Joe Zammit queries my silence on the issue of the use of contraceptives within marriage (The Sunday Times of Malta, April 12). Let me make it clear that we are not discussing an infallible issue.
Mr Zammit surely recollects the adverse reception greeting the promulgation of Humanae Vitae. Pope Paul VI preferred sanctioning his predecessors’ pronouncements rather than heed and abide by the recommendations of his own so-called ‘Birth Control’ Commission.
The late Belgian Fr Bernard Haring and Fr Charles Curran, formerly of the Catholic University of America – both moralist super heavyweights – were among those advocating rethinking. Is it ever too late to admit a mistake?
As regards Sacramental participation by long-stable remarried divorcees with offspring, just let me re-state that blanket blinkered dogmatism in this existential problem leads us nowhere. I have no answer to this situation, but perhaps Mr Zammit would do well to heed, as reported very recently in The Tablet Cardinal Vincent Nichols’ comment that under certain conditions, long-stable remarried divorcees might receive the Sacrament.
Rather than bulldoze one’s own ton-of-bricks views, careful examination of each and every case on its own merits may prove beneficial. What he, rather tellingly, overlooked about last October’s Synod document is that contrary to widespread expectations this document came about after tough opposition by the still all-powerful Roman Curia.
Paragraph 53 crucially states: “Some synod fathers maintained that divorced and remarried persons or those living together can have fruitful recourse to a spiritual communion. Others raised the question as to why, then, they cannot have access ‘sacramentally’. As a result, the synod fathers requested that further theological study in the matter might point out the specifics of the two forms and their association with the theology of marriage”.
It could well be a pivotal paradigm shift in dogma development. Reflecting on views held by our Eastern Orthodox brethren may prove fruitful. I am under the impression that Bishop Grech of Gozo made reference to the Greeks’ views in his contribution to the Synod.
In resting my case, I must recall Fydor Dostoyevsky’s ‘infamous’ parable about the conversation between the Lord Jesus and the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov. In the Grand Inquisitor’s view, there was no longer any space out here for Jesus, as he, the Inquisitor, was now the sole ‘factotum’. Think about it Mr Zammit.