Church

What we talk about when we talk about the Pope

David Mills, at Ethika Politika, writes “The Bitter Sons Speak,” a piece criticizing some the Holy Father’s critics. His point?

Francis can be criticized and criticized strongly. The critics I’m talking about distinguish themselves from other critics by reading Francis as unscrupulous prosecuting attorneys, who care only to get the conviction and the maximum sentence. They say nothing in his favor, unless they say it as the beginning of a sentence that ends in a sharp criticism.

Words they would have quickly posted on Facebook had Benedict said them they leave unreported, because those words would disturb their narrative about Francis. This is true of some of the more moderate critics, who protest their loyalty to the pope. The “presence of an absence” suggests what they really feel.

Nothing he can do, short of saying what they would say were they him, will change their minds. I was wrong to hope that they might grow out of it.

(Emphasis supplied and hyperlink omitted.) For our part, we think that some of the Holy Father’s critics do go far too far. Asserting that the Pope is a Peronist economic dilettante bent on the destruction of the capitalist West goes too far. (For one thing, such an argument assumes that the capitalist West, which has taken every available opportunity to toss Christ and His Church out of public life and replace them with disordered individualism, is good in and of itself. A highly debatable proposition at best and flatly false at worst.) Likewise, there are some commentators who are, probably, inflexibly opposed to the Holy Father, or at least inflexibly reflexively suspicious of him. This is all true, and we have not found such commentary to be always spiritually improving. Or even merely spiritually non-harmful.

We have written here previously that it is pretty obvious that the Holy Father does not especially like traditionally minded Catholics. If his public statements are to be credited, it seems to us that he seems them as rule-quoting scolds who do not always (often?) mean well. Father John Hunwicke has wondered whether this is simply the Holy Father inviting traditionally minded Catholics to a rough-and-tumble debate, where, after some stringent language, everyone goes out together afterward for cocktails and laughs, or whether the Holy Father is putting everyone on notice. Perhaps that explains it. However it is clear that people speculate on why the Holy Father expresses himself this way. Likewise, instead of criticizing these critics as “bitter sons,” Mills ought to ask why they feel the need to express themselves this way.

We think there are fundamentally three reasons:

  • One, the internet breeds flamboyant, hyperbolic expression. This is so obvious as to require no further comment.
  • Two, in any small, ideological community—and traditional Catholicism is at least that—there is an impulse to make ever more hyperbolic declarations of orthodoxy, either to be heard among people who all think more or less the same way or to fit in with the group. Call it a positive feedback loop.
  • Three, people are really scared right now.

Mills goes on to say,

The critics don’t speak as disappointed or worried sons. They don’t read the pope with deference and humility, as an adult son listening to his father. My own father rarely gave advice, but when he did, I listened to him carefully. I stifled my desire to object or contradict and even when after much thought I still disagreed, I tried to find ways in which he was right, because he was a wise man who loved me. He was not infallible, but as I look back now, he was right more often than I saw then.

Even Francis’ bitterest critics should speak of him the way one speaks of a father when one has to be publicly critical, which is far less often than his critics think: To say what you have to say but not more, and certainly not bitterly, and to say the hardest things in a way to protect his good name. What you say of him you say of yourself and your family and for that family’s good name you are jealous. That is especially true when that family is the Church, into which you want others to enter.

(Emphasis supplied and hyperlink omitted.) Fair enough, for people motivated by the distorted sense of liberty that the internet provides and for people who are simply proving that there is no more more traditional than they this side of Cardinal Ottaviani. But not so fair for people who are genuinely worried—genuinely afraid—of what they see in the Church today. Maybe some of those fears are unreasonable, though it is fairly clear that Francis personally likes the Kasper proposal, whether or not he feels free to implement its strongest form, but that’s a different conversation than the one Mills is having.

And as long as we are lecturing the critics of the Holy Father for their lack of charity, perhaps we should also be charitable toward the critics.

The spy who prayed for me

We were pleased to see Andrea Tornielli connect the dots at Vatican Insider. Just as we predicted Chaouqui and Vallejo are probably going to advance the narrative that they are helping Francis implement “real” reforms:

The two individuals responsible for leaking the documents, claim they acted in order “to help the Pope”, to “win the war” against cliques that opposed change and transparency. But Francis can’t have been overjoyed by their generous help, given that he gave his personal approval for the arrests of this odd couple, whose involvement in the whole affair did not surprise many in the Vatican.

