By FR. BRIAN W. HARRISON, OS
On June 24, 2000, the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts (PCLT) issued a document of the utmost relevance to a controversy that is now profoundly disturbing the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, it is not at all well known. I refer to the PCLT’s “Declaration Concerning the Admission to Holy Communion of Faithful who are Divorced and Remarried.” (There is no Latin text of this document; the original was in Italian.)
The main purpose of this document was to rebut and disallow a false interpretation of c. 915 of the Code of Canon Law. This canon states: “Those upon whom the penalty of excommunication or interdict has been imposed or declared, and others who persist in manifest grave sin, are not to be admitted to Holy Communion” (emphasis added).
The canon was being falsely interpreted by “progressive” canonists and theologians who were promoting an idea that has recently become much more notorious and fiercely debated as a result of the 2014 and 2015 Synods on the Family. They were arguing that the words of c. 915 italicized above should not be taken to include divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, because even though their relationship is objectively gravely sinful (our Lord himself calls it adultery), their subjective imputability (blameworthiness) at the level of their own conscience might be diminished or mitigated for one reason or another.
Therefore, according to these liberal scholars, the priest (or other minister of Communion) should always give such folks Communion if they come up for it at Mass, because he would be incompetent to make any judgment about the private state of their conscience. The priest should give them the benefit of that doubt, it was said, even when he knows they are not validly married in the sight of God and the Church.
It is clear, of course, that this kind of thinking is pretty much the same as what has popularly become known as the “Kasper proposal” since around the beginning of 2014. During the Consistory of the College of Cardinals held at that time, Walter Cardinal Kasper, at the express invitation of Pope Francis and in his presence, gave an address in which, among other things, he proposed a “penitential path” that would enable some divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to be admitted to admitted to Holy Communion without making any commitment to live in continence.
While many other cardinals expressed strong criticism of this proposal, Pope Francis openly praised Kasper’s speech the following day, and has in various ways shown sympathy for his proposal during the ensuing two years. Now, after two stormy Synods of Bishops at which the German cardinal’s proposal was prominently and hotly debated, the final relatio of the 2015 Synod — a list of recommendations for the Holy Father to consider — still seems to leave this question open. The relatio’s pertinent paragraphs (nn. 84-86), which barely received the necessary two-thirds majority vote from the Synod Fathers, neither affirm nor deny that some Catholics in the aforesaid situation ought to be admitted to Communion.
Now, the relatio cites the PCLT Declaration we are discussing in this article; but, as we shall see, it does so in a very misleading way. Here is the relevant passage in n. 85 of the relatio: “[I]t cannot be denied that in some circumstances, ‘the imputability and the responsibility for an action can be diminished or annulled’ (CCC, 1735) due to psychological conditions. Consequently, the judgment on an objective situation should not lead to a judgment about ‘subjective imputability’ (Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, Declaration of June 24, 2000, 2a).”
Even though the quotation marks in the last sentence are placed only around the words “subjective imputability,” section 2a of the PCLT Declaration does indeed imply the observation attributed to it by the Synod’s relatio, i.e., that from the simple fact that a person is doing something that is objectively sinful, we should not conclude without further ado that he or she is subjectively imputable (blameworthy). And that observation is true as far as it goes, for the person might lack full knowledge and/or full consent to the sin.
Why, then, do I say that this citation of the Declaration found in the Synod’s relatio is “very misleading”? Because it is highly selective and taken out of context. It conspicuously fails to tell readers the reason why the Pontifical Council found it necessary to raise this question of diminished subjective imputability.
It did so only in the context of rejecting the aforesaid claim of liberal Catholics that because priests and other ministers of Communion can’t judge the subjective imputability (or non-imputability) of the sin committed by civilly remarried divorcees, such folks should be given Communion whenever they come forward for it at Mass.
This becomes evident as soon as we look at the original context of the words cited in n. 85 of the Synod’s relatio. The Pontifical Council is here handing down an official, authentic interpretation of the words “grave sin” in c. 915, and says that this term is to be “understood objectively, because the minister of Communion would not be able to make a judgment regarding subjective imputability” (“…inteso oggettivamente, perché dell’imputabilità soggettiva il ministro della Comunione non potrebbe giudicare”) (PCLT Declaration, section 2a).
In other words, the Church has ruled here that, provided the other conditions mentioned in c. 915 for refusing Communion are also present (as they would be in the case of those we are considering), sacramental ministers should refuse Communion to civilly remarried divorcees because of the objective gravity of their sin, irrespective of whether or not it is subjectively imputable before God in the private forum of their conscience.
We can see now that the prelates responsible for drafting the 2015 final relatio not only failed to give the other Synod Fathers any indication that this PCLT Declaration thereby delivers a knock-out blow to the Kasper proposal; they manipulated the Declaration in such a way as to make it gently insinuate support for that proposal! For their selective quotation hints, — more by way of what it omits than by what it cites — that diminished subjective imputability just might open a possible path to Communion for some civilly remarried divorcees.
In fact, as we have just seen, the Declaration has ruled that in this situation it is irrelevant whether their objectively adulterous relationship is subjectively imputable or not: for even if it’s not imputable, they are still to be refused Holy Communion.
The Pontifical Council’s reasoning here is that since the marital status of civilly remarried divorcees is a matter of public knowledge (unlike, say, a couple’s use of contraceptives, or a man’s furtive nocturnal visits to a “gay” bathhouse), they must be refused Communion even if they are subjectively blameless in their own conscience, because admitting them would still cause scandal.
