Cardinal Burke has nailed his five
arrogant dubia to the door of St.
Peter’s. Answer, Francis, he demands, or the Cardinals will have to correct
you. (Dubia is plural for dubium. A dubium is an item of doubt, something you're dubious about; it's jack-Latin for a question that you intend to use as a trap.)
Wow. It seems obvious to me that
the key change that Pope Francis made was a change in tone. It is pretty odd
that experts in Rome would gather to examine the entrails of a broken marriage,
and think that they have something valuable to offer. The Pope apparently
thinks so too, and so he made a strenuous effort to change the tone. Marriage
is about joy. It is not a contagion that must be scrutinized and tamed; it’s a
joy.
The bottom line in the dubia is simple. Pope Francis has said things that different people interpret different ways. Cardinal Burke insists that the job of the Pope is to unify -- meaning draw into uniformity. So different interpretations are a threat to Burke, especially since Burke's job used to be to make wandering bishops with varying interpretations get back in line.
So when Burke demanded that the
Pope get back to work and be joyless, Francis refused. Burke listed his
complaints, in a pseudo-legal document, accompanied by a press release and a threat.
Before the synod on marriage and
the Pope’s exhortation on the joy of love, I had a dozen questions. I think the
Pope addressed them, but Cardinal Burke did not. So I post them again, after
two years. My questions include:
1.
What did Jesus say, and what did he mean (in Matthew
and Mark)? He said: whatever Moses said,
the ideas of marriage were clear from the beginning of human history: two
become one. So if you divorce your wife
and re-marry, that’s adultery. I don’t mean
to equivocate with the Lord, but I do think that good people heard different
things. If you see an attractive new
potential partner, but you are married, can you marry and mate if you divorce
first? Jesus says that the quickie
divorce-so-we-can-marry package is a crock; adultery is adultery, and you can’t
make it good by abusing the divorce laws that Moses tolerated (with a clothes
pin on his nose). Got it. But there’s a different case that may or may
not be described by the words in Mark’s Gospel.
Did Jesus also mean that if your marriage falls apart, and then ten
years later you marry again, that’s adultery?
It could be, but I don’t think that the text, by itself, says that clearly. I accept wholeheartedly that two become
one. And I accept wholeheartedly that
Jesus desires this unity. But I don’t
think the text, by itself, justifies the conclusions drawn (and the penalties
imposed) by Roman Catholic canon law.
2.
Are the words of Jesus here among the “counsels
of perfection”? That is, there is a body
of teaching that many Christians accept respectfully, but apply haphazardly –
without getting too excited about the gaps between the explicit and clear
teaching of Jesus and the standard practice of his followers. “Turn the other cheek,” for example. The teaching is clear, but few people wonder
if they will go to hell in a handbasket if they hit back sometimes. In general, Catholics understand the just war
theory to be universally applicable, even when it conflicts with Jesus’ words. You can’t enforce perfection by law. This attitude toward the teaching of Jesus
has problems, of course. But: is the
Lord’s teaching about divorce and remarriage in the same category? Why not?
3.
With regard to Jewish teaching about marriage,
and especially the appeal to the patriarchs who practiced polygamy, I am
inclined to set them aside wholesale. It
seems to me that Jesus explicitly distinguished between his teaching and the
teaching of Moses. I would add that if
you look at Abraham (one example), it seems that God tried to teach him about
chastity (don’t ask your wife to sleep with the pharaoh), but Abraham quite
clearly did not absorb the lesson (Hey, Abe!
Not with the king either!). But
there is a colossal amount of teaching about marriage, separate from the
confusion that patriarchal abuses might have caused: two become one, covenant,
marriage as an image of God’s love for us …
I want to set aside the example of the patriarchs, but hold fast to
other abundant teaching.
4.
As I understand it, Patristic literature (specifically,
the Fathers in the first five centuries after Pentecost) is pretty solidly
supportive of the Roman Catholic position, that there is no excuse a second
“marriage” after a divorce. Still, there
are exceptions; at least two (just two?) Fathers did admit of exceptions. One is a guy I never heard of. The other is St. Basil – a single disputed
line.
5.
The Orthodox churches, the eastern half of
Church before the schism, hold fast to the authority of the teaching of Jesus
on marriage. And, of course, they read
the Fathers more than Roman Catholics.
Nonetheless, they do not have anything like the penalties of the
West. The attitude of the writers in the
“Remaining in the Truth of Christ” book (Cardinal Burke et al, arguing at the
recent pre-synod gathering) seemed to me to be extraordinarily cavalier:
“Sheesh! What is wrong with those
slobs!” I saw zero effort to understand
their view respectfully. Reading the book
on marriage, I wondered if I was seeing the basis for the Eastern anger at the
West – seeing it and understanding, for my first time. The Orthodox leave the matter in the hands of
bishops, with varying results – and maybe that’s a deliberate and defensible
decision! In any case, it is simply not obvious
to me that a serious Christian can adopt the views of Patristic thinkers
without careful reference – without any reference! – to the way the Orthodox
churches build on Patristic thought.
6.
Why do we have a tribunal at all?
a.
I am a little puzzled about why the Catholic
Church has a tribunal. Is it a relic of
ages past, or is it really something that a church should have? Is it one of the few remaining scraps of the
Inquisition? I am quite ignorant here,
and just wondering.
b.
