Churches of the West: Squaring off. Five Cardinals, the Pope, and the Synod on Synodality

Churches of the West: Squaring off. Five Cardinals, the Pope, and the S...: 

Squaring off. Five Cardinals, the Pope, and the Synod on Synodality.

Synod on Synodality retreat looks to ‘transcend all our disagreements

So read a headline from the Catholic News Agency, regarding a pre Synod retreat.

That might be the intent, but right now, the Synod is amplifying them and leading a lot of traditional, conservative and I dare say run-of-the-mill Catholics to really suffer anxiety from what's occurring while their view of Pope Francis declines.

I'm in that camp.

I don't worry that the Pope is going to change doctrine, or that the Synod will, but I do worry that the result of this will be an effort to water it down by doing end runs around its application, thereby creating confusion.  That's already occurring, which is evident by Catholics who have determined that dedicated personal attractions to sin are not sinful, and that the Pope is set to take the torch to St. Paul and ratify their non-sinful status.¹   This in turn is likely to result in massive dissention within the Church, resisting the days of the Arian heresy and events of such nature.  Francis is not likely to go down, long term, as a Pope who is fondly remembered by future orthodox Catholics.  He's a strain on them now.

This week this came to a head with the publication of Dubia by its authors and a direct letter by those authors to the faithful. Cardinals Walter Cardinal Brandmüller, Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, Juan Cardinal Sandoval Íñiguez, Robert Cardinal Sarah and Joseph Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun have written to the faithful regarding their correspondence with the Pope. The letter comes in the form, essentially, of both notifying the faithful of what was said, but also in the form of a sort of warning that in their view the Pope's action stand to create confusion.

It was a bold thing to do.

Let's take a look at the correspondence.  First, their letter of October 2, 2023.

Notification to Christ’s Faithful (can. 212 § 3)

Regarding Dubia Submitted to Pope Francis

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

We, members of the Sacred College of Cardinals, in accord with the duty of all the faithful “to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church” (can. 212 § 3) and, above all, in accord with the responsibility of Cardinals “to assist the Roman Pontiff … individually … especially in the daily care of the universal Church” (can. 349), in view of various declarations of highly-placed Prelates, pertaining to the celebration of the next Synod of Bishops, that are openly contrary to the constant doctrine and discipline of the Church, and that have generated and continue to generate great confusion and the falling into error among the faithful and other persons of good will, have manifested our deepest concern to the Roman Pontiff. By our letter of July 10, 2023, employing the proven practice of the submission of dubia [questions] to a superior to provide the superior the occasion to make clear, by his responsa [responses], the doctrine and discipline of the Church, we have submitted five dubia to Pope Francis, a copy of which is attached. By his letter of July 11, 2023, Pope Francis responded to our letter.

Having studied his letter which did not follow the practice of responsa ad dubia [responses to questions], we reformulated the dubia to elicit a clear response based on the perennial doctrine and discipline of the Church. By our letter of August 21, 2023, we submitted the reformulated dubia, a copy of which is attached, to the Roman Pontiff. Up to the present, we have not received a response to the reformulated dubia.

Given the gravity of the matter of the dubia, especially in view of the imminent session of the Synod of Bishops, we judge it our duty to inform you, the faithful (can. 212 § 3), so that you may not be subject to confusion, error, and discouragement but rather may pray for the universal Church and, in particular, the Roman Pontiff, that the Gospel may be taught ever more clearly and followed ever more faithfully.

                                   Yours in Christ,

           Walter Cardinal Brandmüller

           Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke

           Juan Cardinal Sandoval Íñiguez

           Robert Cardinal Sarah

           Joseph Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun

Rome, 2 October 2023

 The Dubia to which this refers, followed by the Pope's reply, is set out below.:

DUBIA

(Submitted July 10, 2023)

1 Dubium about the claim that we should reinterpret Divine Revelation according to the cultural and anthropological changes in vogue.

After the statements of some Bishops, which have been neither corrected nor retracted, it is asked whether in the Church Divine Revelation should be reinterpreted according to the cultural changes of our time and according to the new anthropological vision that these changes promote; or whether Divine Revelation is binding forever, immutable and therefore not to be contradicted, according to the dictum of the Second Vatican Council, that to God who reveals is due “the obedience of faith”(Dei Verbum 5); that what is revealed for the salvation of all must remain “in their entirety, throughout the ages” and alive, and be “transmitted to all generations” (7); and that the progress of understanding does not imply any change in the truth of things and words, because faith has been “handed on … once and for all” (8), and the Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but teaches only what has been handed on (10).

2 Dubium about the claim that the widespread practice of the blessing of same-sex unions would be in accord with Revelation and the Magisterium (CCC 2357).

According to Divine Revelation, confirmed in Sacred Scripture, which the Church “at the divine command with the help of the Holy Spirit, … listens to devotedly, guards it with dedication and expounds it faithfully ” (Dei Verbum 10): “In the beginning” God created man in his own image, male and female he created them and blessed them, that they might be fruitful (cf. Gen. 1, 27-28), whereby the Apostle Paul teaches that to deny sexual difference is the consequence of the denial of the Creator (Rom 1, 24-32). It is asked: Can the Church derogate from this “principle,” considering it, contrary to what Veritatis Splendor 103 taught, as a mere ideal, and accepting as a “possible good” objectively sinful situations, such as same-sex unions, without betraying revealed doctrine?

3 Dubium about the assertion that synodality is a “constitutive element of the Church” (Apostolic Constitution Episcopalis Communio 6), so that the Church would, by its very nature, be synodal.

Given that the Synod of Bishops does not represent the College of Bishops but is merely a consultative organ of the Pope, since the Bishops, as witnesses of the faith, cannot delegate their confession of the truth, it is asked whether synodality can be the supreme regulative criterion of the permanent government of the Church without distorting her constitutive order willed by her Founder, whereby the supreme and full authority of the Church is exercised both by the Pope by virtue of his office and by the College of Bishops together with its head the Roman Pontiff (Lumen Gentium 22). 

4 Dubium about pastors’ and theologians’ support for the theory that “the theology of the Church has changed” and therefore that priestly ordination can be conferred on women.

After the statements of some prelates, which have been neither corrected nor retracted, according to which, with Vatican II, the theology of the Church and the meaning of the Mass has changed, it is asked whether the dictum of the Second Vatican Council is still valid, that “[the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood] differ essentially and not only in degree” (Lumen Gentium 10) and that presbyters by virtue of the “sacred power of Order, that of offering sacrifice and forgiving sins” (Presbyterorum Ordinis 2), act in the name and in the person of Christ the Mediator, through Whom the spiritual sacrifice of the faithful is made perfect. It is furthermore asked whether the teaching of St. John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, which teaches as a truth to be definitively held the impossibility of conferring priestly ordination on women, is still valid, so that this teaching is no longer subject to change nor to the free discussion of pastors or theologians.

5 Dubium about the statement “forgiveness is a human right” and the Holy Father’s insistence on the duty to absolve everyone and always, so that repentance would not be a necessary condition for sacramental absolution.

It is asked whether the teaching of the Council of Trent, according to which the contrition of the penitent, which consists in detesting the sin committed with the intention of sinning no more (Session XIV, Chapter IV: DH 1676), is necessary for the validity of sacramental confession, is still in force, so that the priest must postpone absolution when it is clear that this condition is not fulfilled.

Vatican City, 10 July 2023

Walter Card. Brandmüller

Raymond Leo Card. Burke

Juan Card. Sandoval Íñiguez

Robert Card. Sarah

Joseph Card. Zen Ze-Kiun, S.D.B.

The Reply:

Dear Brothers,

While I do not always find it prudent to answer questions addressed directly to me, and it would be impossible to answer them all, in this case I thought it appropriate to do so because of the proximity of the Synod.

