Archbishop Müller: Care of remarried divorcees must not be reduced to the question
of receiving the Eucharist
(Vatican Radio) The Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop
Gerhard Ludwig Müller, has published an article in the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore
Romano, speaking about the issue of re-marriage and the reception of the sacraments.
He begins by re-affirming the Church's constant teaching that marriage is indissoluble,
and that this is testified to both in Scripture and Tradition. In the article, Archbishop
Müller acknowledges that modern misunderstandings over the meaning of marriage leads
to more marriages being invalid than in previous times, but writes that couples should
not decide for themselves whether or not their marriage is null.
"Marriage
is not simply about the relationship of two people to God, it is also a reality of
the Church, a sacrament, and it is not the individuals concerned to decide on its
validity, but rather for the Church, into which individuals are incorporated by faith
and baptism," he writes.
The Archbishop says he knows it is not an easy teaching,
but those who are divorced and remarried should not that they are not alone, and the
Church "as a community of salvation accompanies them on their journey."
"Clearly,
the care of remarried divorcees must not be reduced to the question of receiving the
Eucharist," he writes. "It involves a much more wide-ranging pastoral approach, which
seeks to do justice to to the different situations. It is important to realize that
there are other ways, apart from sacramental communion, of being in fellowship with
God. One can draw close to God by turning to him in faith, hope and charity, in repentance
and prayer. God can grant his closeness and his salvation to people on different
paths, even if they find themselves in a contradictory life situation."
Testimony
to the power of grace
On the indissolubility of marriage and the debate
concerning the civilly remarried and the sacraments
Archbishop Gerhard
Ludwig Müller
The problem concerning members of the faithful who have entered
into a new civil union after a divorce is not new. The Church has always taken this
question very seriously and with a view to helping the people who find themselves
in this situation. Marriage is a sacrament that affects people particularly deeply
in their personal, social and historical circumstances. Given the increasing number
of persons affected in countries of ancient Christian tradition, this pastoral problem
has taken on significant dimensions. Today even firm believers are seriously wondering:
can the Church not admit the divorced and remarried to the sacraments under certain
conditions? Are her hands permanently tied on this matter? Have theologians really
explored all the implications and consequences?
These questions must be explored
in a manner that is consistent with Catholic doctrine on marriage. A responsible
pastoral approach presupposes a theology that offers “the full submission of intellect
and will to God who reveals, freely assenting to the truth revealed by him” (Dei Verbum
5). In order to make the Church’s authentic doctrine intelligible, we must begin
with the word of God that is found in sacred Scripture, expounded in the Church’s
Tradition and interpreted by the Magisterium in a binding way.
The Testimony
of Sacred Scripture
Looking directly to the Old Testament for answers to our
question is not without its difficulties, because at that time marriage was not yet
regarded as a sacrament. Yet the word of God in the Old Covenant is significant for
us to the extent that Jesus belongs within this tradition and argues on the basis
of it. In the Decalogue, we find the commandment “thou shalt not commit adultery”
(Ex 20:14), but elsewhere divorce is presented as a possibility. According to Dt
24:1-4, Moses lays down that a man may present his wife with a certificate of dismissal
and send her away from his house, if she no longer finds favour with him. Thereafter,
both husband and wife may embark upon a new marriage. In addition to this acceptance
of divorce, the Old Testament also expresses certain reservations in its regard.
The comparison drawn by the prophets between God’s covenant with Israel and the marriage
bond includes not only the ideal of monogamy, but also that of indissolubility. The
prophet Malachi expresses this clearly: “Do not be faithless to the wife of your
youth ... with whom you have made a covenant” (Mal 2:14-15).
Above all, it
was his controversies with the Pharisees that gave Jesus occasion to address this
theme. He distanced himself explicitly from the Old Testament practice of divorce,
which Moses had permitted because men were “so hard of heart”, and he pointed to God’s
original will: “from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For
this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and ... the two shall become one
flesh. What therefore God has joined together let not man put asunder” (Mk 10:5-9;
cf. Mt 19:4-9; Lk 16:18). The Catholic Church has always based its doctrine and practice
upon these sayings of Jesus concerning the indissolubility of marriage. The inner
bond that joins the spouses to one another was forged by God himself. It designates
a reality that comes from God and is therefore no longer at man’s disposal.
