In his piece ‘New approach to remarriage’ (October 14), Mgr Mario Grech said that “in the coming months the Catholic Church will be seeking a ‘new approach’ with regard to wounded married couples who sincerely wish to belong to the Church”.

He referred to “the praxis employed by the Orthodox Churches vis-à-vis the divorced remarried” where they “apply the principle of the oikonomia to reach out mercifully to the suffering to save them from drowning – or to use Paul’s term, “burn” (1 Cor. 7, 9) – together with their marriage”.

St Paul says: “But I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is good for them if they remain even as I. But if they do not have self-control, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.” The apostle is referring to the unmarried and widows and not to the divorced as Mgr Grech presents it.

Par. 2380 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “Adultery refers to marital infidelity. When two partners, of whom at least one is married to another party, have sexual relations – even transient ones – they commit adultery.”

This contradicts the praxis of the Orthodox Churches because the latter, according to Mgr Grech, “bless as a penitential and not as a sacramental union” a second, third union while the Catholic Church considers a second, third marriage as an adulterous union when the first marital bond subsists. So how can our Church adopt this ‘new approach’? He continued: “With this approach the Church continues to remain faithful to Christ’s good news about marriage.”

Par. 1650 runs: “The Church maintains that a new union cannot be recognised as valid, if the first marriage was. If the divorced are remarried civilly, they find themselves in a situation that objectively contravenes God’s law. Consequently, they cannot receive Eucharistic communion as long as this situation persists.”

I wonder why Mgr Grech missed the basic point regarding the divorced remarried, namely that of giving them Communion. This is what these remarried wish. Will Mgr Grech’s ‘new approach’ satisfy this wish of theirs? Or is the ‘new approach’ just a fantasy?