Question 1

a) The answer depends on the meaning you give to the word “reinterpret”. If it is understood as “to interpret better” the expression is valid. In this sense, the Second Vatican Council affirms that it is necessary that with the work of exegetes – I would add of theologians – the Church’s judgment should mature” (Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum, 12).

b) Therefore, while it is true that divine Revelation is immutable and always binding, the Church must be humble and recognize that she never exhausts its unfathomable richness and needs to grow in her understanding.

c) Consequently, she also matures in her understanding of what she herself has affirmed in her Magisterium.

d) Cultural changes and the new challenges of history do not modify Revelation, but they can stimulate us to make more explicit some aspects of its overflowing richness, which always offers more.

e) It is inevitable that this can lead to a better expression of some past statements of the Magisterium, and in fact this has been the case throughout history.

f) On the other hand, it is true that the Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but it is also true that both the texts of Scripture and the testimonies of Tradition need an interpretation that makes it possible to distinguish their perennial substance from cultural conditioning. It is evident, for example, in the biblical texts (such as Ex 21:20-21) and in certain magisterial interventions that tolerated slavery (cf. Nicholas V, Bull Dum Diversas, 1452). This is not a minor issue given its intimate connection with the perennial truth of the inalienable dignity of the human person. These texts are in need of interpretation. The same is true for some New Testament considerations on women (1 Cor 11:3-10; 1 Tim 2:11-14) and for other texts of Scripture and testimonies of Tradition that today cannot be materially repeated.

g) It is important to emphasize that what cannot change is what has been revealed “for the salvation of all” (Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum, 7). For this reason the Church must constantly discern between what is essential for salvation and what is secondary or less directly connected with this goal. In this regard, I would like to recall what St. Thomas Aquinas said:

“the more one descends to 10 particulars, the more indeterminacy increases” (Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 94, art. 4).

h) Finally, a single formulation of a truth can never be adequately understood if it is presented in isolation, isolated from the rich and harmonious context of the whole of Revelation. The “hierarchy of truths” also implies situating each of them in adequate connection with the more central truths and with the totality of the Church’s teaching. This can finally give rise to different ways of expounding the same doctrine, even though “to those who are satisfied with a monolithic doctrine defended by all without nuance, this may seem an imperfect dispersion.

But the reality is that this variety helps to better manifest and develop the various aspects of the inexhaustible richness of the Gospel” (Evangelii Gaudium, 49). Each theological line has its risks but also its opportunities.

Question 2

a) The Church has a very clear conception of marriage: an exclusive, stable and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to the begetting of children. Only this union is called “marriage”. Other forms of union are realized only “in a partial and analogous way” (Amoris laetitia 292), which is why they cannot strictly be called “marriage”.² 

b) It is not a mere question of names, but the reality that we call marriage has a unique essential constitution that demands an exclusive name, not applicable to other realities. It is undoubtedly much more than a mere “ideal”.

c) For this reason the Church avoids any kind of rite or sacramental that could contradict this conviction and give the impression that something that is not marriage is recognized as marriage.

d) In dealing with people, however, pastoral charity, which must permeate all our decisions and attitudes, must not be lost. The defense of objective truth is not the only expression of this charity, which is also made up of kindness, patience, understanding, tenderness and encouragement. Therefore, we cannot become judges who only deny, reject, exclude.³ 

e) For this reason, pastoral prudence must adequately discern whether there are forms of blessing, requested by one or more persons, that do not transmit a mistaken conception of marriage. Because when a blessing is requested, one is expressing a request for help from God, a plea to be able to Live better, a trust in a Father who can help us to Live better.

f) On the other hand, although there are situations that from the objective point of view are not morally acceptable, pastoral charity itself requires us not to treat as “sinners” other people whose guilt or responsibility may be attenuated by various factors that influence subjective imputability (cf. St. John Paul II, Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, 17).

g) Decisions which, in certain circumstances, can form part of pastoral prudence, should not necessarily become a norm. That is to say, it is not appropriate for a Diocese, a Bishops’ Conference or any other ecclesial structure to constantly and in an official way enable procedures or rites for all kinds of matters, since everything “that which is part of a practical discernment in a particular situation cannot be elevated to the category of a norm”, because this “would give rise to an unbearable casuistry” (Amoris laetitia 304). Canon Law should not and cannot cover everything, nor should the Episcopal Conferences claim to do so with their various documents and protocols, because the life of the Church runs through many channels in addition to the normative ones.

Question 3

a) Although you recognize that the supreme and full authority of the Church is exercised either by the Pope because of his office or by the college of bishops together with its head, the Roman Pontiff (cf. Conc. Ecumen. Vat. II, Const. dogm. Lumen gentium, 22), nevertheless with these dubia you yourselves manifest your need to participate, to give your opinion freely and to collaborate, and thus you are claiming some form of “synodality” in the exercise of my ministry.

b) The Church is “mystery of missionary communion”, but this communion is not only affective or ethereal, but necessarily implies real participation: that not only the hierarchy but all the People of God in different ways and at different levels can make their voices heard and feel part of the Church’s journey.

In this sense we can say that synodality, as a style and dynamism, is an essential dimension of the life of the Church. On this point St. John Paul II has said very beautiful things in Novo Millennio Ineunte.

c) It is quite another thing to sacralize or impose a particular synodal methodology that pleases one group, to make it the norm and obligatory channel for all, because this would only lead to “freezing” the synodal journey, ignoring the diverse characteristics of the different particular Churches and the varied richness of the universal Church.

Question 4

a) “The common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial priesthood differ essentially” (Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, 10). It is not convenient to maintain a difference of degree that implies considering the common priesthood of the faithful as something of “second category” or of lesser value (“a lower degree”). Both forms of priesthood enlighten and sustain each other.

b) When St. John Paul II taught that the impossibility of conferring priestly ordination on women must be affirmed “definitively,” he was in no way disparaging women and giving supreme power to men. St. John Paul II also affirmed other things. For example, that when we speak of priestly power “we are in the realm of function, not dignity or holiness” (St. John Paul II, Christifideles Laici, 51). These are words that we have not sufficiently embraced. He also clearly maintained that while the priest alone presides at the Eucharist, the tasks “do not give rise to superiority of one over the other” (St. John Paul II, Christifideles laici, note 190; cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration inter /risi9n/ores, VI). He also affirmed that if the priestly function is “hierarchical,” it should not be understood as a form of domination, but “is totally ordered to the holiness of the members of Christ” (St. John Paul II, Mulieris dignitatem, 27). If this is not understood and the practical consequences of these distinctions are not drawn, it will be difficult to accept that the priesthood is reserved only to men and we will not be able to recognize the rights of women or the need for them to participate, in various ways, in the leadership of the Church.

c) On the other hand, to be rigorous, let us recognize that a clear and authoritative doctrine about the exact nature of a “definitive statement” has not yet been exhaustively developed. It is not a dogmatic definition, and yet it must be adhered to by all. No one can publicly contradict it and yet it can be the subject of study, as is the case with the validity of ordinations in the Anglican Communion.

Question 5

a) Repentance is necessary for the validity of sacramental absolution, and implies the intention not to sin. But there is no mathematics here and once again I must remind you that the confessional is not a customs house. We are not owners, but humble stewards of the Sacraments that nourish the faithful, because these gifts of the Lord, more than relics to be guarded, are aids of the Holy Spirit for people’s lives.

b) There are many ways of expressing repentance. Often, in people who have a very wounded self-esteem, to plead guilty is a cruel torture, but the mere fact of approaching confession is a symbolic expression of repentance and of seeking divine help.

c) I would also like to recall that “sometimes it is very difficult for us to make room in pastoral ministry for the unconditional love of God” (Amoris laetitia 311), but we must learn to do so. Following St. John Paul II, I maintain that we should not demand from the faithful too precise and sure resolutions of amendment, which in the end can end up being abstract or even egotistical, but that even the foreseeability of a new fall “does not prejudge the authenticity of the resolution” (St. John Paul II, Letter to Card. William W. Baum and the participants of the annual course of the Apostolic Penitentiary, March 22, 1996, 5).

d) Finally, it should be clear that all the conditions that are usually placed on confession are generally not applicable when the person is in a situation of agony, or with very limited mental and psychic capacities.

