-by Jacob Lupfer, a Methodist who admires the Catholic Church.

“Most people following this month’s Synod of Bishops on the Family in Rome are aware that the specter of allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion is the most controversial and difficult issue among many controversial issues being discussed.

I have followed reports from the Synod closely and have been very interested in Catholic perspectives on divorce, remarriage, and the sacraments. As a divorced and remarried person with an abiding respect for Catholicism, I suppose I am more interested than most. Few Protestants believe that remarried persons are unworthy to receive Communion. Many Protestants are wondering, “What’s the big deal?” A few have asked for help in understanding the debate. I hope to helpfully to offer some explanation here.

The puzzled Protestant must first consider Catholic teaching on marriage. For one thing, marriage is a sacrament (one of seven, whereas Protestants have only two – baptism and the Lord’s Supper). As an efficacious sign of grace, a man and a woman, after giving consent, mutually confer the sacrament upon one another in the presence of the Church. It is not the work of a priest or a church or a civil magistrate. And, following words attributed to Jesus himself, marriage is indissoluble: “What God hath joined together let no man put asunder.”

The next difference concerns divorce. Protestants typically assume that if a court grants a divorce, then the marriage no longer exists. In Catholicism, civil divorce is a mostly meaningless distinction. Church tribunals can grant annulments, which decree that the marriage was invalid. In recent generations, especially in territories like the U.S. where courts came to easily grant divorces, the standards for receiving an annulment have liberalized. (Though fewer U.S. Catholics are marrying, marrying in the Church, and seeking annulments.) Without an annulment, the Church considers the couple married as long as both spouses are still living. No action of a civil court can change that reality.

Georgetown’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate has complied some helpful data on marriage, divorce, and annulments.

Here is where it becomes complicated regarding Communion. A civilly remarried Catholic is, in the eyes of the Church, living in adulterous relationship. Every sex act with the new spouse is considered a mortal sin. Whereas Protestants came to accept subsequent marriages and stepfamilies without much trouble, the Catholic Church considers these situations “irregular” and maintains that without an annulment, the initial marriage remains intact. A civilly remarried Catholic could receive Communion if s/he is celibate. In Protestant churches, it would be virtually inconceivable for a pastor to confront remarried people about receiving Communion. But this gets to two more differences: fitness for receiving Communion and the nature of Communion itself.

In the United Methodist Church of my childhood, the minister invited everyone to the Lord’s Table, saying, “Ye that do truly and earnestly repent of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbors, and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God, and walking from henceforth in his holy ways: Draw near with faith and take this holy sacrament to your comfort.” Over time, the language of intentionality was shortened and arguably watered down a bit. The most frequently used UMC Communion ritual now says, “Christ our Lord invites to his table all who love him, who earnestly repent of their sin and seek to live in peace with one another…” Regardless of denomination, the invitation is relatively simple for Protestants: If you repent, you are welcome to partake. In true Protestant fashion, you are competent to determine for yourself your fitness to receive the sacrament. You and God know your heart. No priest or catechism is necessary to assist in that determination!

Not so in Catholicism. You cannot say, “Well, I am in good conscience, being happily and faithfully remarried.” Furthermore, if you receive Communion in a state of grave sin, you commit another grave sin.

A final significant difference between Protestants and Catholics on this question concerns the nature of Communion itself. Most Protestants suppose that the major Christian debates about Communion concern the frequency with which it is celebrated and the mode by which it is received. But this obscures a greater, more fundamental difference. For Protestants, Communion is a community meal, a moment of personal devotion, and a remembrance of Jesus himself. For Catholics, it is Jesus himself. Christians differ about how exactly Christ is present in the bread and wine. Liturgical Protestants hold that Communion is more than a remembrance. But for Catholics, through transsubstiantation, the elements become the actual body and blood of Christ.

With an arguably “higher” view of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, Catholics take more seriously the idea that communicants must receive Him worthily. For the civilly remarried Catholic, this is apparently impossible without changes in Church doctrine.

In convening the Synod of Bishops, Pope Francis deliberately sought a diversity of views. Some theologians, most prominently Cardinal Walter Kasper, have argued that civilly remarried Catholics be allowed to receive Communion. The most vocal opponents have been Cardinal George Pell and Cardinal Raymond Burke. Their Eminences have engaged in a spirited and sometimes pointed public debate. Based on reports of the Synod’s first week, there seems to be an openness to pastoral innovation, but there is no sign that bishops want the Church to abandon its belief in the indissolubility of marriage.

Unsurprisingly, many lay Catholics have also weighed in on the question. Since Protestants will instinctively be sympathetic to the view that remarried people should be permitted to receive Communion, I will highlight two traditionalists. New York Times columnist Ross Douthat has a characteristically thoughtful blog post that includes links to his other writings on this and related issues. In a provocative column, civilly remarried laywoman Louise Mensch states: “I am a divorced Catholic. And I’m sure it would be a mortal sin for me to take Communion.” Her perspective gives expression to the Church’s sense that Catholics in irregular relationships should attend Mass and remain part of parish communities even though they cannot receive Communion.