(Emphasis in original.) But Tornielli has a long passage that draws all the threads together. We’ll quote it in full:

There are two dates that point to the origin of this last ditch effort linked to the old Vatileaks scandal. Even back then, in a series of anonymous newspaper interviews, Francesca Chaouqui backed the “poison pen letter writers”, corroborating the importance of the letters leaked by the former Pope’s butler.

The first is 18 July 2013. Francis published a motu proprio for the establishment of the commission on economic and administrative problems of the Holy See (COSEA): Vallejo was appointed secretary and to the surprise of the team in charge of screening accounts and management problems in Vatican offices and dicasteries, Chaouqui was also nominated thanks to her friend, the monsignor. Her appointment was immediately seen as too convenient: the young woman wrote a series of insolent tweets against Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone and former minister Tremonti (she would later deny having written hem, claiming hackers had got into her account, only to then delete them after they had been online for months). She made no attempt to keep her links with gossip website Dagospia a secret and made completely unfounded conjectures about Benedict XVI allegedly having “leukaemia”. In an interview published on the online version of Italian news magazine L’Espresso, she announced she had access to “confidential” Vatican “papers” and that she was a good friend of Nuzzi’s. But controversies soon died down and due to the nature of her role, Chaouqui was able to freely come and go from Saint Martha’s House.

The second date is 3 March 2014. On this day, having established the Secretariat for the Economy and nominated Australian cardinal George Pell as the new Prefect, Francis announced the name of the dicastery’s number two man. Instead of appointing Vallejo Balda, as Pell had requested and believed to be certain, right up until the last moment, the Pope surprised everyone by choosing Alfred Xuereb. This came as a big blow to the Vallejo-Chaouqui duo. The Spanish prelate was convinced the position was in the bag. He had even imprudently confirmed it on a Spanish radio programme. No appointments for “commissioner” Francesca Immacolata either: while five COSEA members took up their positions in a new Vatican body, the Council for the Economy, she was left empty-handed. From this moment on, the PR woman and her tunic-clad talent scout felt they were “at war” and identified Pell as their great enemy. The friction between the Secretariat for the Economy, the Secretariat of State and the other dicasteries of the Holy See was no figment of the imagination. Francis himself intervened on a number of occasions to cut back certain powers and clearly outline duties. But for this odd couple “at war”, this was not enough.

(Emphasis in original.) As we supposed, the narrative is going to be that Chaouqui and Vallejo, honked off at being frozen out of Cardinal Pell’s Secretariat for the Economy and Cardinal Marx’s Council for the Economy, and concerned that the entrenched forces in the Curia were thwarting Francis’s reforms, went to friendly journalists to get critical information public. And this narrative is pretty common. A lot of whistleblowers are both disgruntled at being passed over for internal promotion and concerned with what they’re seeing.

However, the difficult thing for this narrative is what Magister made clear all the way back in 2013: Chaouqui was right in the middle of the original Vatileaks scandal.

But like heaven above me

Today, the Vatican City State arrested, following an investigation by the Vatican City’s police, Msgr. Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda and Dr. Francesca Chaouqui for leaking financial documents. These arrests precede the publication of a couple of new books, which promise Vatileaks-style bombshells. Both Vallejo and Chaouqui were members of the Pope’s commission on financial reforms (COSEA, if you’re really into Vatican politics), which studied the Vatican’s finances closely and recommended reforms. One may remember, notwithstanding the Year of Divorce and Remarriage, that one of the important issues for Francis, at least in the Conclave talks, was the reform of the Curia and the Vatican’s finances. Vallejo and Chaouqui were in the middle of that, which is, presumably, why they had access to the financial information. What you may have missed was a piece, by Sandro Magister, which Rocco Palmo tweeted earlier today, as we were just learning about the Vallejo-Chaouqui arrests, and which is positive chock full of information about the Vallejo-Chaouqui connection in the context of Vatileaks:

it was maintained that Paolo Gabriele, the butler of Benedict XVI arrested and sentenced for stealing from the pope a an enormous number of confidential documents that were later given to the press, was not the only one in the curia to have acted in that way, but like him and after him there were others still in action, including a woman.

The “revelations” relative to this affair did not give the names of the protagonists. Including the latest and most spectacular anonymous interview, published in “la Repubblica” on March 7, 2013, a few days before the conclave that elected pope Bergoglio.