Today
some exegetes take the view that even in the Apostolic era these dominical sayings
were applied with a degree of flexibility: notably in the case of porneia/unchastity
(cf. Mt 5:32; 19:9) and in the case of a separation between a Christian and a non-Christian
partner (cf. 1 Cor 7:12-15). The unchastity clauses have been the object of fierce
debate among exegetes from the beginning. Many take the view that they refer not
to exceptions to the indissolubility of marriage, but to invalid marital unions.
Clearly, however, the Church cannot build its doctrine and practice on controversial
exegetical hypotheses. She must adhere to the clear teaching of Christ.
Saint
Paul presents the prohibition on divorce as the express will of Christ: “To the married
I give charge, not I but the Lord, that the wife should not separate from her husband
(but if she does, let her remain single or else be reconciled to her husband) and
that the husband should not divorce his wife” (1 Cor 7:10-11). At the same time he
permits, on his own authority, that a non-Christian may separate from a partner who
has become Christian. In this case, the Christian is “not bound” to remain unmarried
(1 Cor 7:12-16). On the basis of this passage, the Church has come to recognize that
only a marriage between a baptized man and a baptized woman is a sacrament in the
true sense, and only in this instance does unconditional indissolubility apply. The
marriage of the unbaptized is indeed ordered to indissolubility, but can under certain
circumstances – for the sake of a higher good – be dissolved (privilegium Paulinum).
Here, then, we are not dealing with an exception to our Lord’s teaching. The indissolubility
of sacramental marriage, that is to say, marriage that takes place within the mystery
of Christ, remains assured.
Of greater significance for the biblical basis
of the sacramental view of marriage is the Letter to the Ephesians, where we read:
“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her”
(Eph 5:25). And shortly afterwards, the Apostle adds: “For this reason, a man shall
leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one
flesh. This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and
the Church” (Eph 5:31-32). Christian marriage is an effective sign of the covenant
between Christ and the Church. Because it designates and communicates the grace of
this covenant, marriage between the baptized is a sacrament.
The Testimony
of the Church’s Tradition
The Church Fathers and Councils provide important
testimony regarding the way the Church’s position evolved. For the Fathers, the biblical
precepts on the subject are binding. They reject the State’s divorce laws as incompatible
with the teaching of Jesus. The Church of the Fathers rejected divorce and remarriage,
and did so out of obedience to the Gospel. On this question, the Fathers’ testimony
is unanimous.
In patristic times, divorced members of the faithful who had
civilly remarried could not even be readmitted to the sacraments after a period of
penance. Some patristic texts, however, seem to imply that abuses were not always
rigorously corrected and that from time to time pastoral solutions were sought for
very rare borderline cases.
In many regions, greater compromises emerged later,
particularly as a result of the increasing interdependence of Church and State. In
the East this development continued to evolve, and especially after the separation
from the See of Peter, it moved towards an increasingly liberal praxis. In the Orthodox
Churches today, there are a great many grounds for divorce, which are mostly justified
in terms of oikonomia, or pastoral leniency in difficult individual cases, and they
open the path to a second or third marriage marked by a penitential character. This
practice cannot be reconciled with God’s will, as expressed unambiguously in Jesus’
sayings about the indissolubility of marriage. But it represents an ecumenical problem
that is not to be underestimated.
In the West, the Gregorian reform countered
these liberalizing tendencies and gave fresh impetus to the original understanding
of Scripture and the Fathers. The Catholic Church defended the absolute indissolubility
of marriage even at the cost of great sacrifice and suffering. The schism of a “Church
of England” detached from the Successor of Peter came about not because of doctrinal
differences, but because the Pope, out of obedience to the sayings of Jesus, could
not accommodate the demands of King Henry VIII for the dissolution of his marriage.
