By Veronica A. Arntz
With the
culminating document of the two recent Synods on marriage and family, Amoris Laetitia, we are perhaps facing
an even greater battle than we anticipated. Much has already been written and
said about this document, but in this essay, I would like to return to Cardinal
Walter Kasper’s basic premises and show how these have filtered into the
post-synodal apostolic exhortation.
In an interview
with Commonweal, which I discussed in an article
published by the Truth and Charity Forum, Kasper talks about the average, or
ordinary, Christian and his or her ability to live chastely after remarrying
when a valid marriage still exists. He discusses what I shall call the Ordinary
Christian Model: “To live together as brother and sister? Of course I have high
respect for those who are doing this. But it’s a heroic act, and heroism is not
for the average Christian.”
He continues: “I would say that people must do what
is possible in their situation. We cannot as human beings always do the ideal,
the best. We must do the best possible in a given situation.” Thus, in the
words of Kasper, the “ordinary” Christian is not capable of sacrificing sexual
satisfaction for the sake of the higher calling of the Church, which calls
married couples to be a mirror of Christ’s love for his Church. Because the
ordinary Christian is incapable of living in such a way, Kasper believes that
it is morally and doctrinally acceptable to change Church teaching in order to
accommodate these individuals.
This thought
process is not new for Kasper. We see it also in his address, The Gospel of the Family, which was the
address given to the extraordinary Consistory of Cardinals on February 20 and
21, 2014 in preparation for the 2014 extraordinary Synod on the Family. Here,
Kasper notes the heroism of those who live alone after separation or divorce.
But he then continues: “However, many deserted partners, for the sake of the
children, are dependent upon a new partnership and a civil marriage, which they
cannot again quit without new guilt.”[1]
Certainly, this is true: many individuals have remarried after divorce so that
the children can be raised with both a mother and a father. But Kasper’s
proposal to this situation, as has been greatly discussed, is contrary to Church
teaching.
Kasper paradoxically writes that the Church cannot contradict her
teaching on indissolubility, but at the same time, she can make room for
development within her teachings that would allow for the divorced and
remarried to stay together and receive Communion. He says that the allowance of
divorced and remarried couples to receive Communion spiritually, an allowance
made by Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, is a “new tone.”
If that is the case, then, “Is not a further development possible with regard
to our issue too—a development that does not repeal the binding faith
tradition, but carries forward and deepens more recent traditions?”[2]
The development that Kasper proposes is the Ordinary Christian Model:
If a divorced and remarried person is truly sorry that he or she failed in the first marriage, if the commitments from the first marriage are clarified and a return is definitively out of the question, if he or she cannot undo the commitments that were assumed in the second civil marriage without new guilt, if he or she strives to the best of his or her abilities to live out the second civil marriage on the basis of faith and to raise their children in the faith, if he or she longs for the sacraments as a source of strength in his or her situation, do we then have to refuse or can we refuse him or her the sacrament of penance and communion, after a period of reorientation?[3]
First of all, that’s a lot of “if’s.” Second, this proposal assumes
that the “ordinary” Christian cannot live up to the “idealization” proposed by
the teachings of the Catholic Church. This Ordinary Christian Model asserts
that we cannot expect fulfillment of the highest calling—that of living in
conformity with the Gospel—of ordinary Christians, who just do not understand doctrine
or do not have the self-control to live as brother and sister.
The development
proposed by Kasper contradicts the teaching of the Church, particularly seen in
Familiaris
Consortio 84 and Sacramentum
Caritatis 29, for both of these documents admonish couples to live as
brother and sister when a remarriage has occurred.
Most of us
hoped that we would be rid of Kasper’s ideas, first proposed at the beginning
of the Synod process. If we read Amoris
Laetitia carefully, however, we find several references to Kasper’s
Ordinary Christian Model.
While there are many instances throughout the text, I
shall focus on three. The first is in the second chapter, which is entitled,
“The Experiences and Challenges of Families.” Francis spends most of this
chapter discussing the difficulties that families face, and in the paragraph
discussing dire poverty, he proposes a situation of a single, working mother
needing to leave her child alone in order to work. He writes,
In such difficult situations of need, the Church must be particularly concerned to offer understanding, comfort and acceptance, rather than imposing straightaway a set of rules that only lead people to feel judged and abandoned by the very Mother called to show them God’s mercy. Rather than offering the healing power of grace and the light of the Gospel message, some would “indoctrinate” that message, turning it into “dead stones to be hurled at others” (AL 49).
While Francis is not specifically referring to the divorced
and remarried here, he is applying the Ordinary Christian Model. It is
difficult to know what “set of rules” the Church would impose on a single,
working mother.
