‘Penitential path’ for divorced and remarried gets synod hearing

Last February, at Pope Francis’ invitation, Cardinal Walter Kasper outlined a possible way for the church to admit divorced and remarried Catholics to Communion. He called it a “penitential path” that would, in effect, recognize the Eucharist as a healing sacrament for those most in need.

During the current Synod of Bishops, the proposal seemed to have disappeared – until last night, when several bishops expressed support for the idea and outlined how it might work. It was envisioned as an in-depth examination of conscience, with guided reflection on how the person’s divorce may have harmed others, including the original spouse and children.

Repentance and the sacrament of reconciliation is presumed, and some proposed that the church might design a detailed procedure, an ordo penitentium, to structure the process. Others compared it to a jubilee year of penitence, which would culminate in re-admission to Communion in a formal service with the local church community.

Among those who spoke strongly in favor of such an approach was Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, whose parents divorced when he was a teenager.

Those defending the church’s current policy, which prohibits divorced and civilly remarried Catholics from receiving Communion (unless they live in sexual abstinence), also weighed in last night. But sources told me they were not in the majority.

We shall see how the synod’s revised relatio, a summary document to be released on Monday, treats the topic. That document is supposed to reflect the synod’s closed-door discussion so far. At the end of next week, the bishops will pull together a working document for the next phase of this synod, a year-long period of reflection followed by another assembly in Rome in October 2015. It will also issue a message to the world.

As the synod moved toward the end of its first week, it was easy to get lost in the details: possible canon law modifications on annulments, fine-tuning church language on irregular unions, back and forth over the doctrinal dimensions of church teaching on marriage and the limits of reform.

These details are important, and are being carefully sifted as the final statements are being written. But sometimes the tone of synod interventions are just as important as the debating points.

This morning’s session began with an opening reflection from Bishop Arnold Orowae of Papua New Guinea, a talk that, in its simplicity and elegance, captured the spirit of Pope Francis’ pastoral agenda and his hopes for the synod itself.

Bishop Orowae said the rediscovery of the “joy of the Gospel,” the title of Pope Francis’ major document, was the key to family well-being and evangelization today. He credited the pope with “igniting a flame that is spreading throughout the world” with the fundamental message that faith in God and imitation of Christ leads to acts of charity.

The healthy Christian home, the bishop said, is marked above all by happiness. He acknowledged challenges for modern families, but said families are at their best when tackling problems. It helps, he said, when families read Scripture and try to make it part of their daily life.

Bishop Orowae spoke not of what the church tells families and expects them to do, but about how grateful the church is for the many Catholic families who teach their children well and set examples that other families can imitate. This is evangelization, he said.

Here’s an idea for the synod: Just take Orowae’s one-page sermon and issued it as the assembly’s final “message” to the world.

On the other hand, we also continue to see at this synod the “report card” approach, an attempt to gauge how families are measuring up – or falling short – of the church’s teachings. French Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, introducing the debate last night, spoke about how ill-prepared many families feel in educating their children in Gospel values.

Given that families teach best by witness, he identified three elements that make education of children more difficult today: same-sex unions, single-parent families and the phenomenon of street children. Parents in other “irregular” situations pose particular difficulties for Christian education, especially when they don’t agree with some church teachings, he said.

Although Cardinal Vingt-Trois said such couples must be approached with respect, he framed the issue as a problem that is essentially solved by adhesion to the Magisterium.

That is also the approach reflected in many of the “testimonies” delivered by married Catholic couples at the synod. Last night, Olivier and Xristilla Roussy, a French couple with seven children, told the synod that living according to the church’s teaching on birth control was not only possible, but had made their marriage stronger and happier.

The couple said Xristilla had tried the birth control pill for a while, but found it left her in a bad mood. They practiced natural family planning with mixed results – on one occasion, “unable to contain our desire” during a fertile period, they had a child nine months later. But they welcomed that child with joy, they said.

For the most part, the couples chosen to address the synod have been from Catholic lay movements, often involved directly in marriage spirituality programs. They have endorsed church teachings, saying sexuality should reflect the “plan of God” and not the consumerist and selfish model of the world. No one doubts their sincerity, but perhaps the synod might have invited some other voices as well.

An Australian couple, Ran and Mavis Pirola, were the exception to the rule when they told the synod the story of friends who had welcomed a son’s gay partner to a Christmas gathering, and suggested the church should show the same welcoming attitude.

