A priest once contacted me and asked my advice about a pastoral situation.
A man in his parish was living with a woman he was not married to, and they had a child together.
The man came to Mass but didn’t receive communion. He was divorced but with no annulment, so they couldn’t marry in the church.
She (a non-Catholic) was going to leave the relationship. But the priest was unsure—should he try to keep this family intact?
We talked through all the options for 40 minutes, but my bottom line was: Let her go.
The man should make a legal arrangement for child support and shared custody. That was only just.
But this relationship was a sinful one and couldn’t proceed to marriage, so there was no obligation to try to keep them together.
I also encouraged the priest to help the man back to an active sacramental life. He was going to need all the help he could get.
I don’t know how the story ended. But I still think this was the right advice.
This Sunday’s gospel is such a hard one. It makes many of us uncomfortable.
Let’s look at how the sword of division Jesus is talking about can play out in a family.
You have a father of a Catholic family who is also a porn addict. He refuses to get help for this because he doesn’t see it as a big deal.
He and his wife are now barely on speaking terms. Their children hide in their bedrooms, scrolling unhappily.
This marriage may—and perhaps should—end with legal separation. The wife and children have a right to live in peace and safety.
They can probably do this best away from him and the addiction that he clearly loves more than them.
It’s not the wife or children’s job to make the world safe for him, curate his therapy appointments, send him lots of helpful websites to read, and nag him into conversion.
All of that is his job. It’s his sin; it’s his addiction.
Once away from the home he took for granted, he may be like the prodigal son and start seeking the help he needs for himself.
Or he might rejoice in his new-found freedom to watch as much porn as he likes.
Either way, his wife and children are safe and can rebuild their lives away from his poisonous influence.
Jesus told us what to do when people will not accept correction. He said to treat them like a tax collector.
This meant avoiding them and not letting them influence how you live your own life.
Jesus didn’t make any exceptions: “If it’s your husband, then just put up with it. Better still, make it your job to fix him.”
When there are people in a believing household who will not accept the faith or who choose to live in opposition to it, it puts the family in an awful position.
That person can undermine the faith of the younger children in the family.
They can show disrespect to a parent or spouse and create an atmosphere of constant fighting.
It’s usually better for everyone that they move out of home. They are still your son or daughter or spouse.
They can still visit. You can still call them, and help them out if they’re in real trouble.
But sometimes families have to make this kind of sacrifice to protect their younger children and preserve the faith of those in the family who believe.
I know many families have chosen differently. They have stopped going to Mass and given up the faith because it was a bone of contention for a child or children.
They have tolerated years of conflict and abuse for the sake of having an “intact family.”
This is not what Jesus wanted from us. He wanted us to always keep believing and to keep coming to the sacraments.
But he knew that not everyone was going to be on the same page about this.
He is warning us that it’s going to be hard to be a good Catholic in a world where other people—even those closest to us—aren’t.
There will be times when you must make awful and really personal decisions. Those decisions will hit hard.
We love our families—but we must love them harder; love them more.
Our love has to reach past all the nonsense of this life and drive deep into eternity like a grappling hook.
This is the kind of love that saves people’s souls when everything else has gone.
