Remaining In The Truth Of Christ: New Book

[Nihil Obstat]

Anyone pre-ordered this book yet? Or at least read about it? If you have not done so, place a pre-order through Dust's link or something. This is an important book in the context of the upcoming Synod.
Here is the blurb from the publishers:

 

In this volume five Cardinals of the Church, and four other scholars, respond to the call issued by Cardinal Walter Kasper for the Church to harmonize “fidelity and mercy in its pastoral practice with civilly remarried, divorced people”.

Beginning with a concise introduction, the first part of the book is dedicated to the primary biblical texts pertaining to divorce and remarriage, and the second part is an examination of the teaching and practice prevalent in the early Church. In neither of these cases, biblical or patristic, do these scholars find support for the kind of “toleration” of civil marriages following divorce advocated by Cardinal Kasper. This book also examines the Eastern Orthodox practice of oikonomia (understood as “mercy” implying “toleration”) in cases of remarriage after divorce and in the context of the vexed question of Eucharistic communion. It traces the centuries long history of Catholic resistance to this convention, revealing serious theological and canonical difficulties inherent in past and current Orthodox Church practice.

Thus, in the second part of the book, the authors argue in favor of retaining the theological and canonical rationale for the intrinsic connection between traditional Catholic doctrine and sacramental discipline concerning marriage and communion.

The various studies in this book lead to the conclusion that the Church’s longstanding fidelity to the truth of marriage constitutes the irrevocable foundation of its merciful and loving response to the individual who is civilly divorced and remarried. The book therefore challenges the premise that traditional Catholic doctrine and contemporary pastoral practice are in contradiction.

“Because it is the task of the apostolic ministry to ensure that the Church remains in the truth of Christ and to lead her ever more deeply into that truth, pastors must promote the sense of faith in all the faithful, examine and authoritatively judge the genuineness of its expressions and educate the faithful in an ever more mature evangelical discernment.”
- St. John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio
 
 

We now also know the names of the authors of the book. From Fr. Z:

 

These are the nine chapters of the book:

The Argument in Brief- Robert Dodaro, O.S.A.
Dominical Teaching on Divorce and Remarriage: The Biblical Data - Paul Mankowski, S.J.
Divorce and Remarriage in the Early Church: Some Historical and Cultural Reflections - John M. Rist
Separation, Divorce, Dissolution of the Bond, and Remarriage: Theological and Practical Approaches of the Orthodox Churches - Archbishop Cyril Vasil’, S.J.
Unity and Indissolubility of Marriage: From the Middle Ages to the Council of Trent - Walter Cardinal Brandmüller
Testimony to the Power of Grace: On the Indissolubility of Marriage and the Debate concerning the Civilly Remarried and the Sacraments - Gerhard Ludwig Cardinal Müller
Sacramental Ontology and the Indissolubility of Marriage - Carlo Cardinal Caffarra
The Divorced and Civilly Remarried and the Sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance - Velasio Cardinal De Paolis, C.S.
The Canonical Nullity of the Marriage Process as the Search for the Truth - Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke

Get your pre-orders in. This is going to be a good one. :)

Edited September 16, 2014 by Nihil Obstat

[Amppax]

I love how this was basically written in response to Cardinal Kasper's latest book. 

 

Also I have access to one of the best libraries of Catholic theology, and I'm broke, so I'm afraid I'll have to wait until my employer gets it. (Sidenote, I'm not talking about Franciscan U's library, which is pretty pitiful). 

Edited September 16, 2014 by Amppax

[Not The Philosopher]

Next semester I will be taking a class on sexuality and marriage. I've a feeling this issue will pop up at some point or another, so this may be worth checking out, perhaps when I'm on winter break.

[John Ryan]

I understand the argument of somebody like Ross Douthat in Against Walter Kasper (II) in the New York Times. I think there is a certain danger of a slippery slope of permissiveness present in Cardinal Kasper's position. However, at the end of the day, I believe Cardinal Kasper has the superior position, and I do believe he understands the gravity of the situation. I have to assent that to basically force somebody in a second marriage, who has made a solemn committed to another human being, especially with children, to dissolve that union would be more immoral than the original sin of the first dissolution. I think Cardinal Kasper does a good job of retaining the morality of Church Tradition while reconciling it with a reasonable concept of grace. I am not particularly convinced with the "strict moral absolutism is true grace" line of reasoning. I cannot, in good conscience before the Throne of God, say that it is moral to break up a loving family.

