Clifford Longley’s column on Cardinal Nichols and the "conservative" clergy’s letter expertly dissects one of the problems facing us (The Tablet, 4 April). Highly relevant to the second Synod remains our National Pastoral Congress: “Liverpool 1980”. Conceived in the wake of Vatican II, it took almost ten years in preparation. In May 1980, 2,000 delegates debated and collated the views of an estimated 100,000 people. Every facet of national Catholic life seemed included. One sector on “family breakdown” supported the indissolubility of Christian marriage but, for those in difficulties, a large majority urged compassion in respect of the Eucharist. Another sector was chaired by the then Fr Vincent Nichols. On "Educating the Whole Church", the sector recorded: “The Church must discover ways of listening to the experience of married people… vital for a coherent and developed teaching on marriage.” Might we hope that the Synod will reflect the compassion and, more broadly, the ongoing listening called for in Liverpool?
Arthur Wells, Emsworth, Hampshire
It is depressing when young people and friends can see truth only as consisting in "upholding the church's traditional discipline [and affirming] the Church's unchanging moral teaching". As John Cottingham (by way of Descartes, Pascal, Aquinas and various other philosophers) says we need "to probe the human epistemic condition, to investigate the nature and variety of human awareness, and, if necessary, to resist simplistic models that try to reduce all cognition to a single rigid template" in short to take a "humane approach' in reaching our conclusions.
I have no doubt the signatories of Frs Nichols and Saward's letter are motivated by love of the Church and its people but I question whether "the laws of thought" are the best or only way to consider reception of communion and marriage breakdown. As Isaiah says, "my thoughts are not your thoughts". Yes logically speaking if a person enters a second (adulterous) relationship or marries, they are persisting in continuing sin and so exclude themselves from receiving communion.
But this begs a number of questions, in addition to those outlined by Clifford Longley (The Table, 24 March). First, a greater use of annulment challenges the notion of the indissolubility of marriage. How can anyone really be capable of giving a fully informed consent to a life-long marriage without having experienced the temptations and trip wires that occur in all, and particularly long, marriages? Second, faced with marriage breakdown, a grace-filled response might be to accept divorce (you cannot fight it anyway legally) and somehow hold the relationships together in the face of the emotional and economic wreckage that divorce brings. Grace can often intervene in the form of someone who helps, who may indeed help to keep the marriage alive until the other partner walks out (as Jane Hawking relates). Say that relationship develops beyond the Platonic? Is it OK to go to Communion? Even if that is grossly unfair to the potentially fully sexual partner? Or say that a wronged, divorced person endures years of misery, bitterness, anger, mental ill-health and loss of faith but recovers through the help of a new relationship, and marries at the request of the other person, is open to life, and brings up a new family and experiences the creativity of love and restoration to the point when they can face the church again? Is remaining in the second marriage persisting in a state of sin which is incompatible with the reception of communion? As John Cottingham says, the reasons of the heart need to be considered when considering "the nature of reality". Also we know that Church moral teaching changes (consider the past papal rejections of freedom of religion for example).
Rosemary Boyle, by email
It is most reassuring to read in your columns that the great majority of our priests are not supportive of that mischievous, vindictive letter which seeks to destroy the genuine deliberations of the forthcoming Synod in Rome.
It is rather sad that we have in the Church those for whom the letter of the law would seem to be so paramount, whilst the Gospel of Jesus, so firmly rooted in compassion and care for others, is so easily disregarded. Quite clearly the Pharisees are very much alive in our contemporary Church.
I would like to know who paid for this retrograde activity. Since a second-class postage stamp now costs 53p, it would seem that over £5,000 could have been expended on the venture. I sincerely hope that the costs were not borne by any parish funds, the days of pay up and shut up being long gone.
Michael Lawson, Chadderton, Lancashire
You report Cardinal Muller (The Tablet, 4 April) as stating that to allow the divorced and remarried to receive the Eucharist as "... lowering the standard of church teaching". Could it be that this Church teaching is at loggerheads with the teaching of Jesus?
Dr Jacqueline Field-Bibb, London, N21
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