The
Council of Trent confirmed the doctrine of the indissolubility of sacramental marriage
and explained that this corresponded to the teaching of the Gospel (cf. DH 1807).
Sometimes it is maintained that the Church de facto tolerated the Eastern practice.
But this is not correct. The canonists constantly referred to it as an abuse. And
there is evidence that groups of Orthodox Christians on becoming Catholic had to subscribe
to an express acknowledgment of the impossibility of second or third marriages.
The
Second Vatican Council, in the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes on “The Church
in the Modern World”, presents a theologically and spiritually profound doctrine of
marriage. It upholds the indissolubility of marriage clearly and distinctly. Marriage
is understood as an all-embracing communion of life and love, body and spirit, between
a man and a woman who mutually give themselves and receive one another as persons.
Through the personally free act of their reciprocal consent, an enduring, divinely
ordered institution is brought into being, which is directed to the good of the spouses
and of their offspring and is no longer dependent on human caprice: “As a mutual
gift of two persons, this intimate union and the good of the children impose total
fidelity on the spouses and argue for an unbreakable oneness between them” (no. 48).
Through the sacrament God bestows a special grace upon the spouses: “For as God of
old made himself present to his people through a covenant of love and fidelity, so
now the Saviour of men and the Spouse of the Church comes into the lives of married
Christians through the sacrament of matrimony. He abides with them thereafter so
that just as he loved the Church and handed himself over on her behalf, the spouses
may love each other with perpetual fidelity through mutual self-bestowal.” Through
the sacrament the indissolubility of marriage acquires a new and deeper sense: it
becomes the image of God’s enduring love for his people and of Christ’s irrevocable
fidelity to his Church.
Marriage can be understood and lived as a sacrament
only in the context of the mystery of Christ. If marriage is secularized or regarded
as a purely natural reality, its sacramental character is obscured. Sacramental marriage
belongs to the order of grace, it is taken up into the definitive communion of love
between Christ and his Church. Christians are called to live their marriage within
the eschatological horizon of the coming of God’s kingdom in Jesus Christ, the incarnate
Word of God.
The Testimony of the Magisterium in the Present Day
The
Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio – issued by John Paul II on 22 November
1981 in the wake of the Synod of Bishops on the Christian family in the modern world,
and of fundamental importance ever since – emphatically confirms the Church’s dogmatic
teaching on marriage. But it shows pastoral concern for the civilly remarried faithful
who are still bound by an ecclesially valid marriage. The Pope shows a high degree
of concern and understanding. Paragraph 84 on “divorced persons who have remarried”
contains the following key statements: 1. Pastors are obliged, by love for the truth,
“to exercise careful discernment of situations”. Not everything and everyone are
to be assessed in an identical way. 2. Pastors and parish communities are bound
to stand by the faithful who find themselves in this situation, with “attentive love”.
They too belong to the Church, they are entitled to pastoral care and they should
take part in the Church’s life. 3. And yet they cannot be admitted to the Eucharist.
Two reasons are given for this: a) “their state and condition of life objectively
contradict that union of love between Christ and the Church which is signified and
effected by the Eucharist” b) “if these people were admitted to the Eucharist, the
faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the Church's teaching about
the indissolubility of marriage”. Reconciliation through sacramental confession,
which opens the way to reception of the Eucharist, can only be granted in the case
of repentance over what has happened and a “readiness to undertake a way of life that
is no longer in contradiction to the indissolubility of marriage.” Concretely this
means that if for serious reasons, such as the children’s upbringing, the new union
cannot be dissolved, then the two partners must “bind themselves to live in complete
continence”. 4. Clergy are expressly forbidden, for intrinsically sacramental and
theological reasons and not through legalistic pressures, to “perform ceremonies of
any kind” for divorced people who remarry civilly, as long as the first sacramentally
valid marriage still exists.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s
statement of 14 September 1994 on reception of holy communion by divorced and remarried
members of the faithful emphasizes that the Church’s practice in this question “cannot
be modified because of different situations” (no. 5). It also makes clear that the
faithful concerned may not present themselves for holy communion on the basis of their
own conscience: “Should they judge it possible to do so, pastors and confessors ...