The interviewee, however, was a person so talkative as to swear up and down that she was the informant for the articles in “la Repubblica”: Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui, 32, of a Moroccan father and Calabrian mother, residing in Rome, married, employed in public relations from 2007 to 2009 in the international law offices of Pavia & Ansaldo, then from 2010 in the offices of Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe, and finally since 2013 in the offices of Ernst & Young, with a vast network of real or boasted relationships with journalists, politicians, businessmen, prelates, cardinals.

When, during those days of conclave, the identity of the anonymous informer of “la Repubblica” also came to the attention of the substitute secretary of state, Archbishop Giovanni Angelo Becciu, he protested to the newspaper. Which in effect stopped publishing any more articles visibly traceable to the Chaouqui “source.”

(Emphasis added.) But how would a character like Chaouqui get into the Vatican, much less onto the pontifical commission considering the most sensitive matters? She had (has?) sharp elbows, which don’t serve anyone especially well in the Vatican, as near as we can tell. For example, John Allen, among others, report that she rubbed Francis the wrong way by hosting a sumptuous party on Vatican property for the canonizations of John XXIII and John Paul II. More than that, Chaouqui alleged that Benedict XVI had leukemia, and she picked a fight with Cardinal Bertone back in the days when Cardinal Bertone was not a man to pick fights with. (Ask Archbishop Viganò.) One may wonder, then, who Chaouqui’s patron was. After detailing some of Chaouqui’s connections to the Vatileaks butler, Magister goes on to report:

Supposing, then, that Francesco did not personally know Francesca Chaouqui, who convinced the pope to appoint her to a role of such high responsibility?

The most likely hypothesis leads back to Monsignor Lucio Ángel Vallejo Balda, secretary of the prefecture for the economic affairs of the Holy See and since July 18 also secretary and factotum of the newly created commission of which Francesca Chaouqui is a member.

(Emphasis added.) But, how would Chaouqui and Vallejo know each other? Well, Magister tells us this, too:

It is said that Francesca Chaouqui belongs to Opus Dei, on a par with Monsignor Vallejo Balda. But it is not true.

It is certain, however, that she frequents Roman residences of Opus, including the one inhabited by the numerary Joaquín Navarro-Valls, the unforgotten spokesman of John Paul II.

Vallejo is an Opus Dei priest and Chaouqui runs in Opus Dei circles. As easy as pie. A piece of cake. You may have already clicked through to Magister’s piece. But if you haven’t, you have a surprise coming. It was published on August 26, 2013. Two years ago. More than two years ago. And Sandro Magister documented a connection between Vallejo and Chaouqui in the context of, you guessed it, Vatileaks.

Tornielli has alleged that Vallejo helped Chaouqui put together that canonization party that miffed the Holy Father. The Holy Father—as some folks have learned—is not a man to annoy, apparently. When it came time to implement the financial commission’s recommendations, both Chaouqui and Vallejo found themselves without chairs when the music stopped. When it came time to appoint officials of the Secretariat for the Economy (i.e., early March 2014), Vallejo found himself passed over in favor of Msgr. Alfred Xuereb, the Maltese secretary to the Pope and a holdover from Benedict’s household, even though everyone (including George Cardinal Pell) expected Vallejo to be appointed secretary. Likewise, Chaouqui didn’t make the cut for a seat on the Council for the Economy, which has a significant lay presence (and which is led by Reinhard Cardinal Marx). We suspect that it will be suggested that Chaouqui and Vallejo, honked off by being left out of the party, decided to start leaking the documents. Undoubtedly someone will say that they were motivated by their frustration at seeing the Curia thwart Francis’s financial reforms. Or something.

Magister’s piece, of course, hurts this narrative badly. If Magister is right—and he’s pretty right as it is—Chaouqui was a Vatileaks source well before Francis issued Fidelis Dispensator et Prudens (on February 24, 2014), established the new financial entities, and passed over Chaouqui and Vallejo for prominent positions everyone seemed to think they’d get. Chaouqui was a Vatileaks source before Francis was even elected. And Vallejo and Chaouqui were friendly well before that.

Some people say the sky is just the sky

Father Lombardi, who is fast earning the title “long-suffering,” has issued an interesting statement on Scalfari’s editorial to Edward Pentin. Let’s look at the statement in full:

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told the Register Nov. 2: “As has already occurred in the past, Scalfari refers in quotes what the Pope supposedly told him, but many times it does not correspond to reality, since he does not record nor transcribe the exact words of the Pope, as he himself has said many times. So it is clear that what is being reported by him in the latest article about the divorced and remarried is in no way reliable and cannot be considered as the Pope’s thinking.”