Edited September 18, 2014 by John Ryan

[Nihil Obstat]

Unfortunately (for him, and those who have taken him seriously), Kasper's comments are utterly without basis in Catholic tradition. To speak of a strict dichotomy between 'breaking up a family' and fully admitting the divorced-and-remarried to Communion is totally false.
 
http://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/2014/03/01/patristic-life-raft-language-refers-to-confession-not-communion/
http://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/2014/03/19/lest-so-many-words-complicate-a-simple-question/
http://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/2014/05/08/cdl-kaspers-claim-cannot-be-ignored/

 

Catholic discipline that precludes holy Communion for divorced-and-remarried Catholics rests on three simple points. Assuming the specifications and nuances that should flesh out these points, they are:

Catholics obstinately persisting in manifest grave sin should neither approach for nor be administered holy Communion. Canons 915, 916.
Catholics living in post-divorce ‘marriages’ are in a state of public and objective grave sin (specifically, a form of chronic adultery). CCC 2380, 2381, 2384.
Such ‘marriages’ are adulterous because true marriage is an exclusive union lasting until death. Canons 1055, 1134, 1141.
Abandon any of these three points and Church discipline in this area collapses. If marriage is not an exclusive union till death, if living in pseudo/second marriage is not objective grave sin, or if the Eucharist is not precluded for those persisting in grave sin, then divorced-and-remarried Catholics can begin receiving holy Communion today and the 2014 Extraordinary Synod on the Family can turn its attention to other pastoral issues facing the family. But if these three assertions are sound, then the present Eucharistic discipline demands, as a matter of personal integrity and public honesty, observance by faithful and hierarchy alike, and the Synod must grapple with its pastoral ramifications.
 

[John Ryan]

Unfortunately (for him, and those who have taken him seriously), Kasper's comments are utterly without basis in Catholic tradition. To speak of a strict dichotomy between 'breaking up a family' and fully admitting the divorced-and-remarried to Communion is totally false.
 
http://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/2014/03/01/patristic-life-raft-language-refers-to-confession-not-communion/
http://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/2014/03/19/lest-so-many-words-complicate-a-simple-question/
http://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/2014/05/08/cdl-kaspers-claim-cannot-be-ignored/

 

Catholic discipline that precludes holy Communion for divorced-and-remarried Catholics rests on three simple points. Assuming the specifications and nuances that should flesh out these points, they are:

Catholics obstinately persisting in manifest grave sin should neither approach for nor be administered holy Communion. Canons 915, 916.
Catholics living in post-divorce ‘marriages’ are in a state of public and objective grave sin (specifically, a form of chronic adultery). CCC 2380, 2381, 2384.
Such ‘marriages’ are adulterous because true marriage is an exclusive union lasting until death. Canons 1055, 1134, 1141.
Abandon any of these three points and Church discipline in this area collapses. If marriage is not an exclusive union till death, if living in pseudo/second marriage is not objective grave sin, or if the Eucharist is not precluded for those persisting in grave sin, then divorced-and-remarried Catholics can begin receiving holy Communion today and the 2014 Extraordinary Synod on the Family can turn its attention to other pastoral issues facing the family. But if these three assertions are sound, then the present Eucharistic discipline demands, as a matter of personal integrity and public honesty, observance by faithful and hierarchy alike, and the Synod must grapple with its pastoral ramifications.
 

 

I fail to see how this answers my "question". The question raised by people like Cardinal Kasper is "what is the righteous thing to do for someone who is in a second marriage, someone who has a family with another person?" From everything you have written, it appears that one should break up a family.

[Nihil Obstat]

I fail to see how this answers my "question". The question raised by people like Cardinal Kasper is "what is the righteous thing to do for someone who is in a second marriage, someone who has a family with another person?" From everything you have written, it appears that one should break up a family.

That has never really been the assumption. That is one possibility, but frankly it is nothing more than a strawman. The most common pastoral solution is to strenuously avoid scandal and require that the couple live chastely, "as brother and sister", but allowing that they can and perhaps should remain together for the sake of children in the situation.

[Nihil Obstat]

So after much delay, I finally got my copy in the mail the other evening. I started out by reading the section on Eastern Orthodox practices, and now I am starting from the beginning. Absolutely excellent book - I cannot recommend it enough.