have the serious duty to admonish them that such a judgment of conscience openly contradicts
the Church's teaching” (no. 6). If doubts remain over the validity of a failed marriage,
these must be examined by the competent marriage tribunals (cf. no. 9). It remains
of the utmost importance, “with solicitous charity to do everything that can be done
to strengthen in the love of Christ and the Church those faithful in irregular marriage
situations. Only thus will it be possible for them fully to receive the message of
Christian marriage and endure in faith the distress of their situation. In pastoral
action one must do everything possible to ensure that this is understood not to be
a matter of discrimination but only of absolute fidelity to the will of Christ who
has restored and entrusted to us anew the indissolubility of marriage as a gift of
the Creator” (no. 10).
In the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum
Caritatis of 22 February 2007, Benedict XVI summarizes the work of the Synod of Bishops
on the theme of the Eucharist and he develops it further. In No. 29 he addresses
the situation of divorced and remarried faithful. For Benedict XVI too, this is a
“complex and troubling pastoral problem”. He confirms “the Church's practice, based
on Sacred Scripture (cf. Mk 10:2- 12), of not admitting the divorced and remarried
to the sacraments”, but he urges pastors at the same time, to devote “special concern”
to those affected: in the wish that they “live as fully as possible the Christian
life through regular participation at Mass, albeit without receiving communion, listening
to the word of God, eucharistic adoration, prayer, participation in the life of the
community, honest dialogue with a priest or spiritual director, dedication to the
life of charity, works of penance, and commitment to the education of their children”.
If there are doubts concerning the validity of the failed marriage, these are to be
carefully examined by the competent marriage tribunals. Today’s mentality is largely
opposed to the Christian understanding of marriage, with regard to its indissolubility
and its openness to children. Because many Christians are influenced by this, marriages
nowadays are probably invalid more often than they were previously, because there
is a lack of desire for marriage in accordance with Catholic teaching, and there is
too little socialization within an environment of faith. Therefore assessment of
the validity of marriage is important and can help to solve problems. Where nullity
of marriage cannot be demonstrated, the requirement for absolution and reception of
communion, according to the Church’s established and approved practice, is that the
couple live “as friends, as brother and sister”. Blessings of irregular unions are
to be avoided, “lest confusion arise among the faithful concerning the value of marriage”.
A blessing (bene-dictio: divine sanctioning) of a relationship that contradicts the
will of God is a contradiction in terms.
During his homily at the Seventh World
Meeting of Families in Milan on 3 June 2012, Benedict XVI once again had occasion
to speak of this painful problem: “I should also like to address a word to the faithful
who, even though they agree with the Church’s teachings on the family, have had painful
experiences of breakdown and separation. I want you to know that the Pope and the
Church support you in your struggle. I encourage you to remain united to your communities,
and I earnestly hope that your dioceses are developing suitable initiatives to welcome
and accompany you.”
The most recent Synod of Bishops on the theme “New evangelization
for the transmission of the Christian faith” (7-28 October 2012) addressed once again
the situation of the faithful who after the failure of a marital relationship (not
the failure of a marriage, which being a sacrament still remains) have entered a new
union and live together without a sacramental marriage bond. In the concluding Message,
the Synod Fathers addressed those concerned as follows: “To all of them we want to
say that God’s love does not abandon anyone, that the Church loves them, too, that
the Church is a house that welcomes all, that they remain members of the Church even
if they cannot receive sacramental absolution and the Eucharist. May our Catholic
communities welcome all who live in such situations and support those who are in the
path of conversion and reconciliation.”
Observations based on Anthropology
and Sacramental Theology
The doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage is
often met with incomprehension in a secularized environment. Where the fundamental
insights of Christian faith have been lost, church affiliation of a purely conventional
kind can no longer sustain major life decisions or provide a firm foothold in the
midst of marital crises – as well as crises in priestly and religious life. Many
people ask: how can I bind myself to one woman or one man for an entire lifetime?