Father Lombardi said he would not be issuing a statement about the matter as those who have “followed the preceding events and work in Italy know the way Scalfari writes and knows these things well.” Over the past two years, Scalfari has written several such articles following conversations with Pope Francis, each of which has drawn controversy.

(Emphasis supplied.) We have said elsewhere: this is a very funny way of saying “The Pope never said anything like that to Scalfari.” What this statement is, to our eye, is a long way of saying, “Scalfari generally makes things up. Don’t listen to him.” That’s some denial.

We have some brief questions, then:

  • Did the Pope say it or not? Saying Scalfari is generally not to be believed is not the same thing as saying that Scalfari fabricated the quote in question.
  • Perhaps more to the point, why does the Vatican, if it “know[s] the way Scalfari writes,” not insist on producing and making available a verbatim recording of interviews with Scalfari? If Scalfari is such an inveterate fabricator, surely a prudent person would prepare his own record of the interview to avoid precisely this problem.
  • Perhaps even more to the point, why does the Holy Father agree to speak with Scalfari, knowing—as everyone who works in Italy knows, apparently—that Scalfari is going to fabricate quotes and attribute them to him? More than that, why does the Holy Father agree to speak with Scalfari when the Holy Father has been burned very publicly three or more times?

Edward Pentin himself asks this last question:

This exchange appears no different, which raises the question: why does the Pope continue to speak to someone such as Scalfari, and discuss such sensitive subjects with him, when he knows he is unreliable but likely to report his words without reference to a recording or transcript?

Why, indeed? It seems to us that there are fundamentally two possible answers. One, the Holy Father does not care that he’ll be misquoted. There are a lot of possibilities, but given Fr. Lombardi’s comments, one assumes that it’s because he personally likes Scalfari and is inclined to indulge his impressionistic interview style. Two, the Holy Father views Scalfari as useful for getting deniable ideas out there. If people like the idea, nothing need be said. If people don’t like the idea, well, it’s Scalfari and he makes things up.

Why deny the obvious, child?

Rorate Caeli reports that Eugenio Scalfari, one of the Holy Father’s (apparently) favorite journalists, has quoted the Holy Father, albeit in an editorial, to the effect that,

It is true — Pope Francis answered — it is a truth and for that matter the family that is the basis of any society changes continuously, as all things change around us. We must not think that the family does not exist any longer, it will always exist, because ours is a social species, and the family is the support beam of sociability, but it cannot be avoided that the current family, open as you say, contains some positive aspects, and some negative ones. … The diverse opinion of the bishops is part of this modernity of the Church and of the diverse societies in which she operated, but the goal is the same, and for that which regards the admission of the divorced to the Sacraments, [it] confirms that this principle has been accepted by the Synod. This is bottom line result, the de facto appraisals are entrusted to the confessors, but at the end of faster or slower paths, all the divorced who ask will be admitted.“

(Emphasis in original.)

Douthat on the Douthat affair

We have been working, not very hard, honestly, on a piece about the Douthat affair—primarily about Fr. James Martin’s hate masquerading as charity response—and we may yet publish it. However, for now, it should be noted that Ross Douthat himself as responded. He comes admirably to the point:

First, because if the church admits the remarried to communion without an annulment — while also instituting an expedited, no-fault process for getting an annulment, as the pope is poised to do — the ancient Catholic teaching that marriage is “indissoluble” would become an empty signifier.

Second, because changing the church’s teaching on marriage in this way would unweave the larger Catholic view of sexuality, sin and the sacraments — severing confession’s relationship to communion, and giving cohabitation, same-sex unions and polygamy entirely reasonable claims to be accepted by the church.

Now this is, as you note, merely a columnist’s opinion. So I have listened carefully when credentialed theologians make the liberalizing case. What I have heard are three main claims. The first is that the changes being debated would be merely “pastoral” rather than “doctrinal,” and that so long as the church continues to saythat marriage is indissoluble, nothing revolutionary will have transpired.

But this seems rather like claiming that China has not, in fact, undergone a market revolution because it’s still governed by self-described Marxists. No: In politics and religion alike, a doctrine emptied in practice is actually emptied, whatever official rhetoric suggests.