This seems a full reply to me, but not a comforting one.  The Pope is bad about "the other hand" formulation on very serious matters, which interjects doubt by is very nature.  If things are muddled, and we know the rule, but "on the other hand", we invite first individual clerics and then individual laymen to assume that they fit into the "the other hand" and are exempt from the moral rule.

The Pope here, I suspect, is showing the sort of flexibility that is common, on an informal basis, in some parts of the world, but which will be poorly situated to apply here.  For example, it was common in some parts of the world for couples that intended to marry to basically contract a marriage independently and then wait for a traveling priest to later bless the union.  That certainly would not be tolerated as valid in North America, but it was in Central and South America at one time, for practical reasons.  At least in the 1970s (I don't know about now) books that instructed confessors on certain sins took a relaxed view based upon circumstances of a similar nature that I'm not going to get into, and this continues to be the case in other areas that are related.

Confusion over transubstantiation in at least Germany have lead to a practice in which in some areas Lutherans who are part of a marriage with a Catholic are allowed to receive Communion on the basis that they're beliefs, in some instances, are so close that it would be almost impossible for them to grasp that there is a difference.

I suspect that this is the area that Pope Francis is suggesting be explored.  Indeed, none other than the very orthodox Fr. Hugh Barbour has ventured the opinion that female same gender households that do not incorporate the element of sex may be fairly natural and not to be condemned, with the sexual element forced upon such individuals by the modern world.  Pope Francis may have something very similar to this in mind.

The problem, however, is that the Church never endorsed any of these things in a formal fashion. Recognizing mental state of mind for purposes of Confession, or for other purposes, is one thing.  Benedictions are another. 

Whether a person accepts Pope Francis' reply as correct, in part or in whole, is, of course, another matter from replying.  He did reply.  Frankly, given this reply, the Cardinal correspondents would have real reason to be concerned about the direction the Pope seems headed in, as do I.  Hence, they sent out a followup "Dubia", which is below:

REFORMULATED DUBIA

(Submitted August 21, 2023)

To His Holiness

FRANCIS

Supreme Pontiff

Most Holy Father,

We are very grateful for the answers which You have kindly wished to offer us. We would first like to clarify that, if we have asked You these questions, it is not out of fear of dialogue with the people of our time, nor of the questions they could ask us about the Gospel of Christ. In fact, we, like Your Holiness, are convinced that the Gospel brings fullness to human life and responds to our every question. The concern that moves us is another: we are concerned to see that there are pastors who doubt the ability of the Gospel to transform the hearts of men and end up proposing to them no longer sound doctrine but “teachings according to their own likings” (cf. 2 Tim 4, 3).  We are also concerned that it be understood that God’s mercy does not consist in covering our sins, but is much greater, in that it enables us to respond to His love by keeping His commandments, that is, to convert and believe in the Gospel (cf. Mk 1, 15).

With the same sincerity with which You have answered us, we must add that Your answers have not resolved the doubts we had raised, but have, if anything, deepened them. We therefore feel obliged to re-propose, reformulating them, these questions to Your Holiness, who as the successor of Peter is charged by the Lord to confirm Your brethren in the faith. This is all the more urgent in view of the upcoming Synod, which many want to use to deny Catholic doctrine on the very issues which our dubia concern. We therefore re-propose our questions to You, so that they can be answered with a simple “yes” or “no.”

Your Holiness insists that the Church can deepen its understanding of the deposit of faith. This is indeed what Dei Verbum 8 teaches and belongs to Catholic doctrine. Your response, however, does not capture our concern. Many Christians, including pastors and theologians, argue today that the cultural and anthropological changes of our time should push the Church to teach the opposite of what it has always taught. This concerns essential, not secondary, questions for our salvation, like the confession of faith, subjective conditions for access to the sacraments, and observance of the moral law. So we want to rephrase our dubium: is it possible for the Church today to teach doctrines contrary to those she has previously taught in matters of faith and morals, whether by the Pope ex cathedra, or in the definitions of an Ecumenical Council, or in the ordinary universal magisterium of the Bishops dispersed throughout the world (cf. Lumen Gentium 25)?

Your Holiness has insisted on the fact that there can be no confusion between marriage and other types of unions of a sexual nature and that, therefore, any rite or sacramental blessing of same-sex couples, which would give rise to such confusion, should be avoided. Our concern, however, is a different one: we are concerned that the blessing of same-sex couples might create confusion in any case, not only in that it might make them seem analogous to marriage, but also in that homosexual acts would be presented practically as a good, or at least as the possible good that God asks of people in their journey toward Him. So let us rephrase our dubium: Is it possible that in some circumstances a pastor could bless unions between homosexual persons, thus suggesting that homosexual behavior as such would not be contrary to God’s law and the person’s journey toward God? Linked to this dubium is the need to raise another: does the teaching upheld by the universal ordinary magisterium, that every sexual act outside of marriage, and in particular homosexual acts, constitutes an objectively grave sin against God’s law, regardless of the circumstances in which it takes place and the intention with which it is carried out, continue to be valid?

You have insisted that there is a synodal dimension to the Church, in that all, including the lay faithful, are called to participate and make their voices heard. Our difficulty, however, is another: today the future Synod on “synodality” is being presented as if, in communion with the Pope, it represents the Supreme Authority of the Church. However, the Synod of Bishops is a consultative body of the Pope; it does not represent the College of Bishops and cannot settle the issues dealt with in it nor issue decrees on them, unless, in certain cases, the Roman Pontiff, whose duty it is to ratify the decisions of the Synod, has expressly granted it deliberative power (cf. can. 343 C.I.C.). This is a decisive point inasmuchas not involving the College of Bishops in matters such as those that the next Synod intends to raise, which touch on the very constitution of the Church, would go precisely against the root of that synodality, which it claims to want to promote. Let us therefore rephrase our dubium: will the Synod of Bishops to be held in Rome, and which includes only a chosen representation of pastors and faithful, exercise, in the doctrinal or pastoral matters on which it will be called to express itself, the Supreme Authority of the Church, which belongs exclusively to the Roman Pontiff and, una cum capite suo, to the College of Bishops (cf. can. 336 C.I.C.)?

In Your reply Your Holiness made it clear that the decision of St. John Paul II in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is to be held definitively, and rightly added that it is necessary to understand the priesthood, not in terms of power, but in terms of service, in order to understand correctly our Lord’s decision to reserve Holy Orders to men only. On the other hand, in the last point of Your response You added that the question can still be further explored. We are concerned that some may interpret this statement to mean that the matter has not yet been decided in a definitive manner. In fact, St. John Paul II affirms in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis that this doctrine has been taught infallibly by the ordinary and universal magisterium, and therefore that it belongs to the deposit of faith. This was the response of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to a dubium raised about the apostolic letter, and this response was approved by John Paul II himself. We therefore must reformulate our dubium: could the Church in the future have the faculty to confer priestly ordination on women, thus contradicting that the exclusive reservation of this sacrament to baptized males belongs to the very substance of the Sacrament of Orders, which the Church cannot change?