Cardinal Raymond Burke, the head of the Apostolic Signature who has become the “Dr. No” of this synod, has now voiced his objections to that approach in an interview with the U.S.-based Lifesite News.

“If homosexual relations are intrinsically disordered, which indeed they are … then what would it mean to grandchildren to have present at a family gathering a family member who is living in a disordered relationship with another person?” Burke said.

Burke said Catholics should not give children the impression that such relationships are alright, “by seeming to condone gravely sinful acts on the part of a family member.”

Two colorful cardinals, two takes on the synod

It was soundbite city in Rome last night, as two participants in the Synod of Bishops offered somewhat different takes on how mercy, language and doctrine apply to family and marriage issues.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York and Australian Cardinal George Pell talked at a Rome launch of Crux, the Boston Globe’s online project that focuses on Catholic news. Both have a reputation for speaking their minds.

Guess who said this:

“The thing I’ve taken from the first three days is the level of trouble we’re in, right around the world, with marriage and the family. There are very, very few societies where the trend is running in the direction of strengthened family life.”

And who said this:

“Even thought there is this gritty realism, and complete and utter bluntness about the challenges we’ve got, you don’t detect much hand-wringing, and you don’t detect much pessimism or gloom. … There’s not a sense of panic.”

The first quote, of course, came from Pell, who considers himself a “realist” willing to say things that, as he put it, might be “ecclesiastically incorrect.”

The second was from Dolan, who realizes that sounding upbeat is a prime requisite when church leaders meet the press.

Cardinal Pell, who has been among the cardinals who publicly criticized Cardinal Walter Kasper’s proposal to find a way to admit divorced and remarried Catholics to Communion, also had this to say:

“As Christians, we follow Jesus. I might have hoped Jesus would have been a little bit softer on divorce. But he wasn’t, and I’m sticking with him.” That line brought applause from a mostly clerical crowd at North American College, where the event was held.

Cardinal Dolan, while saying that the church cannot soften or dilute its teachings, declared that mercy is already front and center for most bishops. “The bishops are speaking with immense love and tenderness about their people, especially about their broken people. It moves them, it moves us, when we see people who are outside the church.”

A stern message on birth control at the Synod of Bishops

Delivering a stern pastoral message against contraception at the Synod of Bishops, a French cardinal lamented that Catholic couples who use birth control often fail to recognize that it’s a grave sin that needs to be confessed before they take Communion.

Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois of Paris made the remarks in introducing the theme of “knowledge and acceptance of the Magisterium on the openness to life,” a focus of the synod’s fourth day of deliberations.

Many Catholics fail to distinguish between contraception and methods of natural fertility regulation, the cardinal told the synod. He said the cause was to be found in the clash between the Christian understanding of anthropology and that of the “dominant mentality.”

“All this has consequences for the sacramental practice of couples who often do not think their use of contraceptive methods is a sin, and therefore tend not to make it a matter of confession and, in fact, receive communion without problems,” he said.

He said the church should use new language and collaborate with the academic world in promoting “a mentality that is open to life and that opposes the contraceptive mentality.” He said the spread of an individualistic anthropological model” was resulting in lower birth rates and other social consequences.

Cardinal Vingt-Trois was introducing testimony from a Brazilian married couple, Arturo and Hermelinda As Zamberline, who spoke to the synod on the same theme.

The couple, who head a marital spirituality movement in Brazil, emphasized that the sexual act should be seen as “willed and blessed by God” as an expression of love in marriage, and that a “healthy eroticism” was part of this language of love.

They added that “‘the fundamental task of marriage and family is to be at the service of life’ and therefore ‘every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life.’” The second part of that line quoted from Humanae Vitae, the 1968 encyclical that declared contraceptive birth control was “absolutely excluded.”

The couple acknowledged that, in their experience, most Catholic couples do not feel bound by the church’s teaching against contraception, and the couples are generally not questioned about their practice by priests. They said part of the problem was “contradictory advice” given by the church, and they urged clear pastoral programs for priests and lay Catholics, to help couples implement the teachings of Humanae Vitae.

The Brazilians told the synod that natural family planning methods of birth spacing, which are allowed by the church, are “theoretically” good, but seem impractical for many modern couples, mainly because they require time for training. When superficially explained and misused, these methods gain a reputation as unreliable, and most Catholic couples don’t use them, they said.