(Emphasis supplied.) Well worth reading in full.

Houses where love can dwell

At Ethika Politika, Peter J. Leithart, apparently seized by the spirit of late October, urges Catholics “to become protestant.” What does that mean? It means that the Church should abandon most of the distinctively Catholic features that are, at this point, not only dogmatic—Leithart has a real burr under his saddle about Ineffabilis Deus and Munificentissimus Deus and the rest of the Marian dogmas—but also deeply traditional. And to what end? We’ll leave that for you to find out, dear reader.

We add only this as a comment: in the great Pope Pius’s Syllabus errorum, the annex to his great encyclical Quanta cura, the eighteenth condemned proposition is Protestantismus non aliud est quam diversa verae eiusdem christianae religionis forma, in qua aeque ac in Ecclesia catholica Deo placere datum est. (The source for this proposition is Pius’s 1849 encyclical, Nostis et nobiscum.)

The lost draft and the German moment

As we noted in our post, “Staying too long at the dance,” yesterday, Roberto de Mattei reports that the Synod’s relatio finalis ended up adopting the Germanicus group’s proposal largely because the original draft relatio, which, according to De Mattei, essentially restated the Instrumentum Laboris, could not garner sufficient support in the aula. Now Sandro Magister reports, in the context of the broader Ratzinger-Kasper debate,

So then, in the German circle during the last week of the synod there was unanimity on precisely this last hypothesis that Ratzinger in his day presented as a study case: that of entrusting to the “internal forum,” meaning to the confessor together with the penitent, the “discernment” of cases in which to allow “access to the sacraments.” And in the “Germanicus” in addition to Kasper were cardinals Marx and Christoph Schönborn, plus other innovators. But there was also Gerhard Müller, prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith and a staunch Ratzingerian.

But when the “German” solution went into the final document – which in turn was replacing a previous draft torn apart by criticisms – and went to the assembly for a vote, it could not be approved without further softening of its language, to the point of eliminating all innovation. And thus “access to the sacraments” was diluted to a generic “possibility of fuller participation in the life of the Church.” In the text that was ultimately approved, in the paragraphs on the divorced and remarried, the word “communion” does not appear even once, nor does any equivalent term. Nothing new, in short, with respect to the ban in effect, at least not if one holds to the letter of the text.

(Emphasis supplied.)

The draft relatio was apparently released under strict secrecy—we recall hearing that originally the draft could not be taken from the aula, but that restriction was eventually relaxed to give the Synod fathers time to study it—so it is unlikely that the “lost draft” will ever see the light of day. But it would be interesting to know what, precisely, was in the first draft relatio that made the Germanicus proposal, watered down further or not, the better choice. However, looking at the three documents we do have might shed some light on the lost draft.

Let’s examine first the Instrumentum Laboris on the question of a penitential path, since Roberto de Mattei reports that the lost draft essentially restated the Instrumentum here:

A Way of Penance

122. (52) The synod fathers also considered the possibility of giving the divorced and remarried access to the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist. Various synod fathers insisted on maintaining the present discipline, because of the constitutive relationship between participation in the Eucharist and communion with the Church as well as her teaching on the indissoluble character of marriage. Others proposed a more individualized approach, permitting access in certain situations and with certain well-defined conditions, primarily in irreversible situations and those involving moral obligations towards children who would have to endure unjust suffering. Access to the sacraments might take place if preceded by a penitential practice, determined by the diocesan bishop. The subject needs to be thoroughly examined, bearing in mind the distinction between an objective sinful situation and extenuating circumstances, given that “imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors” (CCC, 1735). [This foregoing bit is just the relevant section from the 2014 Relatio Synodi.]

123. Concerning the aforementioned subject, a great number agree that a journey of reconciliation or penance, under the auspices of the local bishop, might be undertaken by those who are divorced and civilly remarried, who find themselves in irreversible situations. In reference to Familiaris Consortio, 84, the suggestion was made to follow a process which includes: becoming aware of why the marriage failed and the wounds it caused; due repentance; verification of the possible nullity of the first marriage; a commitment to spiritual communion; and a decision to live in continence.

Others refer to a way of penance, meaning a process of clarifying matters after experiencing a failure and a reorientation which is to be accompanied by a priest who is appointed for this purpose. This process ought to lead the party concerned to an honest judgment of his/her situation. At the same time, the priest himself might come to a sufficient evaluation as to be able to suitably apply the power of binding and loosing to the situation. 