Finally, Your Holiness confirmed the teaching of the Council of Trent according to which the validity of sacramental absolution requires the sinner’s repentance, which includes the resolve not to sin again. And You invited us not to doubt God’s infinite mercy. We would like to reiterate that our question does not arise from doubting the greatness of God’s mercy, but, on the contrary, it arises from our awareness that this mercy is so great that we are able to convert to Him, to confess our guilt, and to live as He has taught us. In turn, some might interpret Your answer as meaning that merely approaching confession is a sufficient condition for receiving absolution, inasmuch as it could implicitly include confession of sins and repentance. We would therefore like to rephrase our dubium: Can a penitent who, while admitting a sin, refuses to make, in any way, the intention not to commit it again, validly receive sacramental absolution?

Vatican City, August 21, 2023

Walter Card. Brandmüller                     

Raymond Leo Card. Burke

Juan Card. Sandoval Íñiguez

Robert Card. Sarah

Joseph Card. Zen Ze-kiun

 cc: His Eminence Rev. Luis Francisco Card. LADARIA FERRER, S.I.

They did not receive a reply to this Dubia.

There may be reasons for that.  One may be that Pope Francis intends to answer these questions through the Synod itself, and come down squarely on the side of orthodoxy in a clear way.  There is, in my view, reason to believe that.  He may, accordingly, have felt that he didn't want to jump the gun.

Or he may be wanting to explore this topic in the fashion I noted above, although that would presumably end up in some document regarding pastoral care, rather than one that goes much further than that.

Whatever the case, damage has been done.  A group of "liberal" left wing Catholics that would convert crosses into personal set asides is already assuming the Pope is endorsing their views.  The press is assuming this to be the case.  Thousands of orthodox Catholics are also assuming this to be the case.

If, therefore, after a years long process the result is to reaffirm the historic understanding of the Church in a clear and definitive way, which I think is likely, those parties will howl with protest and rage and feel that they were betrayed.  If the result isn't clear, and with Pope Francis they tend not to be, the deep distrust of the current Papacy, together with the current College of Cardinals, will deepen and a rift that's been developing will be worse.  If a middle ground is developed, it'd have to be very truly middle ground not to spark discontent on both sides.

Catholics should, of course, pray for the Synod and have Faith.  But that doesn't mean that they have to accept this course of action in holding it as a good idea until the fruits are seen.  There's reason to be distressed, and that's a reason for prayer.

Finally, I'd note that when Pope Francis came into his office, he spoke of only occupying it briefly before retiring.  He's now 86 years old and just commencing a process that will only conclude in 2024 and then take some time for results to be issued.  We seem to live in an age when octogenarians simply assume continued life and health. Pope John XXIII was an old 81 years old when he died in June 1963 (when I was just a few days old).  He'd convened Vatican II the year prior, and while faithful Catholics do not have the leeway to condemn Vatican II the way that some Rad Trads do, it's always been a question of whether Vatican II would have looked a bit different, and whether that would have been good or bad, had he lived.

No reigning Pope since that time has lived to this age.

Footnotes:

1. Most of the attention has been on homosexual attraction, but an open question is that if a deep-seated inclination in that direction lessens, in some fashion, its sinfulness such that the practitioners of it, in some fashion, can receive a benediction, why wouldn't it be true of other sexual sins?  I.e, can somebody excuse their adultery, or whatever this way?

The answer is of course going to be no, and that excusing sin is not the intent at all, but it will be taken that way.  In the Church of England (Episcopal Church) there's never been an endorsement of divorce or same gender marriage, but the door was cracked open and its not questioned now.

2.  Pope Francis has a habit of citing himself, which is what he's done here.  While not technically improper, and other authors do it, it is a bit confusing and a cite to yourself is not necessarily as convincing as one to another source.

On this comment, the concept that other forms of marriage, when discussed here, are analogous to marriage but cannot "strictly" be called marriages, implies that they can loosely be regarded as marriages.  This is the very sort of thing which causes orthodox Catholic concern.

3. This is undeniably somewhat true, but a really slippery slope.  

And its not completely true.  Denial and rejection of sin would seem to be absolutes.  Of course, that isn't what the Pope means, but rather he means to suggest we need to be careful with the origins of sin, or so that is what he seems to be meaning.

Churches of the West: 2021 Reflections: The Church Edition.

Churches of the West: 2021 Reflections: The Church Edition.: 

2021 Reflections: The Church Edition.

We've posted commentary here from time to time, but what we've never done is to post a commentary of the resolutions/reflections type.

Indeed, it's extremely presumptuous of us to do so.

We're going to take a stab at it anyhow.

First we might note that in this area there's always less going on that those with Überangst would like to believe, and those in the press seem to believe.  That's important to note, and frankly this is true not only of stories involving religion, but stories involving most things.

Having said that, we're going to do that in part as this has been an extraordinary year in almost every way. 

The Coronavirus Pandemic rages on although most of the mask mandates in the United States have stopped.  A debate exists in society on the vaccinations mostly based on some people having erroneous views on the science of the vaccines (they are effective, they are not going to kill you, and they're necessary if we're going to stop this pandemic).  Some people have interjected moral issues into it, however, taking positions valuing personal liberty over collective good, a classic item for philosophical debate, and some taking a position based on the DNA of long ago aborted fetuses in the vaccine, a moral issue.  The United States switched Presidents bringing in a Sunday and Holy Day observing Catholic whose John F. Kennedyesque moral outlook somehow allows him to be a proponent of abortion, and tossing out what would appear to be a nominal Presbyterian serial polygamist who, on the other hand, took policy positions that very much advanced the cause of life.  The country abandoned a two decade old war in Central Asia and left that land in the hands of absolute Islamic fanatics.

And that's just a start.

So we dive in.

We're going to start in an odd place, perhaps, that being. . . Latin.

Immaculate Conception Church, Rapid City South Dakota

This is Immaculate Conception Church (formerly chapel) in downtown Rapid City, South Dakota. This Catholic church is somewhat unique for the region in that it says its masses, one daily and one on Sunday morning, in Latin, using the Tridentine Mass.

The church obviously once had another name, as the corner stone reveals, which appears to have been St. Mary's, but I do not know the history of this particular church.

Latin, we often hear, is a dead language, but its sure not dead in some corners of the Internet.  Indeed, people who track such things inform us that in fact Latin is enjoying a bit of a revival in some ways as the Internet has brought people who like Latin together from far away corners of the universe.

That's one thing, but another is that starting with Pope St. John Paul the Great there was a revival of Latin in the Catholic Mass.

Most people don't track this, of course, but Pope Paul, during the Vatican II era, but not as part of Vatican II, as so often erroneously believed, decided that the Mass needed to be put back in the vernacular.

Did I just say "back"?

Yes, I did.

He did more than that, in fact regarding the Mass.  A new Mass came out, which is the Mass that most Latin Rite Catholics know. And frankly, it was an improvement over the the old Latin Rite Mass that existed at the time.

Indeed, in my view, a large improvement.

Now, starting off with the history of this, the very first Masses in history were said in Aramaic.  Some still are, for those in the Chaldean Rites of the Catholic and Orthodox churches.  Very soon thereafter, they were said in Greek, and some still are, rather obviously.  Indeed, early in the Church's history, the Mass or Devine Liturgy was pretty uniformly said in the local language, whatever that might be.  One of those languages was Latin, as the Church came early to the Rome.

The collapse of the Roman Empire was coincident with a huge expansion of the Latin Rite, which left the Church with a big problem.  There were all sorts of new languages and peoples to deal with, and so the Church kept Latin, a language that came to be spoken by most learned people (it was the language of education for centuries) and which crossed borders and ethnicities.  But by the 20th Century this was rather obviously no longer true.  And at the same time, the need to keep the Mass limited in terms of the parts of the Canon of the Bible it used were no longer there as well. 

So it was time for a New Mass, the Novus Ordo.