If the Church started officially admitting to Holy Communion Catholics who publicly disobeyed her in this way, she would thereby send a message that she doesn’t really take very seriously her own teaching that remarriage after divorce is gravely sinful. Her laxity would thereby tempt and lead others to enter similar sinful relationships. (That is precisely the theological meaning of the word “scandal.”)
Moreover, as the Declaration points out, such an interpretation of c. 915 would in “effect empty [its words] of their substance” (n. 2), because it would logically apply to all other Catholics living in publicly sinful situations. Since only God knows for sure the subjective state of other people’s consciences, admitting remarried divorcees to Communion on a subjectivist, “benefit-of-the-doubt” basis would imply showing the same false “mercy” to cohabiting couples, homosexual couples, polygamists, “polyamorists,” mafia dons, and virtually any other public sinners who choose to call themselves Catholic.
Since the relevant words of c. 915 would thus end up applying to nobody at all, the PCLT points out that this permissive interpretation of the canon makes it absurd, and is therefore incorrect.
The liberal-leaning majority in the commission that drafted the 2015 Synod’s relatio probably realized they could scarcely ignore altogether this 2000 Vatican Declaration that was so uncongenial to their own more “merciful” aspirations; so they apparently decided to give it a nod, quoting it selectively and misleadingly, and hoping nobody would notice.
In fact, the Synod Fathers had to vote very hurriedly, at the last minute, on each of the final relatio’s 94 paragraphs. All of them were read out (in Italian, with simultaneous translations) on the morning of October 24, 2015, only a few hours before the Synod was scheduled to end. So the Fathers certainly had no opportunity to look up the PCLT Declaration cited so disingenuously in n. 85 of the relatio.
To put it bluntly, they were deceived into supposing that this little-known but important Vatican Declaration does not rule out a change in sacramental discipline that in fact it does rule out — totally, explicitly, and unambiguously.
Moreover, this 2000 Declaration not only asserts the “impossibility” of Communion for civilly remarried divorcees (section 5); it also makes the extremely important assertion that this prohibition, “found in the cited canon [c. 915], is by its nature derived from divine law and transcends the domain of positive ecclesiastical laws: the latter cannot introduce legislative changes which would oppose the doctrine of the Church” (section 1).
And precisely because divine law is at stake here, the document insists that no exceptions can be made: “Bearing in mind the nature of the above-cited norm (cfr. n. 1), no ecclesiastical authority may dispense the minister of Holy Communion from this obligation in any case, nor may he issue directives that contradict it” (section 4).
If the Synod Fathers had been more fully and accurately informed about the content of this PCLT Declaration, it seems certain that paragraph 85, which only barely managed to garner the required two-thirds majority of votes, would have failed to reach that level of acceptance. The most ambiguous and objectionable paragraph of the relatio would thus have been rightly relegated to the dustbin.
At a time when not a few bishops, cardinals, and theologians are confidently assuring us that a change in the bimillennial discipline in question would leave the Church’s doctrine fully intact, it seems very important that all Catholics become aware that the Church has already firmly rejected that idea.
In the year 2000 she declared the exclusion of civilly remarried divorcees from Communion to be a consequence of divine law, so that any supposedly “merciful” mitigation of this discipline “would oppose the doctrine of the Church.”
We must hope and pray fervently that His Holiness Pope Francis, in preparing his post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, becomes fully cognizant of this fact.
Addendum:
Readers can see for themselves what the Synod Fathers were not given the opportunity to see on that critical October morning. The English version of the 2000 PCLT Declaration is on the Vatican website at: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/intrptxt/documents/rc_pc_intrptxt_doc_20000706_declaration_en.html
However, another word of warning is necessary here. One section of this English translation is so garbled and inaccurate that it gives the impression of allowing the Kasper proposal! It seems to say that remarried divorcees who don’t live in full continence are not in a “situation of serious habitual sin.” The Vatican’s translation says this:
“Those faithful who are divorced and remarried would not be considered to be within the situation of serious habitual sin who would not be able, for serious motives — such as, for example, the upbringing of the children — ‘to satisfy the obligation of separation, assuming the task of living in full continence, that is, abstaining from the acts proper to spouses’ (Familiaris consortio, n. 84), and who on the basis of that intention have received the sacrament of Penance.”
Now, here is the Italian original of that passage:
“Non si trovano invece in situazione di peccato grave abituale i fedeli divorziati risposati che, non potendo per seri motivi — quali, ad esempio, l’educazione dei figli — ‘soddisfare l’obbligo della separazione, assumono l’impegno di vivere in piena continenza, cioè di astenersi dagli atti propri dei coniugi’ (Familiaris consortio, n. 84), e che sulla base di tale proposito hanno ricevuto il sacramento della Penitenza.”
A correct translation of the above — changing the syntax somewhat for clarity in English — would be as follows:
“However, there are divorced and remarried Catholics who for serious reasons — for example, raising their children — are unable to ‘fulfil the obligation of separating,’ but who ‘take up the commitment to live in complete continence, that is, to abstain from the acts proper to spouses’ (Familiaris consortio, n. 84), and who on the basis of that intention have received the sacrament of Penance. Such Catholics are not in a situation of habitual grave sin.”
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress