The Synod of Bishops on the Family in the autumn is to discuss some of the most contentious and contested issues in modern theology, and it is hard to see how the Church can emerge without damage to its unity. No doubt aware of rough weather ahead, Pope Francis has announced that a Jubilee Year will start after the synod finishes. The key idea he wants the jubilee to promote is that of “mercy”. It is undoubtedly his hope that this will calm the waves.
But how exactly? First, it cannot be denied that the mercy of God, which the Church must demonstrate in all its actions, is a central doctrine of the Catholic faith. This helps to meet the objection that changes in discipline and pastoral approach, for instance regarding the admission of divorced and remarried Catholics to Holy Communion, constitute an unacceptable alteration to the doctrine of the Church. If the principle of mercy requires such changes, then they are still consistent with church teaching on God’s mercy. Indeed, the implication is that existing practice – barring such people from Communion – is out of line with this teaching.
The Bishops of England and Wales have announced their own response to the jubilee, with various events and celebrations designed to bring home the message of mercy in every parish and diocese in the land. Their announcement makes no mention of the synod nor of the issues it will address. But it must have occurred to them that the doctrine of mercy could help to reconcile some of the conservative voices that have been heard, adamantly opposing any change to church practice regarding divorced Catholics. They must also have realised how incongruous and embarrassing the emphasis on mercy would seem, had the synod just slammed the door on such cases.
Mercy, which Pope Francis calls the first of all the virtues, is about not insisting on the letter of the law when the good of souls is at stake. The Gospels record many examples Jesus gave of this principle in action. He healed on the Sabbath; he took water from the Samaritan woman at the well; he touched lepers; he dined with tax collectors. In every case he could have refused on the grounds that Jewish law and custom forbade it. He did not say the law was unjust, only that the good of souls came first. Mercy means demanding less than strict adherence to the rules. It does not contradict justice, but complements it.
There is a danger in seeing mercy too much in institutional terms, for instance limiting it to the Sacrament of Reconciliation in private Confession. Insistence on the importance of Confession is not a sufficient answer to the challenges the Church faces in the area of sexual morality. A more fundamental change of mindset is required.
In his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium the Pope insists that mercy should be characteristic of everything that the Church does. Making this the central reality of the Church’s life and mission is the gauntlet the Pope has thrown down and that the bishops have picked up. It is designed to fit everyone, and to exclude nobody.
30 April 2015, The Tablet
What comes first is the saving of souls
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User Comments (6)
The Church has made no disciplinary ruling specifically barring remarried divorcees from Holy Communion, but only the general ruling against anyone conscious of being in mortal sin receiving the Eucharist. While it is impossible for the Church to police the state of people’s consciences, it will refuse Communion to anyone proved to be in serious breach of its moral teaching. That teaching includes sexual intercourse with a person to whom one is not married, among the mortal sins, which it has a duty to make clear to people, because, while one’s own conscience is necessary, it is not sufficient for determining whether one is in mortal sin or not. Unless it is properly informed, one’s conscience can be mistaken over what kinds of behaviour are or are not sinful, and over how serious or otherwise the guilt involved. Since it was Jesus Christ Himself who said emphatically that remarriage after divorce from one’s living spouse was adulterous, the merciful course of action towards remarried divorcees would be for the Church to deepen its theology on what a valid marriage really is, not to equivocate about its indissolubility if valid,
The October synod will prove to be a purgative for cleansing the Roman Church of its antiquated teachings in so many areas of church life, especially sexual ethics and the behavior of gays and lesbians. Just as cardinal Burke and others vie to assume the mantle of the late archbishop of Dakar, Marcel Lefebvre and his band of followers. Forces committed to the past, to authoritarianism, and the preservation of a dying medieval priest craft.
In grasping that baton of leadership the forces of reaction will be eager to preserve a church culture of antiquarian thinking firmly in the hands of the discredited, but unbedning hierarchy.
Pope Francis will be severly tested. Left with the Church's vast membership of largely loyal laity clinging to Rome, and focusing more on the gospel of mercy and forgiveness rather than preserving the abominable clerical caste dictated by and enshrined in canon law. Truly freed at last to quote Marthin Luther Kind.
All of this coming just in time for the last great revolt against Rome starting on Oct. 31st, 1517.
I think Pope Francis may have been reading the Gospels...
I have difficulty with the use of the phrase (and the theology it denotes) “the saving of souls.” I was born in Bootle twenty-one years before Vatican II began, truly a Tridentine Catholic. I studied with a missionary order (not ordained) to baptize pagans so their souls could be saved and go to heaven. The examples given of Jesus, in the article, illustrate what he did for human beings not for souls.
For much the same reason I oppose the canonization of Junipero Serra. Pre-Vatican II missiology was based on “a colonial mentality and conversion/baptism frenzy.” Another friend suggested that “ without a doubt we were servants more of the dominant ideology, spreading our "western" value system that was clothed in the language and symbols of a religious system that was largely a part of the dominant societal structures.” And a dominant Christian theology that said we had to baptize to save souls.
What comes first is caring for each other in our real, unadulterated human condition,,, divorced and remarried Catholics…the Samaritan woman at the well…lepers…tax collectors…
The last sentence of my entry below should be:
Remarried divorcees /should be left to/ make their own conscience-based decision about receiving communion.
Barring remarried divorcees from communion is a practice or discipline, not a teaching. The practice is based on a teaching that communion should not be received "in a state of mortal sin" (to use old language). In all other situations, the Church leaves it to the conscience of people to decide whether or not they comply with this teaching. Remarried divorcees make their own conscience-based decisions about communion.