Dangerous Dilution of Church Teachings: Making the Exception the Rule

Ask a dozen Catholics drawn at random from a typical American parish, and all twelve will tell you that the faithful are no longer expected to abstain from meat on Fridays, except during Lent. Not so.

“Abstinence from meat, or some other food as determined by the Episcopal Conference, is to be observed on all Fridays” except major feast days, says the Code of Canon Law (1251). In 1966, the US bishops ruled that mandatory abstinence from meat would no longer be mandatory, in large part because “renunciation of other things would be more penitential.” Still the American bishops said the faithful should perform some special act of charity or of self-denial on each Friday, and among the possibilities “we give first place to abstinence from flesh meat.”

So how did it become almost universally understood, by Catholics at large, that the Friday fast was simply a thing of the past? It happened, I suggest, through a process of dilution as the original message was passed down. The Vatican said that Catholics should abstain from meat or “some other food.” The US bishops opened up the possibilities much further, allowing the faithful to choose from an unlimited menu of acts of mortification or good works. Pastors, unable to give clear and simple instructions, told their congregations that they were freed from compulsory abstinence, but should do some act of penance on Fridays. And finally the people in the pews, accustomed to hearing vague suggestions that they should do penance, grasped the first part of the message but not the second. At each step, people had an opportunity to interpret a message from Rome, and—human nature being what it is—interpreted it in the way that made things easiest for themselves.

Or to put it just a bit differently, when the message is not clear and precise—or when a clear message is not conveyed with precision-- people generally hear what they want to hear.

Sometimes the process works very differently, and a message from Rome, intended to allow an option, is treated as an unbreakable command. Thus for example in 1969 the Vatican allowed for reception of Communion in the hand, providing that there was “the complete avoidance of any cause for the faithful to be shocked and any danger of irreverence toward the Eucharist.” American bishops made Communion-in-the-hand the norm. Now in many parishes the practices is treated as compulsory. Similarly, the Vatican announced in 1994 that girls could be allowed to serve at the altar, and within a matter of days, in all but a few American dioceses, pastors were required to have altar girls.

If the Church provides an opening, the faithful tend to enlarge it to suit their own wishes. During the past week we have seen a new example of this phenomenon. Pope Francis, questioned about legal recognition for same-sex unions, declined to condemn all such measures, saying instead: “You have to see the variety of cases and evaluate them in their variety.” Cardinal Timothy Dolan, speaking on a nationwide television broadcast, explained that the Pope was not endorsing civil unions but saying: “let’s just ask the questions as to why that has appealed to certain people.” Nevertheless, this week I have seen dozens of headlines claiming that the Church is ready to accept civil-union legislation, and by the end of the month—I guarantee it—some priests and many lay activists will be insisting that Catholics are obligated to support such legislation.

In light of this clear tendency to stretch the meaning of Church statements far beyond their original intent, it should be easy to understand why the Synod of Bishops must be especially careful in its approach to pastoral care for Catholics who are divorced and remarried. To date, no Vatican official has suggested that divorced and remarried Catholics should be allowed to receive Communion except under the most extraordinary of circumstances. But if there are any circumstances under which they will be admitted to Communion, will it be only a matter of months before, in practice, they are always admitted? Can the Vatican allow any relaxation of the Church’s Eucharistic discipline, without thoroughly undermining the doctrine on which that discipline is based?

To keep this question in perspective, remember that it was Pope Benedict XVI who began pushing for stronger pastoral outreach to divorced and remarried Catholics. First in 2007, in Sacramentum Caritatis, he urged pastors to help these Catholics ““live as fully as possible the Christian life through regular participation at Mass, albeit without receiving Communion.” In 2011, in an address to the Roman Rota, he observed that many couples married in the Church do not have a proper understanding of the sacrament, and therefore may seek declarations of nullity (annulments)—which would allow them to return to the sacramental life. In June 2012, at the 7th World Meeting of Families, he offered special words of support to those who “have had painful experiences of breakdown and separation.”

Pope Francis has followed up strongly on this initiative, repeating the theme that the Church should show special pastoral care to Catholics who are divorced and remarried, reminding them that “they are not excluded from God’s mercy.”

The enormous challenge facing Church leaders now is to show that special pastoral care to people who are in objectively difficult situations, without creating the impression that those situations are normal. The Synod of Bishops could follow the advice of Cardinal Kasper, and design a penitential process that allows some Catholics who are divorced and remarried to be admitted to the sacraments. But if so, there will soon be expectations that all divorced and remarried Catholics should be admitted to the Eucharist immediately, with barely a nod toward the process.

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