Protestants who wish to understand why it’s a big deal for Catholics to even debate the idea that remarried people can receive Communion, must bear in mind these vital differences:

• Marriage as a sacrament vs. ‘merely’ a God-ordained union
• Sacramental marriage vs. civil marriage
• Annulments vs. divorce
• Clerical/Church determination vs. individual determination of worthiness to receive Communion
• “Real presence” as real presence vs. “Real presence” as holy mystery or ‘mere’ remembrance

Regardless of your position, Protestants should take note of the Synod’s consideration of how the Church can nurture marriage and family life. The challenges the pope hopes to address are not uniquely Catholic problems.”

Love,
Matthew

Whither Freedom of Religion? So highly exalted while “proclaiming Liberty throughout the land”?

United States Constitution

Amendment I

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

-by R. R. Reno

“I’m sympathetic to Kim Davis, the county clerk in Kentucky who has stopped signing marriage licenses. In her position, I’d do the same.

Her decision was straightforward, it seems. After Obergefell, the Supreme Court decision mandating a national right to same-sex marriage, Davis decided that she could not affix her signature to documents perpetuating the falsehood that husbands can have husbands and wives have wives. To do so would be to act in a way contrary to her conscience as formed by her Christian faith. With admirable consistency, she decided to stop signing marriage licenses altogether, not wanting to discriminate against gay couples.

One can judge Davis mistaken about the dictates of her conscience. Perhaps she is wrong about what Christianity teaches about marriage, as many liberal Christians argue. Perhaps she is mistaken about the implications of signing a marriage license. There might be a clever Jesuit who can convince us that her signature on same-sex marriage licenses should not have troubled her conscience.

One angle for the casuist: When the Supreme Court issued its decree, American civil law ceased to define marriage and instead became a law of civil unions, with the word “marriage” now having no real meaning. With that sort of reasoning, I might be able to wiggle my way toward signing licenses that say “marriage” but really mean “civil union.”

Whatever we might think of the moral or legal substance of the matter, however, we cannot claim Davis has misunderstood her situation. One of her duties as county clerk now asks Davis to do what her conscience tells her she must not do. The way forward is clear: She must obey her conscience. She must act, as she puts it, “under God’s authority.” That’s exactly right.

Many modern people have the wrong impression that conscience is active, impelling us to do things contrary to the law. This is not the tenor of Davis’ stance in Morehead, Kentucky. She is not issuing counter-opinions to refute Obergefell. Nor is she campaigning to get other county clerks to join her. There have been no press releases, no assertive shrill spirit of protest on her part. That’s the progressive mentality, which tries to upgrade its political ambitions with appeals to conscience. Instead, Davis simply won’t do what her conscience tells her she cannot do. She’s not acting contrary to the law; she’s not acting at all.

Some might say that her refusal to sign marriage licenses disqualifies her from holding her position as county clerk. She should resign or be removed. People are certainly entitled to that opinion. But Davis does not think she must resign. The county clerks in Kentucky are elected, so she can’t be fired. She could be impeached, but that’s for the legislators of the State of Kentucky to decide. And the citizens of Rowan County can vote against her in the next election. Conscience, properly exercised in civil disobedience that otherwise respects the law, isn’t always easy to dislodge.

I can imagine some harrumphing about the notion that Davis respects the law. After all, isn’t she refusing to act in accord with it?! I find this worry rather rich when expressed by progressives. For decades, elite colleges and universities run by progressives have made arrangements with local police that allow students to use drugs and drink while underage, free from the worry of arrest. These sorts of special arrangements, which are widespread in elite institutions, are not criticized for the obvious ways in which they undermine the rule of law.

Under the circumstances, Kim Davis poses little threat to the rule of law. Her actions have done nothing to prevent gay couples from getting marriage licenses throughout Kentucky. The couples that present themselves for her signature can easily go to the next county, as I’m sure heterosexual couples in Rowan County have done over the last two months. She’s not making grand public statements about a supposed right to dissent. She’s done nothing in the way of organizing resistance to Obergefell. No counter-revolution.

So why the furor? Because her refusal poses a symbolic threat to “marriage equality” and its claim to realize the high ideals of justice. One word of dissent, one act of conscience, disturbs the serene confidence of progressives that they have a monopoly on all that is right and good.

Neither you nor I nor Kim Davis have a “right” to follow our consciences. (Ed. as those red-faced, shouting, infuriated by her conscientious refusal insist she comply immediately in serving them have apparently, all this time?  Of all people that should be more sympathetic to Ms. Davis and her motives?  Whether or not they share the same motives?  Who have, of late, imitated her method?  How quickly memory fades in the shadow of self-interest.)  That’s silly. Our consciences do not wait upon the niceties of rights. I would not protest if higher authorities decided to remove Davis from her position. The law has a proper claim on public life, even if it does not have a final authority over our consciences.

Our legal and political system has no final authority over us, because there is a higher one. At times, one ought not to do what one is told to do. Kim Davis finds herself in just that sort of situation. Good for her. She’s doing something noble: quietly following the dictates of her conscience.”

Love,
Matthew

There are different types of “unions”, apparently, to varying permanence, apparently, with different meanings, apparently.

-by Marc Barnes

“The indissolubility of marriage is not natural. I could not agree more with Dan Savage when, in the great American tradition of offering unsolicited advice, he told heterosexuals that this till-death-do-us-apart stuff is an impossible expectation. Indissolubility, by his view, cannot be a norm. Perpetuity can only be a preference. If we could “acknowledge the drawbacks of monogamy around boredom, despair, lack of variety, sexual death and being taken for granted,” instead of mindlessly pumping a deflated, Disney-born mystique of forever-and-ever, we’d be closer to an honest and natural marriage contract.

“Inseparability,” which makes Savage grimace so, does not belong to marriage considered as a civil institution — state-permitted divorce and remarriage assure us of the fact. “Inseparability” does not even belong to marriage as a natural institution. Aquinas argues that “‘offspring’ and ‘fidelity’ pertain to matrimony as directed to an office of human nature” (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 49, a. 3) but not indissolubility, and this seems to hold — if a man divorces his wife, remarries, and begins a new family, nothing in the order of nature could argue that he is still husband to his first wife.

The bizarre promise of “forever” made by two beings who have no assurance of “forever” could only have been instituted by an equally bizarre faith. It was neither nature, nor the State, nor even the Old Law of the Jewish people that so radically defined marriage. Typically, it was Jesus. He argued that soluble marriage was a human tradition, “traditional marriage” at its finest, and that under His New Law the following divine ordinance applied: “What God has joined let no man tear asunder” (Mark 10:9).

Augustine follows this up, arguing for the inherently sacramental, God-given character of indissolubility: “In the sacrament it is provided that the marriage bond should not be broken, and that a husband and wife, if separated, should not be joined to another even for the sake of offspring.” And Aquinas again:

“Inseparability, which is denoted by “sacrament,” regards the very sacrament considered in itself, since from the very fact that by the marriage compact man and wife give to one another power the one over the other in perpetuity, it follows that they cannot be put asunder. Hence there is no matrimony without inseparability, whereas there is matrimony without “faith” and “offspring,” because the existence of a thing does not depend on its use; and in this sense “sacrament” is more essential to matrimony than “faith” and “offspring” (q. 49, a. 3).

It is easy to miss the revolution slipped into the thomistic shuffle. The condition of inseparability in marriage comes from the divinely instituted nature of the thing, and it is this condition which, in a certain sense, is most essential to marriage. One can be married without children, one can even be married and unfaithful, but one cannot be married and separable. Thus “inseparability, which pertains to sacrament, is placed in the definition of marriage, while offspring and faith are not. Therefore among the other goods sacrament is the most essential to matrimony” (49, a. 3).

Maybe it’s his Catholic upbringing shining through the sex-column cliches, but Savage is absolutely correct — indissolubility is far from natural. It is supernatural. The sacrament of Holy Matrimony is a radical shift in the tradition of marriage that cannot be defended on purely human terms. If we think we can treat marriage as a purely civil and social institution and retain what is essentially sacramental, attempting to magic up from the order of nature what is born in the order of grace, we’ll end up disappointed with just how difficult “forever” really is.

Now there is something wonderful here, and it confuses the issue. When Christ said “what God has joined let no man tear asunder,” he said it in the context of restoring an original institution, arguing against a culture of divorce and remarriage that “in the beginning it was not so.” Thus, in a certain sense, we can say that indissolubility belongs to marriage by nature, insofar as it was, prior to the Fall of Man, the “natural” state of marriage. It is true what Pope Paul VI says, that “although the sacramental element may be absent from a marriage as is the case among unbelievers, still in such a marriage, inasmuch as it is a true marriage there must remain and indeed there does remain that perpetual bond which by divine right is so bound up with matrimony from its first institution that it is not subject to any civil power” (Casti Connubi, 34). But it seems to me that the fact that indissolubility belongs to unbelieving, non-sacramental marriages, far from arguing that indissolubility is of nature or of law, argues that unbelievers, in some way, partake in the order of grace. “From God comes the very institution of marriage, the ends for which it was instituted, the laws that govern it, the blessings that flow from it” (Casti Connubi, 9), and if our marriage is indissoluble, and we retain the character of ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ even if we divorce and remarry, even if we claim by law and nature to have shuffled them off, it is because we have entered an institution that neither civil laws nor nature can dissolve, whether we meant to enter into marriage as a “divine institution” or not.

