This question may confuse some readers and seem spurious to others. But those who follow ultra-conservative blogs know that anathemas are being hurled against Pope Francis with greater ferocity than lightning zig-zagging the skies during a thunderstorm. He earned these insults because of the apostolic exhortation ‘The Joy of Love’ (Amoris Laetitia). The title is borrowed from Benedict XVI’s apostolic letter heralding a Year of Faith in 2012.

The blog ‘Rorate Coeli’ stated: “God have mercy on His Holy Church…This is a catastrophe.” They believe that Francis has thrown traditional Catholic teaching out of the window. At least, unlike Cardinal Raymond Burke, they saw it as a document of the Magisterium.

Others believe the Pope has not gone far enough. New Ways Ministry said the document does not inspire joy in LGBTIQ Catholics.

For many commentators the main issue was: Should divorced and remarried Catholics receive Communion or not? Is this the case?

The Pope, on his return flight from Lesbos, said this is definitively not the case. In answer to a journalist, Francis said:

“Do you not realise that that is not the important problem? Don’t you realise that the family throughout the world is in crisis? Don’t we realise that the falling birth rate in Europe is enough to make one cry? And the family is the basis of society? Do you not realise that youths don’t want to marry? Don’t you realise that the lack of work or the little work (available) means that a mother has to get two jobs and the children grow up alone? These are the big problems.”

Thus the Church in Malta should not get lost in this trap of ‘to receive or not to receive Communion’. The document should provide the Church with the basis of a holistically renewed pastoral strategy for the family. The tackling of the structural and socio-cultural elements mentioned by the Pope as the source of so much pain should provide the infrastructure of its strategy.

This should reflect, for example, the beauty of love in marriage as explained in Chapter 4, poetically but realistically communicated within the context of the “mixture of enjoyment and struggles, tensions and repose, pain and relief, satisfactions and longings, annoyances and pleasures”. Each one of the other chapters also has to be reflected in pastoral planning.

If this is not done, the Church would not be following the agenda of the Pope.

Quite naturally this does not mean that the Church should ignore this big media-generated debate about Communion. I am just emphasising priorities and refocusing the attention since, after all, both synods were about the family and not solely about divorced and remarried Catholics.

Regarding this issue there are opposing reactions. Many conservatives argued that the Pope could not have meant that in certain circumstances the divorced and remarried without annulment could ever receive Communion. Liberals say the exact opposite.

His stance is that the Church should not adopt a ‘one size fits all’ solution

Some said the Pope left everything as it is. Others said that what he said implies is that there should be changes. During the same flight another journalist asked the Pope: “Are there new, concrete possibilities that didn’t exist before the publication of the exhortation or not?”

The Pope’s answer was short and definitive: “I can say yes, period.” He added that people should read what Cardinal Christoph Schönborn said when he presented the document to the media for a detailed answer.

Schönborn said “there are true innovations” but no break with traditional teaching. No surprise there as this has always been the attitude of Pope Francis. He proposes innovative pastoral solutions in line with the best Catholic traditional teaching. Moral theologians, after all, have always said that describing something as objectively wrong does not necessarily imply that whoever does it is always guilty of sin. There are so many extenuating circumstances.

Francis proposes the “logic of pastoral mercy.” He recognises the existence of myriad different personal situations and the various cultural settings around the world.

His stance is that the Church should not adopt a ‘one size fits all’ solution. Consequently he does not say that couples in unions judged canonically to be ‘irregular’ should never receive Communion. Neither does he make a conclusive list of situations when such couples can receive Communion.

Francis, however, does not leave things to people’s whims. He proposes that those living in situations that do not respond fully to what the Lord proposes for married life should embark on a process of pastoral discernment. During this period they would be accompanied by a priest on their way to greater integration in the life of the community.

This strategy can create confusion, though it really should not. On the other hand, even pastoral rigidity can create confusion as it fails to respect the wide continuum of human experience and the infinite mercy of the loving Father. Discernment handled maturely respects the complexity of the human condition and finds appropriate solutions for concrete situations.

Francis is not proposing an easy way out. On the contrary, discerning God’s will in conscience is more difficult than aligning oneself to a list of minutely crafted instructions. Discernment respects the dignity of Christians who take their faith seriously. His strategy asks for a lot of maturity from priests who have to respect their role as those who accompany those needing accompaniment are helping to form their consciences instead of replacing them. Maturity has to be shown by those who aspire to live the ideal of married love as much as possible in their concrete situations.

Those who would take a more rigid or a less rigid approach during this period of discernment and accompaniment also need to show more maturity. Those espousing different attitudes have to fully respect each other. Denigrating or condemning others doesn’t help.

As the Pope clearly states: “the Church’s way, from the time of the Council of Jerusalem, has always been the way of Jesus, the way of mercy and reinstatement… The way of the Church is not to condemn anyone forever.”

It is very clear that it is not the Pope’s Catholic credentials that should be doubted.

joseph.borg@um.edu.mt

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.