I know very well that "anecdote does not equal data". But sometimes anecdotes can show a shift in the wind. Over the years I have known a number of people who were seeking annulments of a previous marriage in order to enter into a second marriage or convalidate an existing one and be able to receive the sacraments. For various reasons some of these annulment efforts had hit a dead end as far as being able to be processed. Recently I have known of a couple of instances in which the people were able to move forward. Actually, fast forward.
The other evening we attended a daily Mass at our parish. To our surprise there was a woman of our acquaintance dressed in a white alb sitting in the front pew with family members and her fiance. When the priest came out, he announced that we would be having a Confirmation and First Communion. He said there had been a hang-up in the paperwork previously; but with the permission of the archbishop things could now move forward. The mood was of joy, and the pastor was elated to "...welcome this sister into full communion." As it came time for Communion, there were happy tears. And I'm assuming the marriage has already happened or will happen soon.
Another couple in a neighboring parish had been married civilly for over ten years. They had filed for an annulment of a previous marriage of the woman which had taken place when she was very young. But after a certain point no progress was being made in the process. Again, after consultation with the archbishop, the decision was made by their pastor to convalidate the marriage. They were so happy.
Are these situations a direct result of Amoris Laetitia? I don't know. Maybe they had nothing to do with it.
I do know certain conservative pundits have predicted dire things as a result of so-called ambiguity about a paragraph in Amoris Laetitia. Things such as an erosion of the teaching concerning the sacredness and permanence of the marriage bond. Or an invitation for people to make up their own rules. Also predicting in the worst case scenario possible schism in the Church over the issue.
Again, anecdotes aren't data. But what I am seeing are pastors, after consulting the archbishop, expediting annulments which had stalled out, and allowing people to return to the sacraments, or receive them for the first time.
We wrack our brains trying to figure out how to get the "nones" to engage with the Church. But here we have people shedding happy tears because they wanted so badly to be in full communion. Makes sense to engage the ones we can.
What Francis has done is to greatly return decision making to the local bishop. First by eliminating the automatic appeals to Rome that resulted in two trials. Second listing a large number of cases when the bishop can declare the prior marriage null without a formal trial.
ReplyDeleteFrances wants bishops to be responsible for their dioceses. If that bishop believes, as did Francis predecessor as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, that half of marriages lack validity, then the bishop should have the freedom to act on that local knowledge.
One of my deacon buddies has been doing annulments for a long time. So long, in fact, that he was ordained in D.C. by Cardinal William Baum. Anyway, said deacon claims he has never had an annulment denied.
ReplyDeleteWe used to have a Re-membering program, which the deacon's wife called "a night for pissed off Catholics" in which we'd invite anyone with something on his or her mind about to come and talk. We'd usually get 10 or 12, many of whom had marriage problems. First thing we had to do was life their self-imposed excommunications, and the deacon had a long list of things about Catholic marriage which are Not True that would stun the throng. Naturally, one does not take self-imposed excommunications to the parish he may end up in, so one of our pastors killed the program on grounds he was paying for advertising and refreshments for people who were going to join other parishes. The concept of reciprocity exceeded his grasp.
By happenstance, I'm re-reading Graham Greene's "The Power and the Glory," which at one point the Vatican had tried to get Greene to change. Happily, he didn't. It makes a splendid complement to "Amoris Laetitia."
ReplyDeleteI guess my view is that what has been happening at a grassroots, pastoral level had been misaligned with church teaching for a very long time: priests were taking upon it themselves already to counsel couples to consult their consciences as to whether or not they should receive communion. (This is apart from the very large number of remarried couples who simply left the church; the Willow Creek evangelical megachurch of which I recently blogged here at NewGathering is said to have among its members many formerly Catholic couples who remarried without going through the annulment process first.)
ReplyDeleteWhat Francis seems to have done is to change the emphasis of church law (although not necessarily church teaching) to bring it more in line with that pastoral reality of which Francis seemingly is well aware of and sensitive to. What Amoris Laetitia does, if I'm not mistaken, is provide for opportunities for a priest to *accompany* a church member who is trying to decide whether or not his/her subsequent marriage has circumstances that would allow him/her to continue to receive communion. Accompaniment is quite different from direction; the priest doesn't tell the person what to do, but provides information and support for the person who examines the circumstances of his/her previous marriage, current marriage and what the conscience is saying. Ultimately, the priest doesn't make the decision whether or not to take communion; the married person does.
(Dr. Edward Peters at the canon-law blog In the Light of the Law has been pretty outspoken that, if Francis is going to make these legal adjustments, he should also arrange to have canon law revised to accord with those adjustments. I don't think he's wrong.)
I agree with Jack that the changes to the regime of annulments (which actually happened prior to Amoris Laetitia being promulgated, iirc), probably are more applicable to the situations that Katherine describes in the orginal post.
FWIW, Chicago has not been, at least during my time here, a "hard core" diocese when it comes to annulments. It's safe to say that most requests have been granted, and the tribunal always seems to have taken a merciful approach to requests. As it should. But that has not always been the case in other dioceses, especially outside of the United States.
Jim, what would be involved for the pope to make a change in canon law to reflect the actual practice?
DeleteOur diocese isn't very hard core about annulments, either. But sometimes the process stalls out; I think the issue is usually witnesses who aren't available or who don't make it a priority to fill out their paperwork.
Katherine - the pope can revise canon law on his own. Francis did it last year to fix the broken liturgical translation process.
Deletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/09/world/europe/pope-francis-liturgical-reform.html
"What Amoris Laetitia does, if I'm not mistaken, is provide for opportunities for a priest to *accompany* a church member who is trying to decide whether or not his/her subsequent marriage has circumstances that would allow him/her to continue to receive communion."
ReplyDeleteDoesn't that just circumvent the annulment process? Why pay for an annulment of you can get a priest to accompany you for free?
Have two girlfriends who got annulments after short, early marriages. One was married to an alcoholic and the other one a wife beater. Both said the annulment process was more about money than discernment.
I tend to believe them. They both made disastrous second marriages. They again divorced, but did not remarry. Just had flings and more kids, presumably confessed the sex and kept on receiving and had their kids baptized in the Church.
I find this kind of playing taffy with Church teaching abhorrent.
"Doesn't that just circumvent the annulment process? Why pay for an annulment of you can get a priest to accompany you for free?"
ReplyDeleteThat point hasn't escaped Francis's conservative critics, among whom are the ordinaries of some dioceses.
I think the theory is that the discernment may result in the subject discerning that his consent to the previous marriage was defective and therefore he should seek an annulment which, if granted, would be followed by a church blessing of the current marriage.
In theory, this accompaniment is not supposed to be a Get Out of Annulment Free card. It's difficult to comment on specific cases, but one possible concatenation of circumstances might be something along these lines: "My ex left me for another woman; I didn't want the marriage to end. I ended up with the kids, and we had a period of financial and emotional struggle - those were some hellish years for us. Then I met a wonderful man and I remarried. He's a great father for the kids, and we all enjoy a loving, secure and faith-filled family life now. My husband wouldn't want the two of us to live as brother and sister. In retrospect, I see that I shouldn't have remarried without seeking to have the previous marriage annulled, although I didn't fully understand that at the time. But some things in life aren't able to be unwound and returned to the former state, at least not without harming me, my current husband and especially the children. Couldn't the church decide to be merciful toward me and the mistakes I've made, and allow us to continue to pursue this current life, which has a lot of goodness to it?"
It seems there are a lot of things to be discerned in that scenario: what happened in the previous marriage; what was the frame of mind in the decision to remarry; what would it mean to live a chaste life, or to separate from the current spouse? The priest would accompany the subject and the family as they work through these questions. The priest, as part of his accompaniment, would ensure that they understand what the church teaches and why it teaches those things. But ultimately the decision belongs to the subject and her family.
Note that this is a process of spiritual discernment. By contrast, the annulment process is essentially a legal proceeding - which is not to say that it is necessarily empty of spiritual content. I am told that some people have found healing via the annulment process. I am sorry to hear that wasn't the case for your friends.
For what it's worth, Pope Francis has said that he doesn't want dioceses to charge for annulments. Our archdiocese announced that they would stop charging anything for them a short time after he made that statement.
ReplyDeleteJim, as you describe it, "accompaniment" sounds like what a priest is supposed to do as part of his calling. Moreover, it actually reminds the priest of his limitations--that his job is to move offenders to the confessional or ecclesiastical court and to achieve reconciliation. So now I'm puzzled about why conservatives would hate it.
ReplyDeleteJust an observation: As the priest shortage grows and priests age, priests now have less interaction with parishioners. Priests are "saved" for the confessional and Communion, the sacraments only they can perform. It's all they've got time for if they are serving more than one parish. "Accompaniment" is done by faith formation staff through programs: RCIA, pre-Cana, NFP, CCD, preparation for First Communion and Confirmation, Retrouvaille, and Project Rachel. My guess is that there will be some kind of program for those seeking annulments at some point.
Katherine, I think not charging for annulments is a good step forward. I hear cradle Catholics talk without any apparent cynicism about family members who "paid for an annulment so he could get married again."
"Jim, as you describe it, "accompaniment" sounds like what a priest is supposed to do as part of his calling. Moreover, it actually reminds the priest of his limitations--that his job is to move offenders to the confessional or ecclesiastical court and to achieve reconciliation."
DeleteRight. As you note, priests are slammed. Accompaniment can take a lot of time and attention - it sounds like a lot of work. Of course, to your point about what a priest ideally should be doing, some priests would also accompany a person pursuing an annulment.
"...It sounds like a lot of work." Yes, and I worry about the Church's tendency to run people through one-size-fits-all lay-led programs that may run only once a year. If lay ministries are going to replace priestly counsel--and I don't see how to avoid it given dwindling numbers of aging priests and increasingly complicated and dysfunctional families--lay leaders need to be recruited, trained, and supported better. These programs also need to be offered more frequently. And they need to be free. In our parish, you pay for all these programs. I'm not a cradle Catholic, so maybe these programs are better than in the olden days, but they are far from perfect.
DeleteI hope that people will realize how much more there is to "Laudato
ReplyDeletesi" than dealing with marriage-divorce-annulment-communion. It is relevant to the whole notion of a truly Christian conception of what genuine moral practice involves, the conception that finds expression in "The Joy of the Gospel." A large part, the bulk of the document, has to do with the formation and exercise of properly conceived consciences. So far as I can tell, we all have a long way to go to "observe, judge, act" without waiting for some "official" ecclesiastical approbation.
Bernard, you are right that there is more to it than the remarriage/annulment discussion. In fact that is a very small part of the document. Unfortunately that is the part which has gotten the most attention.
ReplyDelete