In order to examine thoroughly the objective situation of sin and the moral culpability of the parties, some suggest considering The Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church concerning the Reception of Holy Communion by the Divorced and Remarried Members of the Faithful of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (4 September 1994) and The Declaration concerning the Admission to Holy Communion of the Faithful who are Divorced and Remarried of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts (24 June 2000).

(Some emphasis supplied.) Let’s look next at the relevant section of the third Germanicus report, as translated by Mark de Vries at his blog, In Caelo et in Terra:

It is known that there has been strong struggle, in  both sessions of the Synod of Bishops, about the questions of whether and to what extent divorced and remarried, faithful, when they want to take part in the life of the Church, can, under certain circumstances, receive the sacraments of Confession and the Eucharist. The discussions have shown that there are no simple and general solutions to this question. We bishops have experienced the tensions connected to this question as many of our faithful, their concerns and hopes, warnings and expectations have accompanied us in our deliberations.

The discussions clearly show that some clarification and explanation to further develop the complexity of these questions in the light of the Gospel, the doctrine of the Church and with the gift of discernment. We can freely mention some criteria which may help in our discernment. The first criterium is given by Pope Saint John Paul II in Familiaris consortio 84, when he invites us: “Pastors must know that, for the sake of truth, they are obliged to exercise careful discernment of situations. There is in fact a difference between those who have sincerely tried to save their first marriage and have been unjustly abandoned, and those who through their own grave fault have destroyed a canonically valid marriage. Finally, there are those who have entered into a second union for the sake of the children’s upbringing, and who are sometimes subjectively certain in conscience that their previous and irreparably destroyed marriage had never been valid”. It is therefore the duty of the pastors to travel this path of discernment together with those concerned. It would be helpful to take, in an honest examination of conscience, the step of contemplation and penance together. The divorced and remarried should then ask themselves how they dealt with their children when their marital Union fell into crisis? Where there attempts at reconciliation? What is the situation of the partner left behind? What is the effect of the new relationship on the greater family and the community of faithful? What is the example for the young who are discerning marriage? An honest contemplation can strengthen trust in the mercy of God, which He refuses no one who brings their failures and needs before Him.

Such a path of contemplation and penance can, in the forum internum, with an eye on the objective situation in conversation with the confessor, lead to personal development of conscience and to clarification, to what extent access to the sacrament is possible. Every individual must examine himself according to the word of the Apostle Paul, which applies to all who come to the table of the Lord:  “Everyone is to examine himself and only then eat of the bread or drink from the cup; because a person who eats and drinks without recognising the body is eating and drinking his own condemnation. That is why many of you are weak and ill and a good number have died. If we were critical of ourselves we would not be condemned” (1 Cor. 11:28-31).

(Emphasis supplied.) Finally, in Rorate‘s translation, here are the two most relevant passages of the relatio finalis just approved:

85. Saint John Paul II offered an all-encompassing criterion, that remains the basis for valuation of these situations: “Pastors must know that, for the sake of truth, they are obliged to exercise careful discernment of situations. There is in fact a difference between those who have sincerely tried to save their first marriage and have been unjustly abandoned, and those who through their own grave fault have destroyed a canonically valid marriage. Finally, there are those who have entered into a second union for the sake of the children’s upbringing, and who are sometimes subjectively certain in conscience that their previous and irreparably destroyed marriage had never been valid.” (FC, 84) It is therefore a duty of the priests to accompany the interested parties on the path of discernment according to the teaching of the Church and the orientations of the Bishop. In this process, it will be useful to make an examination of conscience, by way of moments of reflection and repentance. Remarried divorcees should ask themselves how they behaved themselves when their conjugal union entered in crisis; if there were attempts at reconciliation; what is the situation of the abandoned partner [“partner” in the original Italian]; what consequences the new relationship has on the rest of the family and in the community of the faithful; what example does it offer to young people who are to prepare themselves to matrimony. A sincere reflection may reinforce trust in the mercy of God that is not denied to anyone.
Additionally, it cannot be denied that in some circumstances, “the imputability and the responsibility for an action can be diminished or annulled (CIC, 1735) due to various conditioners. Consequently, the judgment on an objective situation should lead to the judgment on a ‘subjective imputability'” (Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, Declaration of June 24, 2000, 2a). In determined circumstances, the persons find great difficulty with acting in a different way. Therefore, while holding up a general rule, it is necessary to recognize that the responsibility regarding specific actions or decisions is not the same in every case. Pastoral discernment, while taking into account the rightly formed conscience of persons, should take these situations into account. Also the consequences of the accomplished acts are not necessarily the same in every case.
86. The path of accompaniment and discernment orients these faithful to becoming conscious of their situation before God. The conversation with the priest, in internal forum, concurs to the formation of a correct judgment on what prevents the possibility of fuller participation in the life of the Church and on the steps that may favor it and make it grow. Considering that in the same law there is no graduality (cf. FC, 34), this discernment must never disregard the demands of truth and charity of the Gospel proposed by the Church. In order for this to happen, the necessary conditions of humility, reserve, love for the Church and to her teaching, in the sincere search for the will of God and for the desire to reach a more perfect answer to the latter, are to be guaranteed.
(Original emphasis omitted, our emphasis supplied.)