The married Catholic is unique because he has the capacity to know that what he does is not of man, but of God, and that in his marriage what is natural is perfected by what is divine. I say he has the capacity, because American Catholics tend to have a lame notion of Holy Matrimony as a kind of “Catholic version” of marriage, as if we replace judges for priests, drink more at the reception and voila, the sacrament! But our own tradition, which no one reads, makes it clear that the sacrament, while it does “add on” to what we might call “natural marriage,” is an addition that transforms and perfects what it is added to. The difference the sacrament makes is simple, but it only becomes clear to the Christian: Man and woman become more than themselves — they become signs of Christ’s marriage to his Church. To marry is to have one’s earthly fidelity and fecundity shot through by divine mysteries like rising sun through stained-glass, revealing to oneself and to the world the colors, contours, and splendor of Christ’s love for mankind. It is for this reason that the sacrament adds the terrifying condition of inseparability to marriage — Christ does not love us conditionally, or for a time, but forever. So with what foolishness we consider Holy Matrimony “basically the same” as marriage considered as a civil or natural institution! Holy Matrimony is different, and it’s high time we investigated the difference such a sacrament makes.

Love,
Matthew

“Whatever marriage is said to be contracted, either it is so contracted that it really is a true marriage, in which case it carries with it that enduring bond which by divine right is inherent in every true marriage; or it is thought to be contracted without that perpetual bond, and in that case there is no marriage, but an illicit union opposed of its very nature to the divine law, which therefore cannot be entered into or maintained.” (Pius XI, quoting Pius VI, Casti Connubii, 34)

-by Marc Barnes

“The intention of perpetuity, or no marriage at all. Cold, Pope. Real cold.

But what it means is that, insofar as it is the law of the State to allow divorce, remarriage and pre-nuptial agreements, a civil marriage is no marriage at all. If a couple were to take as their inward intention what the State takes as a possibility — that their marriage could be dissolved, children split between them, and provisions made for this event prior to the marriage itself — then they would not, in the eyes of the Church, be married. They would enjoy the pleasures of an illicit union.

I am not arguing, of course, that the majority or even any non-sacramental marriages are illicit unions. I am arguing that, from the Catholic point of view, a couple is required to spiritually reject the very constitution of a civil marriage, to “fill it up” in their intention what is lacking in its legal structure — by committing to stay together. A State marriage is only a marriage if it is, in intention, anarchic; a rebellion against the dismal, defeatist proposition offered by the State, which, devoid of grace, can only ever plan for the worst in man — the inevitable boredom of his marriage and the dissolution of his promises.

If this is true, then the idea of “protecting State marriage” or “preserving the civil institution of marriage” against being altered in its very meaning by an alteration of definition from husband and wife to a sex-blind affair — it seems paltry. Marriage is already, prior to any concerns over the manner in which the sexes constitute its essence, a rebellion against the State. To “save civil marriage” by maintaining it as “one man, one woman” would be to save an institution that the Christian, and indeed, every human looking to make one life out of two people, is called to reject. Any civil marriage, entered into as such, is an illicit union, no matter how stupendously straight or gloriously gay a couple has the pleasure of being.

This, on its own, should be sufficient to call into question the unfortunate position that Catholics, myself included, often take — that of the guardians of traditional marriage. Far from preserving and guarding an institution of the State, the role of the Catholic is to reject the State, question its foundations, and introduce something entirely new — entirely nontraditional. Indeed, it was precisely in rebellion against the human tradition of divorce and remarriage that that Rabbi, Jesus, said: “What God has joined, let no man tear asunder,” and everywhere Christianity spread, it struggled to break the tradition of polygamy, religious prostitution, divorce and remarriage. Christianity, as we will see, murders the all-too-human tradition of solubility with the frightening call to indissolubility.

Of course, one might argue that in preserving marriage as an institution of husband and wife is the preservation of natural law rather than civil law, but it is doubtful to me whether the violation of natural law is best corrected by the State, or, to say it positively, that “things acting in accord with their nature” is a goal achievable through the State — especially when our State codifies all manners of distortions of the nature of marriage long before any discussion of gay marriage. But we’ll get there: To start, I only want to disrupt the Good Traditional Marriage vs. Bad Gay Marriage narrative, to aim towards the possibility of a creative, fruitful separation of civil and sacramental marriage, or rather, towards the acknowledgment that the Catholic and his State haven’t meant the same thing by the word “marriage” for quite some time. There’s some fresh air in this for the Catholic with the lungs for it. In a worldly city gone soggy with the separation of word from meaning, it is good to remember, in a desert-father fueled spirit of repudiation, that we do not do as the world does.”

2 Cor 4:4

Love,
Matthew