If you do not, then eventually they will learn that you are a hypocrite and they will not respect you or the Catholic faith. So why don\u2019t we work together to bring the best out of this messy situation?\u201d<\/p>\n He explained that he it was possible to be both pastoral and to uphold the disciplines of the church. Let\u2019s face it, we might be able to tinker with pastoral approaches and make suggestions on how to improve the Marriage Tribunal process, but there\u2019s not much wiggle room. The Church\u2019s teaching on marriage and family life are rooted in the order of creation, the Sacred Scriptures, and the teaching of the Lord himself.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not something the church has the authority to change.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Most of the couples who turn up in my office asking to be married in the Catholic Church are already living together. A large number of Catholics who come to Mass are in second or third marriages. Some of them have received nullity decrees, many have not. Soon same sex couples will come to Catholic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n