Who can tell me what my marriage will be like in ten, twenty, thirty, forty years?
Is a definitive bond to one person possible at all? The many marital relationships
that founder today reinforce the scepticism of young people regarding definitive life
choices.
On the other hand, the ideal – built into the order of creation –
of faithfulness between one man and one woman has lost none of its fascination, as
is apparent from recent opinion surveys among young people. Most of them long for
a stable, lasting relationship, in keeping with the spiritual and moral nature of
the human person. Moreover, one must not forget the anthropological value of indissoluble
marriage: it withdraws the partners from caprice and from the tyranny of feelings
and moods. It helps them to survive personal difficulties and to overcome painful
experiences. Above all it protects the children, who have most to suffer from marital
breakdown.
Love is more than a feeling or an instinct. Of its nature it
is self-giving. In marital love, two people say consciously and intentionally to
one another: only you – and you for ever. The word of the Lord: “What God has joined
together” corresponds to the promise of the spouses: “I take you as my husband ...
I take you as my wife ... I will love, esteem and honour you, as long as I live, till
death us do part.” The priest blesses the covenant that the spouses have sealed with
one another before God. If anyone should doubt whether the marriage bond is ontological,
let him learn from the word of God: “He who made them from the beginning made them
male and female, and said: for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother
and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer
two but one flesh” (Mt 19:4-6).
For Christians, the marriage of baptized persons
incorporated into the Body of Christ has sacramental character and therefore represents
a supernatural reality. A serious pastoral problem arises from the fact that many
people today judge Christian marriage exclusively by worldly and pragmatic criteria.
Those who think according to the “spirit of the world” (1 Cor 2:12) cannot understand
the sacramentality of marriage. The Church cannot respond to the growing incomprehension
of the sanctity of marriage by pragmatically accommodating the supposedly inevitable,
but only by trusting in “the Spirit which is from God, that we might understand the
gifts bestowed on us by God” (1 Cor 2:12). Sacramental marriage is a testimony to
the power of grace, which changes man and prepares the whole Church for the holy city,
the new Jerusalem, the Church, which is prepared “as a bride adorned for her husband”
(Rev 21:2). The Gospel of the sanctity of marriage is to be proclaimed with prophetic
candour. By adapting to the spirit of the age, a weary prophet seeks his own salvation
but not the salvation of the world in Jesus Christ. Faithfulness to marital consent
is a prophetic sign of the salvation that God bestows upon the world. “He who is
able to receive this, let him receive it” (Mt 19:12). Through sacramental grace,
married love is purified, strengthened and ennobled. “Sealed by mutual faithfulness
and hallowed above all by Christ's sacrament, this love remains steadfastly true in
body and in mind, in bright days or dark. It will never be profaned by adultery or
divorce” (Gaudium et Spes, 49). In the strength of the sacrament of marriage, the
spouses participate in God’s definitive, irrevocable love. They can therefore be
witnesses of God’s faithful love, but they must nourish their love constantly through
living by faith and love.
Admittedly there are situations – as every pastor
knows – in which marital cohabitation becomes for all intents and purposes impossible
for compelling reasons, such as physical or psychological violence. In such hard
cases, the Church has always permitted the spouses to separate and no longer live
together. It must be remembered, though, that the marriage bond of a valid union
remains intact in the sight of God, and the individual parties are not free to contract
a new marriage, as long as the spouse is alive. Pastors and Christian communities
must therefore take pains to promote paths of reconciliation in these cases too, or,
should that not be possible, to help the people concerned to confront their difficult
situation in faith.
