The Pope’s homily for Friday, February 28, surely is a trial
balloon that has been launched with the Synod on the Family in mind. The past weeks have seen a number of
statements and conversations about the debated issue of whether a divorced and
remarried person can receive the Sacrament of Holy Communion. It would seem that the recent statements made
by Cardinal Müller about the indissolubility of marriage and the impossibility
of a change in pastoral practice concerning divorced and remarried Catholics
would put the question to rest (cf. the recent post on Rorate Caeli). But the voice of the Prefect of the CDF and
the Catechism of the Catholic Church seem no longer to put an end to much of
anything. Where there is a will, there
is a way.
The Pope’s homily this morning was based on the text from
the 19th chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, where the
Pharisees ask Jesus a pointed question about divorce. There follows the ensuing conversation, ending with
Jesus’ clear condemnation of divorce and remarriage. The Pope frames his homily in terms of the "casuistic" attitude of the Pharisees in contrast with Jesus’ response grounded
in the love of God in the creation of man and woman. Surely I am not the only one who smiles at
the thought of a Jesuit using the term “casuistry” in the most negative way
possible: as a sign of the legalism and hypocrisy of the Pharisees. I hope that Suarez, Molina, and even Pascal,
can appreciate this irony, not only with respect to the Jesuits being cast as
Pharisees, but also with respect to taking away the very basis of the casuistic
approach, which, at least in the Catholic Church, is tenderness to the sinner. It is this concern, this tenderness, one may
even say love, for the sinner, that drove the casuists. It was for this that
some, including Pascal, believed that they had stepped over the line into moral
laxity.
“Always the small case. And this is the trap: behind casuistry, behind the casuistic way of thinking, there is always a trap. Always! Against people, against us, and against God, always! ‘But is it lawful to do this? To put aside one’s wife?’ And Jesus responded asking them what the law said and explaining why Moses had instituted that law in that way. But it does not end there. From the casuistry of the Pharisees Jesus goes to the heart of the problem and goes to the days of Creation itself. That point of reference of the Lord is so beautiful: ‘From the beginning of the Creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man leaves his father and mother and joins himself to his wife, and the two become one flesh. In this way they are no longer two, but one flesh.’ ”
One would have expected at this point an exposition of
Jesus’ words about the indissolubility of marriage. But this is totally absent. Instead the Holy
Father takes up how marriage is used as an icon, so to speak, of the love that
God has for his people.
“The Lord takes this love of the masterpiece of creation to explain the love that he has for his people. And a little later: when Paul needs to explain the mystery of Christ, he does so also in relationship, in reference to his Bride: because Christ is married, Christ was married, Christ had been married to the Church, his people. As the Father had married the people of Israel, Christ married his own people. This is the story of love, this is the story of the masterpiece of creation! And before this path of love, before this icon, casuistry falls down and becomes pain. But when a man leaves his father and mother and joins himself to a woman, when he makes himself one flesh with her and goes forward and when this love fails, because it fails so many times, we have to feel the pain of the failure, we have to accompany those persons who have experienced this failure of their own love. Not to condemn them! To walk with them! And to not take a casuistic attitude towards their situation”.
The Pope goes on to describe marriage and family as a sign
of love that has the blessing of God and that has not been destroyed even by
original sin. His conclusion is that
“how close we should be to those brothers and sisters that have had in their
lives the misfortune of a failing of love.”
He ends the homily in this way:
“We here also need to be attentive that love does not fail! We talk too much of Christ as unmarried: Christ married the Church! And we cannot understand Christ without the Church and without the Church we cannot understand Christ. This is the great masterpiece of the Creation. May the Lord give us all the grace to understand this and also the grace to never fall into the casuistic attitudes of the Pharisees, the Doctors of the Law”.
One cannot help but notice, as remarked above, the absence
in the Pope’s homily of a reference to Christ’s words that are the climax to
this gospel passage: the teaching on the indissolubility of marriage. This is perplexing not only because of its
fundamental role in the Church’s understanding of marriage, but also of the
Church’s assertion that marriage is a Sacrament. It is the latter that will be the stumbling
block for those who wish to radically change the pastoral practice of the
Church regarding divorced and remarried Catholics. One would have thought that a positive Jesuit
casuistry would be one route towards approaching this real problem. But Pope Francis in this homily has cast
casuistry into the darkness of moral rigorism within a life lived as
hypocrisy. What would St. Alphonsus say
about this?
A phrase repeated several times in the Pope’s homily is the
“failure of love”. It is not clear what
this means. In terms of syntax: is love a subjective or an objective
genitive? That is, is he speaking of
love’s failure or is he speaking of the man and woman in the broken marriage
failing to love? If Christ is the Love
that binds the man and the woman in the Sacrament of Marriage, then dare we say
that Christ has failed to impart his grace that is Love in that marriage, or that
somehow he has abandoned that marriage, as if he could abandon the species of
bread in the consecrated Host? God
forbid! If the “failure of love” means
that the couple have refused the grace of the Sacrament, that they have not
willed to love each other using that grace, that they have given up on the
possibility of love in their marriage: then this is not only tragic and sad,
but it is sinful.
Who can deny that the Pope’s concern for the pastoral care
of the divorced and remarried is genuine and real? Who can deny that the Church
must walk with them in love and caring?
But a pastor must never shepherd his sheep forgetting or denying the
clear words, the hard sayings, of the Pastor, the only Pastor, He who is the
Way, the Truth and the Life. However
important it is to be with sinners in this valley of tears, to show them the
love of Christ’s Church for them, to care for them, uphold them, we must always remember this: this road of love always leads to the Cross. The pastoral road always ends up on Calvary. It is there that the sinner confronts both
his own sinfulness and the means of his salvation. Without a pastor bringing his people to that
confrontation: this is a true failure of love.
