It’s
been 43 years since that tragic moment and I am sure she was not the only
divorced person to ever receive this rejection by her pastor. At this moment, I
want to apologize to all divorced Catholics. It was and still is a hurtful
thing to say to anyone in public. “Father” was only following the norms of the
church and he never realized the pain and hurt he caused. Yet, it certainly is
not the way of Our Lord’s teaching about compassion and mercy.
Pope Francis issued a powerful call for the
church to embrace Catholics who have divorced and remarried, telling a
gathering at the Vatican that such couples “are not excommunicated, and they
absolutely must not be treated that way!”
“They always belong to the church,” he added,
calling on pastors to welcome Catholics who have remarried without an annulment,
even though such Catholics are currently barred in most cases from receiving
the Eucharist.
“The church is called to be always the open house
of the Father. … No closed doors! No closed doors!”
Since he was elected in 2013, Francis has said that
the church must be more merciful and open, and he has encouraged debate on
changing pastoral practices to allow, for example, divorced and remarried
Catholics to take Communion. Current teaching says such Roman Catholics cannot
receive communion unless they abstain from sexual relations because their first
marriage is still valid in the eyes of the church.
In my
current ministry to help a parish reboot itself after being closed due to the
shortage of priests. The Polish National Catholic tradition welcomes all
divorced Catholics to receive Holy Communion without fear of sin or rejection.
However, both traditions strongly encourage Catholics to seek the annulment
process to have your first marriage annulled and your new marriage blessed. Many
people prefer to abstain from this process since it results in bringing up the
trauma from the past and requires a judgment from a marriage tribunal that the
marriage was null and void. For many, this only adds further pain and anger
thinking that their former marriage can somehow be negated by the system.
Let me
conclude with this story that speaks of mercy and compassion:
In
Frederick Buechner's novel The Final
Beast there is a scene in which a member of a congregation is
begging the pastor to declare forgiveness to a deeply disturbed woman in their
church—a man or woman who has been divorced and remarried and are living a good
Christian life. The pastor replies that the woman already knows that he, the
pastor, has forgiven her, to which this other member replies, "But she
doesn't know God forgives
her. That's the only power you have, pastor: to tell her that. Not just that
God forgives her for her poor adultery. Tell her that God forgives her for the
faces she cannot bear to look at now. Tell her that God forgives her for being
lonely and bored, for not being full of joy every day in a household full of
children. Tell her that her sin is forgiven whether she knows it or not, that
what she wants more than anything else--what we all want--is true. Pastor, what
on earth do you think you were ordained for?”