Observations based on Moral Theology
It is frequently
suggested that remarried divorcees should be allowed to decide for themselves, according
to their conscience, whether or not to present themselves for holy communion. This
argument, based on a problematical concept of “conscience”, was rejected by a document
of the CDF in 1994. Naturally, the faithful must consider every time they attend
Mass whether it is possible to receive communion, and a grave unconfessed sin would
always be an impediment. At the same time they have the duty to form their conscience
and to align it with the truth. In so doing they listen also to the Church’s Magisterium,
which helps them “not to swerve from the truth about the good of man, but rather,
especially in more difficult questions, to attain the truth with certainty and to
abide in it” (Veritatis Splendor, 64). If remarried divorcees are subjectively convinced
in their conscience that a previous marriage was invalid, this must be proven objectively
by the competent marriage tribunals. Marriage is not simply about the relationship
of two people to God, it is also a reality of the Church, a sacrament, and it is not
for the individuals concerned to decide on its validity, but rather for the Church,
into which the individuals are incorporated by faith and baptism. “If the prior marriage
of two divorced and remarried members of the faithful was valid, under no circumstances
can their new union be considered lawful, and therefore reception of the sacraments
is intrinsically impossible. The conscience of the individual is bound to this norm
without exception” (Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, “The Pastoral approach to marriage
must be founded on truth” L’Osservatore Romano, English edition, 7 December 2011,
p. 4)
The teaching on epikeia, too – according to which a law may be generally
valid, but does not always apply to concrete human situations – may not be invoked
here, because in the case of the indissolubility of sacramental marriage we are dealing
with a divine norm that is not at the disposal of the Church. Nevertheless – as we
see from the privilegium Paulinum – the Church does have the authority to clarify
the conditions that must be fulfilled for an indissoluble marriage, as taught by Jesus,
to come about. On this basis, the Church has established impediments to marriage,
she has recognized grounds for annulment, and she has developed a detailed process
for examining these.
A further case for the admission of remarried divorcees
to the sacraments is argued in terms of mercy. Given that Jesus himself showed solidarity
with the suffering and poured out his merciful love upon them, mercy is said to be
a distinctive quality of true discipleship. This is correct, but it misses the mark
when adopted as an argument in the field of sacramental theology. The entire sacramental
economy is a work of divine mercy and it cannot simply be swept aside by an appeal
to the same. An objectively false appeal to mercy also runs the risk of trivializing
the image of God, by implying that God cannot do other than forgive. The mystery
of God includes not only his mercy but also his holiness and his justice. If one
were to suppress these characteristics of God and refuse to take sin seriously, ultimately
it would not even be possible to bring God’s mercy to man. Jesus encountered the
adulteress with great compassion, but he said to her “Go and do not sin again” (Jn
8:11). God’s mercy does not dispense us from following his commandments or the rules
of the Church. Rather it supplies us with the grace and strength needed to fulfil
them, to pick ourselves up after a fall, and to live life in its fullness according
to the image of our heavenly Father.
Pastoral care
Even if there
is no possibility of admitting remarried divorcees to the sacraments, in view of their
intrinsic nature, it is all the more imperative to show pastoral concern for these
members of the faithful, so as to point them clearly towards what the theology of
revelation and the Magisterium have to say. The path indicated by the Church is not
easy for those concerned. Yet they should know and sense that the Church as a community
of salvation accompanies them on their journey. Insofar as the parties make an effort
to understand the Church’s practice and to abstain from communion, they provide their
own testimony to the indissolubility of marriage.
Clearly, the care of remarried
divorcees must not be reduced to the question of receiving the Eucharist. It involves
a much more wide-ranging pastoral approach, which seeks to do justice to to the different
situations. It is important to realize that there are other ways, apart from sacramental
communion, of being in fellowship with God. One can draw close to God by turning
to him in faith, hope and charity, in repentance and prayer. God can grant his closeness
and his salvation to people on different paths, even if they find themselves in a
contradictory life situation. As recent documents of the Magisterium have emphasized,
pastors and Christian communities are called to welcome people in irregular situations
openly and sincerely, to stand by them sympathetically and helpfully, and to make
them aware of the love of the Good Shepherd. If pastoral care is rooted in truth
and love, it will discover the right paths and approaches in constantly new ways.