This seems simple enough, but something can't be done one way for a very long time and then have everyone accept the change right away, if at all.  And at the same time, the "Spirit of Vatican II", rather than what Vatican II actually decreed, came into the Church in a major way in some places and predictably enough there was a reaction in some quarters.  Indeed, depending upon what the reaction focused on, not all of it was invalid by any means.

This gave rise to a very strong, but quite small, dissention movement that started in France, the SSPX, which determined to continue to use the Tridentine Latin Mass.  Never large, but nonetheless large enough to be a concern, and also on the edge of other radically conservative groups, Pope St. John Paul the Great worked to avoid having them go into full schism.  Ultimately, a compromise developed, which Pope Benedict expanded on, allowing the use of the Latin Tridentine Mass, with a set of guidelines and requirements.

In the meantime, as the original flag bearers of the "Spirit of Vatican II" started to pass away, and as the Internet came in and made self Catechesis relatively easy, conservatism and traditionalism in the Church strongly revived.  Abuses in the Novus Ordo, or as we would now say the "Ordinary" form of the Mass were corrected. Some traditional elements were reinserted.  Translations were fixed where they had been hastily made.

All of which made Catholic "liberals", a now aging but still present group, unhappy.

Indeed, during this period a sharp divide between a minority "liberal" wing of the  Church and the more conservative bulk developed.  Beyond that, however, that began to focus with the development of not only strongly Traditional Catholics, but Radical Traditionalist, or Rad Trads, as they were termed.  Rad Trads came close to having the same views as the now permitted SSPX in various ways.  Over time, they started to reintroduce on a private basis things that had long disappeared, mantillas being an example.

This would be all more or less fine, but then came in Pope Francis.

Pope Francis has been termed a "liberal" or "progressive" Pope by those who don't like him, but its really not true.  He's a South American Pope, and that shows.  He's highly conservative in some ways, and not in others.  On economics and environmental matters, he's upset American traditionalist and even simply orthodox Catholics who sometimes tend to confuse economic conservatism and an opposition to environmentalism, which are largely political matters, with religious ones.  Added to that, American Catholics tend to be ignorant on Catholicisms traditional views in both of these areas, and would be surprised, for example, that the Popes have criticized capitalism on more than one occasion.  

They're not the only ones to get confused, however, as "progressive" Catholics, also confused, ahve figured that they're back in vogue and have run with it whatever they can.  As an example, even though Pope Francis has referred to homosexuality has been influenced by the Demonic, American Catholic liberals are constantly on the edge of their seats expecting the Pople to endorse homosexual coupling. That's not going to happen.

Anyhow, this long-winded introduction is for this reason.  In the last couple of years the disaffected Rad Trads have been edging closer and closer towards schism, while the grump European progressives, principally lead by the German bishops, have done the same.  The Pope, while it seems obvious to neither, is acting to reign them both in.

With Rad Trads, the Tridentine Mass  went from being a beautiful license, to sort of a flag of opposition.  At the same time, individuals who started off  being loyal orthodox Catholics, like Taylor Marshall and Patrick Coffin, have edge up on allegations that Pope Francis is not a valid Pope, with Coffin being so suggestive in that area that its impossible not to basically attribute that claim to him, whether or not he really believes it.  The Pope, having had enough, as determined to pretty much end the license for the Tridentine Mass in Latin.

He can't be blamed.

The Catholic Church is the Universal Church. The old form of the Mass, while beautiful, was poorly understood in modern times by most, and the Ordinary Form is actually more inclusive of the full faith.  And hence our first set of reflections and resolutions

1.  The Mass, more traditional, but not Latin.

It's time to really abandon the Tridentine Mass, but it's not time to bring back 1970s style Guitar Masses either.  The direction we were headed, which reflected the perfection of the Ordinary Form, is one we need to get back to.

That means Rad Trads need to come back in. They have a place, but they can't be pushy about their views either.  You can't make women, for example, who are there in their jeans feel that they're doing something immoral because they aren't wearing a full length skirt and a mantilla.  And the Mass can, and frankly normally should, be in the vernacular, which people actually speak and know.

At the same time, the aging boomer crowed that saw alter rails come out in the 70s and the like needs o stop trying to change fundamentals, and even dogma.  Converting the Catholic Church into a liberal branch of the Episcopal Church won't work for anything.  It sure hasn't worked for the Episcopal Church, which is dying.  Orthodoxy is the future of the Catholic Church because it is the Catholic Church.  Traditional elements should be brought back in where they can sensibly be (where are those alter rails?), and beyond that, a real fundamental needs to be reinforced and accepted, which is:

Just because you have a deep attachment to sin, doesn't make it okay.

That's a hard lesson to learn, but its true.

I can no more put up wall to wall pinups and excuse it by saying that I have a deep attraction to women than those who have a deep attraction to the same gender, in the same way, can claim that "well, I'm born that way". 

We've been warned by St. Paul, and we were always told that we were going to have to carry a Cross.  We were also told that, in most places, in most times, most people aren't going to like us.

That's the way that is, and everyone, from Rad Trads to German Bishops, need to come to that realization.

2.  Stop trying to change dogma and an appreciation of existential nature.

See above, I covered it there.

Still, once again, nobody said being a Christian was going to win you lots of popularity contests.  Not so.

The oddity is, however, that the most observant people are the happiest.  They simply are, and that's for a simple reason. As ultimately, we look towards a home that we don't have, as we lost in the Fall, we're happiest the closer we get to our true natures. 

This is true, I'd note, of everyone in everything.  Vegans ranting on street corners are miserable people as they're living artificial lives.  Men and women living the Sex in the City lifestyle go home miserable and can't find solace in their lives as, at the end of the day, materialism and hedonism isn't our nature.  The freest people are those who have conceded Devine laws and live close to them, no matter what their station in life may be.

3.  Your economics shouldn't be your religion

This is something I've noted before, and while the upper two comments are mostly Catholic ones, this one is universal for all Christians.

I'm constantly amazed by how people confuse their faith with their economic well-being. They aren't the same.  Not even close.

This obviously takes on the "health and wealth" Gospel, but frankly, it isn't Christian.  Christ never promised anyone wealth, or health.  

In modern terms, insisting, as some do, that capitalism is equivalent with Christianity is self delusional and harmful.  Even more harmful is the economic version of the "made that way" line of thinking.  Just as I'm employed as a Widget Maker doesn't mean that Widget Making must therefore be benign because I'm a Christian.

4.  Sound science and Sound Christianity are not incompatible.

This should be obvious, and it's a traditional Catholic view, but if something seems very well established in science the chances of it contradicting Christianity are nill. If there seems to be a conflict, something needs to be looked into.

The best example of this is evolution, of course.  Some Christians are absolutely insistent that evolution can't be true because of Genesis.  Anyone looking into the original Hebrew version of it, however, will come away with the conclusion that it certainly can be.  

Taking extreme positions such as this and making them hills to die are counterproductive.

At the same time, just because we can do it, scientifically, doesn't license it.  There are lots of examples of his, and this too is a very of the "made that way" argument.  I usually here this in the form of "well God gave me common sense and therefore  (fill in personal sin here).  

5. Holding co-religious accountable.

One of the warnings of the New Testament is that people can and do find their own personal gain so predominant that they'll choose it over their faith when difficult decisions come.  Did the rich man go away and give his possessions to the poor?  We don't know.

A current example of this is the example of political power.  It's very clear that Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, among other Catholics, are advocating something the Church regards as a gave evil. We don't know the state of their hearts on abortion, but their willingness to ignore the Church for political position is pretty abundant.

The Church has for too long been willing to turn a blind eye to this.  It's time to stop.

Indeed, here we can take a lesson from the Protestant Churches which have very much turned a blind eye to numerous sins in order to seem to keep themselves relevant.  It hasn't worked for them either.  Here, they need to recover the ground they've lost by going back and reviewing what they did.