Let’s look at the differences briefly. On one hand, the IL position would commit the entire process to the priest, allowing the parties to come to an “honest judgment” about their situation and allowing the priest to form his own judgment sufficient to exercise the power of binding and loosing. In essence, the spouse could come to the conclusion that his first marriage was no marriage, the priest could agree with him, declare the prior marriage void, and the spouse would be readmitted to the Eucharist.

The Germanicus position backs away from the IL position somewhat by acknowledging that there are some impediments—like, oh, a prior, presumptively valid marriage—that are absolute roadblocks to communion. However, Germanicus seems to bring forward the basic component of the IL position; that is, the spouse, in conversation with his confessor, can still come to a basic judgment about his situation, including his objective situation, that would permit him to approach the living Body and Blood of the mighty God. Germanicus did, however, quote Paul in 1 Corinthians about the grave danger of unworthily approaching the Eucharist.

Finally, the RF position largely ratifies the Germanicus position. As we have noted before, Germanicus called for an examen about the spouse’s conduct of the marriage. So does the RF. Germanicus called for an internal forum solution. So does the RF. However, if there is a significant difference between Germanicus and the RF, it comes when you compare Such a path of contemplation and penance can, in the forum internum, with an eye on the objective situation in conversation with the confessor, lead to personal development of conscience and to clarification, to what extent access to the sacrament is possible (from Germanicus) with The conversation with the priest, in internal forum, concurs to the formation of a correct judgment on what prevents the possibility of fuller participation in the life of the Church and on the steps that may favor it and make it grow (from RF). The difference seems to come between “to what extent access to the sacrament is possible,” which seems to result in the basic outcome of the IL position, that is the spouse and the priest coming to a conclusion that the spouse may approach the Eucharist, versus “what prevents the possibility of fuller participation in the life of the Church and on the steps that may favor it and make it grow,” which implies that prior marriages need to be resolved via a nullity case (among other things). Remember that Sandro Magister reports that the Germanicus position had to be “softened” in order to pass. This could be that softening.

It seems to us that if, as De Mattei reports, the lost draft restated the IL position, the Synod fathers might well have objected to the fact that the entire process would be committed to the priest, the spouse, and their consciences, and that the priest would have the power of the keys to do something about the prior marriage. Germanicus never went that far, explicitly, and instead called for an examen and a conversation in the internal forum, with an eye on objective realities, whatever that means, to reach a point of clarity about the spouse’s situation. In other words, the talk of objective realities could be seen as a hook for the Church’s traditional teaching on marriage and adultery. Thus, it seems entirely possible that Germanicus’s report would be more palatable to moderates.

However, we’re still not sure that there is a huge difference between the IL position and the Germanicus/RF position. It seems to us that all the potential for abuse—and, frankly, sacrilege—present in the IL is still present in the Germanicus/RF position. The priest and the spouse still journey together—or whatever—toward a correct judgment on what, if anything, stands between the spouse and full participation. Now the possibility remains open that the answer could be “nothing,” notwithstanding the objective realities of the situation. This was the possibility in the IL and the Germanicus report. It is true that the RF adds some talk about the teachings of the Church, meant generally to include Familiaris consortio and the like, graduality, and the demands of the Gospel. However, the RF also IL’s talk about reduced culpability while omitting Germanicus’s citation to 1 Corinthians 11. By doing this, it seems that the RF gives everyone the ultimate out: Yes, the prior marriage was presumptively valid. Yes, this is objectively sinful. But, setting all that to one side, there are extenuating circumstances tending to diminish culpability.

