Barred from the Eucharist?

During my years abroad, I was constantly challenged by the goodness and exemplary lives of some of the divorced Catholics in second marriages. They were fully participating members of the Eucharistic community. They had reached their soul-searching decision to openly partake of the Eucharist solely on the basis of their informed conscience, others after deep reflection and long consultation, in or out of the confessional. This latter practice is known as the internal forum.

The Church's position

Concerning the reception of the Eucharist by divorced Catholics in second marriages, the Church's position is clear: these couples find themselves in a situation that objectively contravenes God's law. Hence, they cannot receive the Eucharist as long as this situation persists.

The reason for this is that their state and condition of life objectively contradicts the union of love between Christ and his Church, which is signified and affected by the Eucharist. There is a special pastoral reason: if these people were admitted to the Eucharist, the parishioners would be led in error and confusion regarding the Church's teaching about the indissolubility of marriage.

In his 1981 Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, Pope John Paul II clearly understands the painful position some of these couples are in. He urges their pastors not to abandon them to their own devices and to put at their disposal the Church's means of salvation. According to the Pope, these couples should be encouraged to listen to the Word of God, to attend the sacrifice of the Mass, to persevere in prayer, to do charitable works, to bring up their children in the Christian faith and to cultivate the spirit and practice of penance.

The same Exhortation further indicates the need for the charism of discernment in pastoral practice and for all cases to be treated on an individual basis. This is why the Pope writes: "There is, in fact, a difference between those who have sincerely tried to save their first marriage and have been unjustly abandoned, and those through their own grave fault have destroyed a canonically valid marriage. Finally, there are those who have entered a second union for the sake of children's upbringing and who are sometimes subjectively certain in conscience that their previous and irreparably destroyed marriage had never been valid".

Plurality of choices

It seems to me that in the light of the foregoing, what is important to bear in mind is that people can only start by looking at what decisions they have to make, according to their present stage of development on all levels: emotional, psychological, intellectual, cultural, moral and spiritual. What is asked of them is a decision which, according to their own capacity, is rightly made, that is, it gives due importance to the most important values and takes into account their present interpersonal and social situation.

I propose the following options to those whose marriage irretrievably broke down, entered a second marriage, and wish to receive the Eucharist, and to those who are cohabiting, are subjectively certain in conscience that their previous and irreparably destroyed marriage had never been valid, and have been waiting far too long for a declaration of nullity and yearn to receive the Eucharist:

1. Faithfully following the Catholic teaching.

In essence, there are those who, to play it safe with God and not to cause public scandal, opt to faithfully follow the teaching of the Church, and live as brother and sister, and to refrain from receiving the Eucharist. These couples are encouraged by the Church to love each other faithfully but are not allowed to express that love in the language of sexual intercourse. In other words, the Church insists on the non-practice of one aspect of marriage but allows what constitutes the heart of marriage to remain.

It would appear that the Pope and his advisers, when drawing up sections of the Exhortation, had an acute lapse of memory; the psychological and theological insights on marriage that had been painstakingly worked out at Vatican II were ignored. The Council Fathers had put lovemaking at the heart of marriage: "Such love, merging the human and divine, leads the spouses to a free and mutual gift of themselves... Such love pervades the whole of their lives. By its generous activity, it grows better and grows greater...This love is uniquely expressed and perfected through the marital act."

While, on the one hand, it is highly commendable that these couples should want to avoid scandal at all costs, on the other hand, they should realise that excessive religious demands are not to be made on people. This was very much the practice and teaching of Jesus in his confrontation with the religious leaders of his time. Demands need always to be viewed in terms of the degree of grace, insight, ability, milieu and age.

Moreover, I suspect that little do these people realise that Pope John Paul II at the concluding Mass of the Jubilee on January 6, 2001, personally gave the Eucharist to Francesco Rutelli, a practising Catholic and a premier centre-left candidate for that year's planned elections in Italy. Rutelli had been, as a member of the Radical Party, one of the most active supporters of Italy's abortion law, which is among the most permissive in the world. And Rutelli continued, as a Catholic, to maintain publicly "pro-choice" positions.

One could easily argue that by denying Rutelli the Eucharist, the Church would expose itself to the accusation of wanting to interfere in political life. However, one could equally say that, by denying the Eucharist to couples in second unions, the Church would expose itself to the accusation of inviting her erring children to come home, and yet, at the same time, of barring them from staying for the Lord's Supper.

2. An informed conscience.

The Church teaching on this matter is also clear: as Catholics we have an absolute duty to obey our conscience. This does not mean that our conscience is infallibly right.

It can err because judgment may be corrupted by interest, because it makes errors of fact, or because it wrongly estimates tendencies and possible consequences of action - and there can be no certainties in advance about these.

However, the traditional Church view is that an erring conscience must be followed. We must take full responsibility for our own decisions before God and follow what, at that time, our moral reason prescribes. When we are ordered to do something against our conscientious judgment, we should disobey.