As part of this, however, a wider net needs to be cast, in my view.  In one local Parish, there's a politician who has been deep in the lies about the past election being stolen.  Perhaps he really believes it, but there's no reason that the sinfulness of telling lies can't be pointed out.

Here too, I suppose, is a place where lay Catholics have a role.  The Catholic on Sunday, or Christian on Sunday, and "my own views the rest of the week" type of attitude have no place in the life of Christians.  There's no reason to be in people's faces, but when encountered with something like this, there's no reason to simply ignore it by saying nothing either.

6.  Smelling like the sheep

Pope Francis has repeatedly said that the pastor should smell like the sheep.  He's right.

I don't have the same thing in mind that he does by noting this, however.

I'll note that while I fully understand why things everywhere were shut down early in 2020, I wasn't in favor of that in regard to churches.  I've changed my mind and I think that step right.  But closing the door of the Church doesn't mean closing the Church.

Different pastors handled this differently, but there's no reason whatsoever that every single parishioner or congregant in a church, mosque or synagogue, no matter what the faith was, shouldn't have received at least occasional calls of the "how are you doing variety".

Maybe some places they did.  But, at least in so far as I know, that didn't happen here.

I think the reason that it didn't happen here is that the American Catholic Church is used to a strong parishioner base, and the parishioners have, in substantive ways, supported the Church in every fashion. This remains the case.  It doesn't diminish the point, however.  Priests (and pastors, and ministers) should have reached out.  I'm sure some did, but many do not seem to have.  They should have, with "how are you doing (spiritually and physically), do you need anything (spiritually and physically)".

For a long time, I've had that feeling about the clergy in general.  I know that they live a vocation, which most of us do not, and that the demands on their time are monumental, but I fear that they fall prey to the same thing old lawyers do.  We know all lawyers, and a few clients, we talk to lawyers, and that's our lives. That's part of the reason the law becomes disconnected from reality.  

With Priests, in my view (and pastors and ministers), they ought to at least all do something that puts them out in the public, no matter how uncomfortable that may be, and not with the handful of people who go out of the way to be in contact with them.  Go fishing. Go hunting.  Go hiking.  Go to a neighborhood bar.  Take a class on English literature or European history at the community college.  You get the point.

As part of this, and something I thought about making a separate item, any Church has to be both true to its faith and in the world of the parishioners as they really are.  Throughout the pandemic it's been easier to find information on the Bishops' website here on Bishop Hart, who was bishop long ago, and the accusations against him, than what's going on with the Church and COVID 19.  The Church should have been reaching out, as noted above, to its members, rather than putting up news items on a Bishop who served so long ago that most Catholics in the state today have no connection with him whatsoever.

7. Younger, more and more orthodox

I don't have the solution to vocations, but in the modern world what strikes me is that we need to find a way to have younger clergy, more clergy and more orthodox clergy.

If it was me, I'd retire all the Bishops, pretty much, who are older than 50.  Time, technology, and events have moved on.  And I'd look at a way of localizing, once again, religious instruction.  I grasp that this helped give rise to the Reformation, but that was before the Internet, when everything local was much more local.

And while I am very traditional, frankly I think the prohibition on married clergy needs to be reassessed.  We had them early on, and it lingered in many European localities, until the Middle Ages.

It should be obvious to all that sex is part of human nature, and it's a problem.  Sure, it can be denied, just as a varied human diet can be denied.  Everyone can deny it to the extent necessary to live an ordinary and moral life.

But not all Catholics eat a diet that comports with the original Rule of St. Benedict, and they never have.  Periods of fasting are not anywhere near as numerous as they once were, but they were never every day.  The average Parish Priest isn't subject to the Rule of St. Benedict in this fashion either, and if it were imposed clergy wide, I suspect some who have become Priests would have reconsidered as that sort of discipline isn't meant for everyone.

The original purpose of the prohibition on married clergy was to prevent the rise of a Priestly class.  I.e, the Church worried about the sons of Priests becoming Priests, and so on.  This does occur in the Rites that allow for married clergy, but it  hasn't become a problem as the Priests in those Rites aren't closely associated with a ruling class.  In the Anglican Church in England, however, it did become a problem as the clergy was one of the few categories of occupations that noble men could occupy, with the military being another.  This lead to an anemic military officer class and a clergy that wasn't respected.

In the modern West, these problems aren't going to arise.

What did arise, in the mid 20th Century, was the Latin Rite becoming a refuge for homosexual men at a time that homosexuality was despised.  It provided cover for not being married.  Such individuals were always a minority of the clergy, but it lead to problems for a variety of reasons, not the least of them being that not all of those individuals probably truly heard a call.  

In the movie Dr. Zhivago (I don't recall it being in the book) the character Laura is instructed by a Priest that flesh is strong and only marriage can contain it.  Whether Sir David Lean inserted that into the story or not, it's true.  There's a place for vows of abstinence and there always will be, but perhaps the time has come to end it as to diocesan priests.

8. Reunion

I've noted this before, but it's time to end the separation between East and West.

That will take overcoming a lot of pride and a sense that independence needs to be preserved.  But that time has arrived and that should occur.

The Latin Rite of the Church is having a big synod right now.  Personally, I think that the synod is designed to bring in the full voice of the Church in Latin American and Africa, and the result will be a strengthening of the orthodox and diminishment of European and American liberalism.  

One thing I do wish, however, is that this process could somehow include the voice of the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox.  I think it's up to the West to keep inviting them in until they come in.  And at some point, they will.  It's time, in my view, to treat them somewhat like cousins who live across town and who are estranged due to a long over family argument.  If you keep calling and say "well, that was a while back, we're having a gathering on Sunday . . . "

I'd also note that this is the case for some Protestant groups at this point who are really holding out based on tradition.  It'll take a lot for them to get over this, but conservative Anglicans and Lutherans should come back in. There's really no longer any reason for them not to.

9.  Proceeding in ignorance of history.

I concluded that last item by noting an item of Protestant history, but generally, some Protestants, and Protestant culture in general no longer have an excuse for a lot of the bogus historical items they cite and need to knock it off.

Everyone who stays to a Catholic "well what about Galileo" needs to go right back to grade school without passing go as they don't know what they're talking about.  The same for any Protestant stating "well what about the Inquisition".  These are Protestant position that were developed during the Reformation by people who had to justify the positions they were taking and demonize the Catholic Church.  In an era when most people barely read, you could get away with this stuff.  You can't now.

Likewise, ignorance on the origin of the Faith.  Protestants can argue about the nature of their denominations if they wish, but nobody can cite a false history to excuse them.  The works of the Church Fathers are easily accessible at this point.  It's clear that there was one, and only one, Church at least up to the Great Schism.  One, that's it.  After that, that Church was in schism, but it was still one church. There were not multiple Christian denominations until the Reformation. A person can claim, if they can justify it, that their branch of Christianity is the correct one, or a correct one, but they can't claim it to be the original one if they aren't Catholic or Orthodox.

That's obviously a theological problem for Protestants, but it's the case.  Various Protestant denominations which are close to the Apostolic churches have their own answers for it, but when people say this isn't true, they're wrong.  In the modern age, we can't afford to be wrong.

This also stems, I'd note, back to the topic of inserting personal beliefs into your religion.  No matter what a person may wish to believe, Christ drank wine, not grape juice, and the wine served at the Last Supper was just that.  He would have eaten meat too.  When Peter heard "kill and eat", he heard "kill and eat'.  Besides that, he was a fisherman and fishermen kill fish.

10 The Americanized Exotic Faiths.

Taking a radical turn, but also along the same lines of knowing what is what, Americans adopting exotic, usually Asian, religions should know what they really hold.