An addendum and a digression about the Novus Ordo

An addendum…

In our previous post, “Staying too long at the dance,” we said,

But it seems to us that, while certainly withdrawal into safe circles is the only reasonable response to the situation—and by this we mean (1) finding and building relationships with solid bishops and priests, (2) focusing ever more intensely on traditional devotions to Our Lord really present in the Eucharist and Our Lady’s Rosary, and (3) deepening one’s understanding of the doctrine of the Church—so too is hope.

(Emphasis supplied.) We wanted to expand upon this briefly in the context of various “options” floating around.

In particular, Rod Dreher has pushed, in various forms, his so-called Benedict Option for a while now. The nut of the idea is this: orthodox Christians are essentially and irrevocably at odds with the liberal, secular culture now dominant in the United States, and in order to preserve one’s faith and one’s family from the onslaught of that culture, it is advisable to form stable communities around religious institutions, like churches or monasteries. The idea is that the storm has to blow over sooner or later and that, when it does, these islands of the faith will be available and ready to re-evangelize the United States. (For our part, we think there are some problems with the idea, not the least of which is who decides when the storm has blown over. Also, small communities don’t always maintain a good sense of balance and perspective, to put it decorously.) There has been some serious criticism of Dreher’s basic idea and some criticism that’s less well articulated. Dreher has advanced other ideas, like Leah Libresco’s “be active in your parish” suggestion.

We do not mean by our comment in “Staying too long at the dance” to suggest that traditionally minded Catholics ought to come up with a Benedict Option-type solution (an Athanasius Option? a Lefebvre Option?) As unwieldy as the Benedict Option seems to be in practice, a similar plan for traditionally minded Catholics seems even less workable. Neither did we mean to suggest taking the Benedict Option to the next level, pulling a Hans Castorp, and retreating to a mountain refuge to pray and debate doctrine while the Church is shaken by paroxysms not seen since the Council. (Another friend wrote to us as we were drafting this comment to point this flaw in our original post out, which we attribute to more than serendipity.) All of those options tend to discount the very real value that action—motivated by an orthodox will—can have on the situation in the Church and society more broadly.

As every priest reminds us sooner or later, we are all members of the Body of Christ, His Church, and we are often called upon to help Christ by acting in accordance with his will, as best as we can discern it. That is, while we ought to hope that God will save his people once again as he has done over and over again from the beginning of time, as the Psalmist always hoped, we need to remember that we might be the divine intervention for the Church and for society we are hoping for. It is not insignificant to us that the readings in the 1960 Breviary right now are from the books of Maccabees. Thus, while it is important to, as we said, form networks of solid bishops and priests (recalling one’s obligations to one’s pastor and one’s ordinary), to renew our attachment to traditional devotions, and to deepen our knowledge of the faith, it is also important to put this orthodoxy into action. This can take many forms in many places, and those forms are often dictated by circumstances.

However, if, after considering the circumstances, a strategic retreat seems like the best option for oneself and one’s family, then it may be appropriate to consider some Option or another. Our point is that beating a retreat as a policy is bound to result in disaster. It did after the Council and it will here, too, if we’re not careful. We did not mean to suggest in our original comments that beating a retreat was the reasonable response in all cases or, indeed, in many cases.

A digression…

While we are on the subject, a digression about the Novus Ordo. Some fairly prominent commentators on the Synod have taken the opportunity to remind us, once more, that they really, really do not like the Novus Ordo Mass (the Missal of Bl. Paul VI or the Forma Ordinaria or what-have-you). Some make vague noises about the liceity of the Novus Ordo and some make vaguer noises about its validity. One of our friends has noted how unhelpful this attitude is at the moment. We tend to agree. The current debate is over basic Gospel truths, and it seems to us that anyone who is willing to stand up for those basic Gospel truths is one of the good guys regardless of their liturgical orientation. Now, we think it is unlikely that a priest is going to process in to “Hear I Am, Lord,” amid felt banners and dancers, ad lib a little and there with the Collect, say Eucharistic Prayer II, ad libbing a little more with the preface or whatever, and then preach a barn-burning sermon against adultery and in defense of Our Lord really present in the Eucharist. But he could. And it seems to us to be shortsighted to discount that priest entirely because his Mass is a mess redolent of John Paul’s worst ceremonies. But, as we noted, we digress.