There are other parts of Catholic life that look
like treasured antiques, and they raise different questions. It might be confusing and pointless to pile
them all together, since they raise a list of different issues. But still, I wonder about the Congregation
for the Defense of Faith, and its work to defend orthodox teaching: Is it true
that you can get in trouble in the Church and end up facing trial (of some
sort) in two ways: by writing books or having sex? Is that weird?
c.
The Church has a trial-like arrangement for
dealing with pedophile priests. The
system has been reformed recently. Nonetheless,
the failures were colossal, and global.
The internal system was a not just a failure; for years, it was an
obstacle to the work of local (secular) courts who intended to protect
children. Should the Church be running
courts?
d.
I respect the Pope’s well-trained
body-guards. But should we have this
pageantry? Is this another eruption of ancient
(well, pre-Columbian) history? Is this a
leftover from the Papal States, when the Church ruled some of the city-states
of Italy?
e.
Generally: is the marriage tribunal a detail in
a list of weird things that we might want to leave behind?
7.
St. Pius X led a deep revolution is the Church’s
understanding of the Eucharist. Prior to
his papacy at the beginning of the 20th century, people did not receive
Communion frequently. So it seems to me
that telling someone in 1890 that he/she could not receive Communion was
different from saying the same thing in 1910.
And the revolution of St Pius X has continued and deepened throughout
the past century. Today, most practicing
Catholics receive the Eucharist 60 times a year, and millions receive the
Eucharist 365 times a year, compared with once or twice a year not too long
ago. In 1890, it made sense – perhaps,
sort of – to say that a person could participate in the life of the Church but
not receive the Eucharist. But it’s very
different now. The Eucharist is – and
also now is perceived to be – the heart of Catholic life. How can you say, today, that a person is
welcome to everything in the life of the Church – except the fount, the center,
the core, the foundation, the beginning, the culmination of our life? I am not sure that I could have explained the
penalty ever. But it seems to me that
this penalty means things today, after Pius X, that it didn’t mean before his
great work. Should we adjust?
8.
“You should not receive the Eucharist.” What does that mean? Doesn’t it mean: “As far as we can tell, you
are going to hell unless you repent – or unless you are a Protestant.” Perhaps I have completely missed the point –
but this sounds (1) severe, and (2) insulting to Protestants. So I’m open: what does it mean, anyway?
9.
A couple seeking to deal with the practical
problems of a second (civil) marriage judged invalid might be permitted to
“live together as brother and sister.”
That strikes me as so weird that it’s hard to get started responding. The phrase is a euphemism for staying
together but not having sex. Perhaps I’m
missing something here, but that sounds to me like a view of marriage that is
so cramped and impoverished that it is hard to fathom! In my view, Christian marriage means unity of
heart and soul. Sex is good too, but
it’s a detail! Marriage is so enormous that
sex is a detail! In the debate over
same-sex marriage, a part of what Catholics are trying to say is that marriage
is much deeper and richer than genital activity, or even than sex-plus-affection. Explaining this richness is critical to
explaining why we oppose same-sex “marriage”!
But then you turn around, and find Catholic canon lawyers, with advanced
degrees from Roman universities, saying that couples can live as brother and
sister, not as man and wife – and by that they mean, no sex! Lord, have mercy! Was the marriage of Jacques and Raissa
Maritain one of the deepest marriages in Church history, or was it not a
marriage? The lawyer’s modest offer
strikes me as absurdly ignorant! When
the best and most expert canon lawyers try to be gentle and healing, and then they
spout shocking nonsense, it’s unsettling.
Do they know what they are talking about, at all?
10.
Why can’t we return authority to handle marriage
questions to the bishops? When kings and
potentates twisted episcopal arms in ages past, the cases were referred to
Rome, to avoid corrupt decisions. That
made sense then. But the bishops are the
successors of the Apostles. Isn’t it
their vocation to deal with the complex issues in the lives of the people in
their diocese? The cases sent to Rome
don’t go the Pope, anyway; they go to a bureaucracy. Isn’t the Orthodox model better?
11.
The specific laws in canon law about annulment
make sense individually. That is,
reading them over, I can see where each one came from. But as a package, do they make sense? That is, it I clear that the annulment
process has been abused, and the practice in one diocese has been wildly
different from the practice in a neighboring diocese. But is the process so convoluted and detailed
that abuse is guaranteed to occur? Many
good folks insist that we need to make it (“it” = canon law dealing with
divorce and marriage) uniform and predictable and just. I’m not sure.
Is the effort to reform it a fool’s errand, like unscrambling an egg?
12.
It seems to me that if the Church is going to
have tribunals and lawyers and penalties, we should do a whole lot more, or a
whole lot less. That is, sex cases go to
court regularly. But what’s the
appropriate penalty for fire-bombing Tokyo?
Or for closing factories in Michigan and re-opening them in Asia – not
to help Indian workers who are still underpaid, but to increase profits for
shareholders? Or for spouting hatred
non-stop on the internet, encouraging and fostering and excusing racial or
religious tension and division? Or for
participating in the seizure of an entire continent for European settlers and
excluding others? Or for [Catholics who
persist in …] denouncing the authority of the Pope and bishops in council
together, denying that these anointed men understand God or worship, and
insisting that they are heretics who worship false gods? Isn’t spitting on “Gaudium et Spes” or
“Nostra Aetate” as dangerous and destructive and disobedient as divorce and remarriage? Aren’t these questions (violence, money,
hatred, racism) as important and as complex as sex? Why take one slice of human problems to a
court, and leave the others to the priest in the pulpit and confessional – or
overlook them altogether?