This may be most evident in the case of Buddhism  American Buddhism isn't very Buddhist.  For example, American Buddhist tend to be self comforted by the thought that Buddhism doesn't have a Hell. . . except that real Buddhism does.

Things like this are one step above the "spiritual but not religious" line that some people put out, which means something completely different.  All humans everywhere have a concept of God, even though there are people who claim they do not  I've heard, for example, a person who claims to be an atheist discuss his encounter with a ghost.  You can't get to ghosts if you don't have life after death, and if you have life after death. . . 

Anyhow, what this really boils down to is that all religions have a structure. There is no unorganized religion, as the concept of the Devine implies order by its very nature.  What people who claim they're spiritual but not religious, or people who claim to dislike organized religion are stating, is they don't like the "rules".  This should suggest to them that the real inquiry is whether the rules, which are in the order, are of Devine or man made law, something that Christ himself discussed in regard to the Pharisees.  An inquiry like that doesn't take you into Buddhism, however, which is tends to be a way for Americans to adopt something with some structure over a structure which actually expects something out of you.

Be that as it may, Americans tend to do these religions disfavors by implying that they basically boil down to "it's nice to be nice to the nice".  Not so, there's a lot more to them than that.

11.  Go to Church, the Synagogue, the Mosque.

Here's a final comment, or resolution.

Whatever faith you are, Protestant Christian, Apostolic Christian, Jew, Muslim, attend.  

Modern life has made people sedentary, and it's working against us in every fashion.  It's also made us isolated in ways that are bad.  People sit alone at home, and then go to work with people who are just like them.  Indeed, the more educated a person is, the more likely that they just work with people who are just like themselves, largely with the same ideas they have.  

No church or faith is that way, to be sure.

Everything about our natures expects more out of us than we're inclined to deliver, if we can avoid it.  Get up, go out, and go.

Churches of the West: BoJo Marries and the Comments Fly.

Churches of the West: BoJo Marries and the Comments Fly.: 

BoJo Marries and the Comments Fly.

A Medieval wedding.

Boris Johnson and his longtime girlfriend, Carrie Symonds (now Johnson) married.

So what, you may ask.  Indeed, dulled by the long 2019-2021 parade of bad news of one kind or another, that was my initial reaction, even though there's an obvious Christian point to this story from the onset, as by marrying, they're no longer shacking up, if you will, even though they certainly haven't been shacking up in quarters that could be compared to a shack.  

Frankly, as an Apostolic Christian, I'd normally have probably made a comment at some point about their living arrangements as its clearly contradictory to the tenants of the Christian faith, and even in Europe this would have been poorly regarded in almost any society up until, well right now.  Now, it pretty much produces a yawn, as do the majority of other serious religious tenants shared by all of the Abrahamic religions on a variety of matters related to sex.  I.e., this conduct is regarded as seriously sinful by all the Christian religions, Judaism and Islam.  In the modern world, it seems, Christians, including some serious ones but also a lot of nominal ones, have decided that most of what the Apostles wrote down was elective in nature and that people pretty much get a vote on what is and what isn't sinful.

More on that here later.

That's not what sparked the news, as soon became apparent.  What did, is that Johnson and Symonds married in a Catholic cathedral in a Catholic ceremony.  For people who like to be shocked, amazed, or scandalized, this was shocking, amazing, and scandalous.  And the press all over the English speaking world reacted with a giant "WHAT? How could this be?"  For example, the New York Time ran this headline:

Why Could Boris Johnson Marry in a Catholic Church?

The Guardian, a British newspaper that has made inroads into this US, ran this bizarre historically dim headline:

Boris Johnson’s outdone Henry VIII in having his third marriage blessed by the Catholic church

Apparently the writers at this British paper are historical dimwits.

The Irish Times, less dim on the topic, ran this one, which was actually interesting and informative.

Boris Johnson baptised Catholic and cannot defect from Church, says canon law

And the Times headline gets to the crux of the matter.

That didn't keep, however, an Irish priest from stating that the wedding made a "mockery" of the Church's laws.

Which it does not.

I don't know much about Johnson personally,  Or indeed, hardly at all.  And among the things I didn't know is that his mother was Catholic and he was baptized by a Catholic priest.  His mother raised him as a Catholic as a child, but when he was in Eaton, he was confirmed (rather late, if we look at North American anyhow) by an Episcopal Bishop.

And that makes him an Episcopalian, right?

Well, that depends.

Carrying the story forward, in the 1980s he married Allegra Mostyn-Owen. The couple divorced in 1993 after six years of marriage.  She's currently married to a man 22 years her junior who is a Muslim, which has lead Johnson to put Mostyn-Owen on a Muslim relations task force.  Reportedly, she's given her husband permission to have more than one wife as she is unlikely to be able to bear children and of course polygamy is a feature of Islam, although that would not be legal anywhere in Europe, in so far as I know. ^[1]. 

His second wife was Mariana Wheeler, a childhood friend of Johnson's.  They married twelve days after his first divorce and she was pregnant at the time.  Their marriage lasted seven years.

So, eeh gads, surely this is contrary to Catholic teaching, right?  I.e., his current marriage to Symonds, age 33 (Johnson is 56), just can't happen, right?

To read the press, you'd think so.  I've read everything, however, from this can't happen as Catholics don't allow divorce to this could only happen as Catholics don't recognize the marriages of other faiths.  

That doesn't grasp the interesting religious angle, however, of this at all.

In reality, all of the Apostolic faiths, as well as some of the Christian faiths that are close to the Apostolic faiths and regard themselves as Apostolic, take Christs' injunction against divorce seriously, although they don't all approach it exactly the same way.  Interestingly, and completely missed in all of this, the Church of England doesn't recognize divorce.  The mother church of the Anglican Communion, that is, regards it as invalid, just as Catholicism does, which isn't surprising as High Church Anglicans regard themselves as a type of Catholic, even if the Catholic Church completely rejects that assertion as "completely null and utterly void".

We'll get to more of that in a minute, but perhaps the most peculiar of the approaches to divorce is the Orthodox one.  The Orthodox allow more than one marriage under a vague application of a mercy principal that tolerates, in some cases, up to three marriages.  It's tempting to compare this to the Catholic concept of annulment, and indeed it is somewhat comparable, but lacking in the formality.  The basic approach, however, is that the Orthodox only recognize one valid marriage, but accept that human nature is frail and people goof up, so it applies some leeway essentially as it generally feels that the problem of sex in human nature makes it difficult not to.  I'm not Orthodox, so I could be off on this by quite some margin.

The Catholic Church doesn't recognize divorce at all.  It does apply the principal of annulments where it judges that one of the original marrying parties lacked something to make that marriage valid.  I don't' know what percentage of people who go through the annulment process obtain one, but frankly it seems rather shockingly high, which as been a long criticism of it, and a valid one in my view.  Outside of that, however, Catholics hold that once you are married, its until death.  No exceptions, save for the one noted, which would hold that the first marriage wasn't valid, and therefore wasn't really a marriage.

So how on Earth could Johnson and Symonds marry in a Catholic cathedral?

Well that leads to messy press analysis.

The Irish Times, not surprisingly, had it best. 

Contrary to what some of the press elsewhere would have it, the Catholic church fully recognizes the marriages of non Catholics, and for that matter, non Christians.  If two Muslims marry, the Catholic Church regards them as married.  Married and can't divorce is how the Catholic Church would regard it, irrespective of how Muslims may view it.

And also contrary to what some of the press is claiming, the Church also recognizes the marriages of people who are two different faith, or no faith at all.  Go down to the Courthouse and have the judge marry you, in other words, and you are married.  

So what's the deal here?

That's where you get into Canon Law.