Rules against cohabitation? Rules against contraception? Rules
against remarrying while a valid marriage still exists? At any rate, Francis
implies that any “rules” enforced by the Church on this single mother would be
too difficult and too demanding for her; they would not be merciful toward her
situation.
Whether she is Christian or not is unclear, but what is apparent is
that any of the Church’s rules (presumably rules regarding morality) would not
be merciful or accepting of her situation. She is just an “ordinary”
Christian—she cannot fulfill the life of heroism demanded by the Church (even
if this life is always chosen by the individual, and he or she is incapable of
fulfilling that life without the grace of God).
The second
example we shall look at is in the fourth chapter, entitled “Love in Marriage.”
While this section begins with a beautiful exegesis of 1 Corinthians 13 and a
calling of couples to live sacramentally (cf. AL 121), Francis seems to
disregard all of that when he writes,
We should not however confuse different levels: there is no need to lay upon two limited persons the tremendous burden of having to reproduce perfectly the union existing between Christ and his Church, for marriage as a sign entails “a dynamic process…, one which advances gradually with the progressive integration of the gifts of God” (AL 122).
The Church has always recognized that living the love of
Christ and His Church is difficult and requires a great amount of grace from
God. In this paragraph, Francis quotes Familiaris
Consortio. In the sentence prior to the one quoted by Francis, John Paul II
defines what he means by “dynamic process.” “What is needed is a continuous,
permanent conversion which, while requiring an interior detachment from every
evil and an adherence to good in its fullness, is brought about concretely in
steps which lead us ever forward” (FC 9).
As such, John Paul II does not deny
this difficulty of mirroring the love of Christ and His Church in marital life.
Rather, he points out that conversion is necessary for everyone, even those who
are not married, in order to fulfill the message of the Gospel.
Yet, when we
read Amoris Laetitia 122, we have the
sense that the burden of the Gospel, and in particular, the message of
Ephesians 5:21-33, is too difficult for individuals to fulfill. Rather than reminding
couples of the necessity for conversion and the difficulty that it entails
(albeit a difficulty accompanied by grace), Francis merely says that fulfilling
Christ’s call is too difficult and would be a burden for the ordinary Catholic,
following in the footsteps of Kasper’s thought.
The third
and final example comes from the eighth and most controversial chapter,
entitled, “Accompanying, Discerning and Integrating Weakness.” While there are
many things to be addressed from this chapter, I will focus on just one.
Francis is writing here about the difficult situation of those who have entered
a second union. He writes that these situations “should not be pigeonholed or
fit into overly rigid classifications leaving no room for a suitable personal
and pastoral discernment” (AL 298). In other words, every situation is
different, and no general principle laid down by the Church can apply to every
situation (i.e., Christ’s command against adultery may or may not apply to
everyone). Francis continues:
One thing is a second union consolidated over time, with new children, proven fidelity, generous self-giving, Christian commitment, a consciousness of its irregularity and of the great difficulty of going back without feeling in conscience that one would fall into new sins (AL 298).
Francis then proceeds to misquote Gaudium
et spes 51 in footnote 329, but this is beyond our discussion here. It
is sufficient to say that, in an attempt to bring doctrine to the level of the
ordinary Christian, rather than raising the ordinary Christian to the demands
of the doctrine, Francis has made room for the divorced and remarried to remain
together, and he has not given recognition to the mortal sin of their life. If,
however, a couple is living in an irregular situation contrary to Church
teaching, then their “proven fidelity, generous self-giving,” and “Christian
commitment” could not be the fullness to which the Church calls them.
Even though
Amoris Laetitia affirms much of
Church teaching on marriage and family, the fact that the Ordinary Christian
Model pervades the exhortation contradicts the very teachings that Francis
claims to uphold. Francis’ document is oriented toward the supposed “ordinary”
Christian, who is unable to live out the demands of the Gospel. How different this
message is from what John Paul II upholds in Familiaris Consortio:
Willed by God in the very act of creation, marriage and the family are interiorly ordained to fulfillment in Christ and have need of His graces in order to be healed from the wounds of sin and restored to their ‘beginning,’ that is, to full understanding and the full realization of God’s plan (3).
Rather than acknowledging the role of God’s grace in
fulfilling the difficulties of married life, Francis assumes that the ordinary
Christian, who is indeed still called to the heroism of the saints, is unable
to fulfill Christian doctrine, and thus, adopts Cardinal Kasper’s Ordinary
Christian Model as the model for all Christian living.
[1] Cardinal Walter Kasper, Gospel of the Family, (Mahwah, New
Jersey: Paulist Press, 2014), p. 26.
[2] Ibid., p. 27.
[3] Ibid., p. 32.