Needless to say, as Catholics, we have a duty to educate our conscience. To educate our conscience we need to seek the right environment in which we experience the fellowship of other Catholics and the guidance of those who govern the Church in Spirit and in Truth.

It is my belief that such an environment does not exhaust the other sources of education for the conscience. We cannot afford to ignore the whole sweep of human knowledge wherever it is relevant; this would include what the people of God have to say on a particular issue, the position of our Christian separated brethren, other long established world religions, other cultures, the study of secular sciences and other disciplines.

Applied to the situation under discussion, the notion of an informed conscience would mean that the divorced and remarried, before they present themselves for the Eucharist, should seriously and responsibly take heed of what the Church teaches.

They need to ascertain that the first marriage has irretrievably broken down and there is no possibility of it being restored. Moreover, they need to ascertain that all obligations in justice towards the other partner and the children of the first marriage are being fulfilled as far as is humanly possible, that the second marriage is being lived in good faith and that the desire for admission to the Eucharist is solely motivated by genuine faith.

The presence of these conditions is not the end of the matter. The reception of the sacraments needs a minister. It is one thing for a couple to responsibly dissent from the official teaching of the Catholic Church and to follow their conscience. It is another to expect the minister to give them the Eucharist and, perhaps, to violate his conscience.

However, I do consider it highly improbable that a minister, in this day and age, would publicly deny the Eucharist to such a couple. For there exist ministers who are compassionate and demonstrate, through their actions, the loving mercy of God to the marginalised.

3. The principle of Epikeia.

I will dwell briefly on the principle of Epikeia, which a number of priests adopt both in and outside the confessional. It is perhaps one of the best-kept secrets in the Church. Epikeia is the Church's way of saying: "This is the law. Use your common sense". I have every reason to believe that any bona fide responsible Catholic adult can apply this principle to his or her own unique particular circumstances, including the decision to openly receive the Eucharist if he or she finds himself or herself in an irregular marriage or second union.

This principle allows a person to judge that, under certain unique circumstances, the human legislator - including ecclesiastical legislators - could not reasonably intend the letter of the law to apply, for example, either because the hardship involved would be out of proportion to the purpose of the law, or because the good intended by the law would not be achieved but rather frustrated, or because there is an unforeseen conflict with a higher and more necessary good.

4. The Oriental Churches.

There are those who see the Catholic Church as rigid, insensitive and authoritarian and not at all reflecting the love and mercy of Jesus. They look at the Oriental Churches that are separated from Rome as having a more pastorally lenient attitude to divorce and remarriage than the Catholic Church. These Churches admit of divorce under certain conditions, of remarriage and of the reception of the Eucharist. In actual fact, their pastoral practice stems both from earlier close connections with the State in the Byzantine Empire and from their reflections on the Matthaen texts about which I have referred to in a previous article.

As the Orthodox Archbishop Kallistos Ware explains: "Divorce is seen as an exceptional but unavoidable concession to our human brokenness, living as we do in a fallen world... the Orthodox Church knows that a second alliance cannot have exactly the same character as the first..."(The Orthodox Church, New York, Penguin Books, 1993 edition, p. 295).

The Catholic Church took a conciliatory approach at Vatican II when she openly accepted the validity of the sacraments administered by our separated Eastern Churches. According to Vatican II: "Eastern Christians who are separated in good faith from the Catholic Church, if they ask of their own accord and have the right dispositions, may be granted the sacraments of penance, the Eucharist, and the anointing of the sick.

"Furthermore, Catholics may ask for these same sacraments from those non-Catholic ministers whose Churches possess valid sacraments, as often as necessity or a genuine spiritual benefit recommends such a course of action, and when access to a Catholic priest is physically or morally impossible." I believe that a divorced Catholic who is remarried or a Catholic living in a second union should take heart from this Conciliar statement.

In our ecumenical climate, the stance taken over the centuries by the Oriental Churches with regard to their attitude to marriage and divorce poses a thorny, and what appears to be an intractable problem for unity between the Church of Rome and the Oriental Churches.

Is it conceivable that, when union comes, the Catholic Church will subject to process of law all our Oriental separated brethren who, though happily married now, have a broken marriage behind them, and require them to live as brother and sister and to refrain from receiving the Eucharist? I very much doubt the Catholic Church would ever adopt such a rigid discipline towards our Oriental separated brethren. I believe the principles of the 'lesser evil' or 'in the interest of faith will prevail'.

My final article will focus on the role of the Catholic politician and divorce.

Frank Muscat, MA, Ph.Lic., S.Th.Lic., CQSW, is a former member of the Inner and North London Panel of Guardians ad Litem and Reporting Officers and a former member of the Law Society Child Care Panel. He worked in the High Court and in the Family Proceedings Court in London. He also worked in the Ecumenical Chaplaincy of Queen Mary College, University of London. From 1996 to 1998, he was chairman of the Children and Young Persons Advisory Board in Malta. He has also been a family counsellor and an assistant of the Juvenile Court since 1996.