Originally the overwhelming majority of Christians, all of whom were Catholic, married outside of a Church ceremony.  Indeed, it was extremely informal.  People just decided they were to marry, and they were.  No wedding ceremony at all.  

That first began to change with monarchs, as their marriages were also effectively treaties between nations, and they wanted it to be really clear and official in every respect possible.   But also, during the Middle Ages, things began to change with regular people as the need for marriage witnesses arose. This was principally because one member of the couple would claim they were never married, usually the man, leaving he other, usually the woman, in a very bad position.

Indeed, even with very early Christian monarchs you can see this at work.  Some early Saxon and English kings, for example, had queens who were subject to this.  Hardecanute is a famous one who married with King of England, but who had a Scandinavian queen before and during that period. What was she?  Harold Godwinson, the last Saxon king of England, had a Saxon queen who was "married in the old style" and a Welsh queen to whom he was more formally married. When  he died at Hastings, it was apparently the Saxon queen, still around, that identified his body.

This presents a series of obvious problems and the Church therefore worked to clear it up, imposing the Canon law that Christians had to be married by a priest.  This served a number of purposes, one of which was that the wedding was therefore witnesses and couldn't be simply excused away.

It would be tempting to think that the current situation came about immediately upon the Reformation, but that would be in error.  Indeed, it's important to keep in mind that at the parish level, while the fact that the Church was in turmoil was obvious, the severance wasn't necessarily immediately apparent in the pews.  All of the original Lutheran priests, for example, had been ordained Catholic priests.  No Bishops followed Luther into rebellion in what is now Germany, so there was no way to ordain valid new priests in the eyes of the Catholic Church there, but in Scandinavia things muddled on in an unclear fashion for some time and the Scandinavian Bishops did follow their monarchs into a series of murky positions.

In England, the situation in the pews was also unclear. All of the original Anglican priests had been Catholic priests and most, but not all, of the Bishops followed Henry VIII into schism.  Eddward VI took the country as far from the Catholic folds as he could, but then Queen Mary brought the country back into the Church, although without completely success.  Then Elizabeth struck a middle ground, most likely for political reasons more than anything else.  As late as the Prayer Book Rebellion, 1549, Catholicism was still so strongly rooted in the minds of average Englishmen that they revolted over the introduction of the Book of Common Prayer which the conceived of as too Protestant.

The point of this isn't to introduce a treatise on the history of religion in England, but rather to note that for average people this must have been distressing, but if they were going to get married, they still went to the same place, the Church, and the presiding cleric presided over it.  This is important to our story here as, at least in England, in spite of an outright war by the Crown against Catholicism, the Church did not prohibit Catholics from marrying in a ceremony presided over by an Anglican priest and no dispensation was required for a "disparity of cult".

Indeed, it's widely believed that as late as 1785 the man who would reign as King George IV married Maria Fitzherbert, a Catholic.  The marriage remains really murky in terms of details, as it was conducted in secret, and was arguably invalid because George IV had not obtained permission from George III, which was a legal requirement.  The marriage did not, however, require Fitzherbert to obtain permission from the Catholic Church and its believed it was conducted by an Anglian priest.  Interestingly, while George IV would later deny that the marriage was valid, and their relationship was rocky, it never completely ceased altogether and he asked to be buried with a locket containing her image.  George IV was officially married to his cousin Caroline of Brunswick in what was pretty clearly both an arranged and unhappy marriage that he did wish to terminate.  He died first.

So when, exactly, the current canon came in requiring permission for a marriage outside of a Catholic officiation, I frankly don't know.  It may not have occurred everywhere at the same time, for that matter.  Having said that, it seems to have been first mentioned as a Church law, and therefore a legal requirement binding Catholics, in 1563, so the example given above is problematic.

Note, however, that it binds Catholics.  Not other people, and the Church has never stated otherwise.  

Additionally, it binds Catholics as its a law of the Church.  In order for a Catholic to have a valid marriage, it must be presided over by a Catholic priest or there must be some dispensation.  If that doesn't occur it isn't valid, as to Catholics.

And that's what we have here.  It's not change in the law of the Church in any fashion. Boris Johnson was baptized as a Catholic and so he is a Catholic, the way that Catholics understand that.  Carrie Symonds is also a Catholic, and indeed, press comments about her routinely refer to her as a "practicing Catholic".  Her status in that regard is problematic as she and Johnson have been shacked up, which is contrary to Catholic moral law in a major way, but with their marriage, and presumably with a Confession that preceded it, that's no longer an issue of any kind.  And Symonds' views would otherwise be evident in that she had their son, born out of wedlock (see issue above again), baptized in the Catholic faith.

So, why al the fussing?

Well, for the most part at least knowledgeable Catholics aren't fussing.  Not everyone likes Johnson politically, but Catholics pretty much take a "welcome home" view towards this sort of thing.  So, the past is what its, and Boris is back. All is fine, religion wise.

Of course, some Catholics who don't know the doctrines of their own church, or who simply want to have a fit, are. But its' a pretty misplaced one.

Non Catholics can have a fit if they're predisposed to, as they don't understand the Church's law and they are often surprised to find that the Church retains its original position that as it is the original Church, which is indisputable, all others lack in some fashion. ^[2].  So this serves to remind people that the Anglican Church and the Catholic Church have a lot of similarities, but no matter what the Anglican Communion may maintain, the Catholic Church doesn't regard it as Catholic.  Of course, not all Anglicans wish to be regarded as Catholics, but some of them are offended as the fact that the Catholic Church isn't according them equivalency with the Catholicism is offensive to them.

More than that, however, a long held cultural anti Catholicism that came in with the reformation is still pretty strong in certain Protestant regions of Europe in spite of the decline of their Protestant established churches.   This is very evident in England, and is very strong in Scandinavia.  It's somewhat ironic in various ways, not the least of which is that these regions have become highly secularized and as that has occurred, the Church that has remained strong has been the minority Catholic Church, which has not only survived its long Reformation winter, but which has gained new adherents.

Does this mean that Johnson has fully returned to the Catholic fold and will be at Mass next Sunday?  Well, Catholics should hope so, and frankly so should Protestants as well. And there is some evidence that Johnson, who has lived a fairly libertine life, may in fact be taking his Christianity more seriously than he did in earlier days.  His recent address regarding the Pandemic specifically referenced Christ and his mercy, something that very few politicians would generally do, and European ones even less.

So, while people can have fits if they want to, all in all, they shouldn't.  Indeed, no matter what a person thinks of Johnson one way or another, there's reason to be happy about this development, and not just in being happy for the apparently happy couple if a person is inclined to be such.

Footnotes

1.  Having said that, I don't know if polygamy is legal in Turkey, which is obviously a Muslim majority nation, and which is in Europe, depending upon how you draw the continental lines.  Turkey has become increasingly Islamic under its current leadership but had years of aggressive secularism, so the status of Muslim polygamist marriages isn't a given, and I don't know the answer as to its status there.

2. The various Orthodox Churches also stretch back to Apostolic origins, which is why the Catholic and Orthodox Churches regard each others sacraments as valid, and also regard their separation as schismatic, depending upon which you are in, rather than an outright rebellion and departure as was the case with the Protestant Churches.

Churches of the West: Minor Irritants

Churches of the West: Minor Irritants: My home Parish, 1958.  This was before I was born.  It was also before the architectural insult of removing the alter rails occurred in t...

Churches of the West: St. Josephs Old Cathedral, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Churches of the West: St. Josephs Old Cathedral, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma...:  

 

This is St. Joseph's Old Cathedral in Oklahoma City, a Catholic parish church at the present time, having gone to parish status in 1931 after a new cathedral was built.  The church was built in 1905.  Like the First Church, a block away, it was heavily damaged in the Murrah Federal Office bombing.