Fr Peter Kwak caused a kerfuffle on the Catholic Weekly Facebook page with his recent article on why some Catholics misunderstood Pope Francis.
His main example was the alleged “development” in Amoris Laetitia on how to manage divorce and remarriage pastorally.
As he pointed out, this “improvement” mixed up the individual judgement of the priest of a couple’s situation with the universal teaching of the church.
What he didn’t point out was that it was also seized upon by people who are itching to change the church’s teaching and practice on this.
This is what upset many Catholics of good will. This included those who made hard life choices so that they could receive Holy Communion again after invalid marriages.
The reason the upset Catholics sounded very certain about the church’s teaching is because they are in fact correct.
When you are in a difficult moral situation, what you need to fix it is (a) the right information, and (b) time and space to make decisions about it.
You may not make these decisions overnight. The final decisions may be very painful ones.
But without the right information, you can’t make the right decisions.
If Pope Francis had really wanted to help divorced and remarried Catholics, he could have explained how they could still participate in the life of the church without receiving Holy Communion.
Catholics who have divorced and remarried civilly without annulment can attend Mass, but they can’t receive Holy Communion.
If they are dying, they can receive Anointing of the Sick and then have a Catholic funeral and be buried in a Catholic cemetery.
In the parish, they need to step back from some roles like reading at Mass, being an extraordinary minister, or teaching catechism.
They also can’t be a baptismal or confirmation sponsor until their situation is resolved.
They can go and see the priest in the confessional any time they want. But they can’t receive absolution until they’ve ended their sexual relationship.
The sexual relationship is the fly in the ointment. It’s adultery.
Jesus was blunt about this in all three synoptic gospels—even to the point of making his disciples wanting to give up on marriage (Matthew 19).
Sex in this situation doesn’t stop being adultery because it’s been going on a long time, or because they have children, or because they love each other.
It stops being adultery when the ex-spouse or ex-spouses of the couple die. Death is the end of a sacramental marriage, not divorce—and not remarriage.
The couple can always pursue an annulment. They can continue to cohabit without sex.
They can continue to raise children together. They can also stay legally married if they must.
But what has to stop is the sex. Not the love. Just the sex.
And I have some exciting news for our younger readers. Sex can and does stop in marriage —even many very happy marriages!
Yes, the divorced and remarried couple may not have a clue that what they’re doing is wrong. For example, the Catholics in Australia 2022 survey included 63 people in invalid marriages.
A whopping 79 per cent of them received Holy Communion every time they went to Mass.
Nineteen were readers at Mass, ten were extraordinary ministers, and three were catechists.
Some of these people may have resolved their situation—but it’s unlikely that all of them have.
So we have a pastoral problem on the ground, driven by poor catechesis, lack of priestly backbone, and false compassion.
People in this situation need the right information—good catechesis and a lot of patience and kindness.
Some dioceses in Australia offer simple and clear information on divorce and remarriage on their websites, so you can look it up for yourself.
What they don’t need is someone telling them that objective moral wrong is right.
The church’s teaching on pretty much everything is not mysterious and accessible only to the enlightened few with theology degrees.
You can find it laid out in detail in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which anyone can buy, and anyone can read.
People who try to make it more complicated than it is—or to provide loopholes for fashionable issues, especially with sex—have been around forever in the church.
They really annoyed both St Peter (2 Peter 2) and St Paul (2 Timothy 4:3). And they aren’t helping anyone to become holier.
So I’m really hoping that Pope Leo believes—like most other popes in history—that doctrinal clarity is actually his core business. We could use a fresh start.