Dear Sir
I wonder if I am the only one who is at a loss to grasp the full point of the current Synod of Bishops in Rome?
The debate has been focussed on Holy Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics. But essentially only those who are in a state of grace are permitted to receive Holy Communion and just being divorced and remarried does not bar one from being in a state of grace. What does is failure to “regularise” ones standing in relation to Holy Communion by being granted an annulment.
The fact that western culture has abandoned true marriage by legislating for same sex marriage is not a reason for the church to abandon marriage as understood by human culture and the Church since the Judaic times.
Surely all that is needed is for the Holy Father to issue an encyclical as his predecessor Pope Pius XI did when the Lambeth Conference weakened the Anglican Communion stance on marriage in the 1930s, which reiterates with full peterine authority what marriage is.
There is no dissonance between orthodoxy and true pastoral sensitivities when the salvation of souls is at stake. It is not pastorally kind to tell persons who are not in a statwe of grace be they single, married, divorced and remarried or whatever, that they may take Holy Communion.
It strikes me that all the Holy Father needs to do is to cut through the Gordian knot of confusion and doubt in the same manner as his predecessor Blessed Pope Paul VI did in Humanae Vitae and reiterate the fullness of catholic teaching on both Christian marriage and the state of a person who receives Holy Communion.
The teachings of the Church are a joy to embrace all that is needed is for pastors to have the courage of their calling and preach them come good weather or ill weather.
Pope Francis has already done this to a certain degree in reform of the annulment process. But questions may be asked about this. As I understand the new law, annulments will be granted by the local ordinary on his own judgement of the evidence or via a tribunal judge and that that decision will not as is now the case be remitted to a second tribunal to confirm or otherwise the decision.
As with some calls I’ve heard for local “pastoral solutions” of the divorced and remarriage holy communion question, which really should be further narrowed down to those who have done so without subsequently obtaining an annulment. Runs the risk of a two tier catholic church. Or a postcode lottery of outcomes.
The so-called western or first world where calls for liberalism run riot will see a liberal approach to Holy Communion as pastors may fear running foul of notions of equality canonised in secular documents such as the American Constitution or the European Convention of Human Rights. Or the conservative Governments, Extremists Disruption Orders.
Whereas those in the developing world may not be so liberally treated. We see this with the fracturing of the Anglican Communion over gay clergy and woman bishops where the Anglican African bishops have stated that they will apply Gospel principals.
In respect to annulments does not the new law of one clerical judge now run the risk of taking women and lay men out of the Marriage Tribunals and denying bishops the lived experience of marriage.
Does not eliminating the need to an automatic reconsideration of the decision by a neighbouring tribunal, place the first instance tribunal in a difficult position in high profile cases of annulments?
I pray to the soon to be canonised parents of St Teresa of Lisieux, Blds Louis and Marie – Azelie Guerlin Martin, that they will guide the Synod Fathers to keep faith with Christ and uphold the teachings of the Church.
Christopher Keeffe MA (London) LLB (Hons), West Harrow, Middlesex
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