Just for anyone interested in checking it out, I took a pdf copy of the last couple sections of the chapter on Oikonomia, by Archbishop Vasil'.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e6a5ruxx1yld9tp/Oikonomia.pdf?dl=0

 

I will transcribe the section here:

 

Concluding Considerations:

In Pierre L'Huiller's view, the Orthodox Church usually does not make a decision concerning the dissolution of the marriage, except in those cases in which the Church itself bears a civil responsibility. For the Catholic canonist accustomed to reasoning according to categories of matrimonial procedural law, it is often difficult to understand the fact that in the Orthodox CHurch, there is no talk ever about procedural questions about marriage cases per se, that is, there are no roles for an advocate, a promoter of justice, a defender of the bond, and there are no instances of appeal, among other juridical structures.

L'Huillier also indicates that the Orthodox Churches have practically never elaborated a clear doctrine regarding the indissolubility of marriage that could bring the New Testament requirements to the judicial level. This fact is the key that allows us to understand why the Orthodox Churches, even though the expressions of their supreme authorities - oftentimes only passively - accept the sociological reality. This laxity reveals not only the inadequate expansion of the legitimate causes for divorce compared with the criteria that are indicated in the Nomocanon, but also the total disappearance of the differences between the divorce conceded bona gratia and the divorce conceded cum damno. We also see this laxity in the acceptance of the possibility of a second marriage for a divorced person, where the difference is practically eliminated between the party that caused the breakdown of the marriage and the innocent party, thereby creating the impression that a decree of divorce automatically concedes the right to contract a new marriage.

Another Orthodox author, Alvian Smirensky, commenting on the decrees of the Synod of Moscow in 1918, with a hint of sadness, indicates that unfortunately in these decrees only fifteen lines are dedicated to the question of indissolubility, while seven subsequent pages describe the ways in which it is possible to dissolve the indissoluble bond.

 

The Positions of the Catholic Church

 

The Catholic Church does not recognize the procedures involved in the declaration of the dissolution of a marriage bond, or those applied in the case of a divorce on account of adultery, in the manner in which these procedures are employed by a number of Orthodox Churches, nor does it recognize the Orthodox application of the principle of oikonomia (which, in this case, is considered contrary to divine law), because these dissolutions presuppose the intervention of an ecclesiastical authority in the breakup of a valid marriage agreement.

In the decisions in these matters reached by the authority of the Orthodox Churches, the distinction between a "declaration of nullity", "annulment", "dissolution", or "divorce" is usually lacking or is practically unknown, and often in these declarations the underlying motivations of the decision are not indicated. Furthermore, a fundamental uncertainty exists regarding the seriousness of the canonical process in verifying the eventual validity or nullity of a marriage in the Orthodox Churches. This produces a true doubt regarding the motivation and the legitimacy of these declarations as far as their applicability in the Catholic Church is concerned.

From the point of view of Catholic matrimonial law, we are bound to consider a marriage valid until there is certain contrary proof (cf. can. 1060 Codex Iuris Canonici [CIC] and can. 779 Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium [CCEO]). Many Orthodox Churches do little more than simply ratify the divorce sentence issued by the civil court. In other Orthodox Churches, as for example, in the Middle East, in which ecclesial authorities hold exclusive competence in matrimonial matters, declarations dissolving religious marriages are issued solely by applying the principle of oikonomia.

At the beginning of this essay we asked whether the Orthodox practice could represent "a way out" for the Catholic Church in the fact of the growing instability of sacramental marriages, by providing a pastoral approach toward those Catholics who, after the failure of a sacramental marriage and a subsequent civil divorce, contract a second, civil marriage.

Before responding to this question, another question should be posed. Is it thinkable to resolve the difficulties that Christian marriages must confront in the contemporary world by lowering the demands of indissolubility?

Will we have helped to cultivate the dignity of matrimony, or do we offer it only a placebo, as in the Old Testament, for the hardness of hearts?

CHrist brought his new, revolutionary message, one that was "countercultural" to the pagan world. His disciples announced his good news, fearlessly resenting near impossible demands that contradicted the culture of that age. The world today is perhaps similarly marked by the neo-paganism of consumption, comfort, and egoism, full of new cruelties committed by methods ever more modern and ever more dehumanizing. Faith in the supernatural principles is now more than ever subject to humiliation.

All this bring us to consider whether "hardness of heart" is a convincing argument to muddle the clearness of the teaching of the gospel on the indissolubility of Christian marriage. But as a response to the many questions and doubts, and to the many temptations to find a "short cut" or to "lower the bar" for the existential leap that one makes in the great "contest" of married life - in all this confusion among so many contrasting and distracting voices, still today resound the words o the Lord: "What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder" (Mk 10:9), and the final consideration of Saint Paul: "This is a great mystery ..." (Eph 5:32).

Edited November 13, 2014 by Nihil Obstat