Fall 2020 · Vol. 49 No. 2 · pp. 214–216
Book Review
To Change the Church
Ross Douthat. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 2018. 256 pages.
Ross Douthat is a Roman Catholic conservative concerned about the direction that Pope Francis is taking the church. I have highlighted “The Marriage Problem,” as Douthat titles his sixth chapter, because this represents the most concrete issue to which he takes exception regarding the direction of the current pope. The rest of the book frames this discussion by dealing with three different interpretations of post-Vatican II events in the first four chapters and possible heresies the Pope could be accused of in chapters 9 and 10.
Cardinal Walter Kasper proposed in 2014 that remarried divorced Catholics could be received back into full communion (81-83). Pope Francis wrote a papal exhortation Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love) in 2016, saying that the church should move toward granting divorced and remarried believers the right to take communion (129-35). Douthat regards this innovative approach as flying in the face of established church practice and opening itself to other accommodations.
The Catholic Church’s sacramental theology deems a marriage eternally valid in a Platonic sense. In the same way Jesus prayed that the will of his Father “be done on earth, as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10), a human marriage constitutes an eternal reality that cannot be broken. The historical “accidents” or “forms” of communion, marriage, priesthood, and intercession are reflected in the divine essences of reality.
The church allows for the dissolution of a marriage by deciding that it was not a “real” marriage. After conducting interviews, a priest can attest that the marriage was but a shadow of what it should have been. After being granted an annulment, Catholic believers who were married are free to marry again.
Douthat disagrees with this solution. In Mark 10: 9-12, Jesus announces that no one ought to separate what God has joined together. “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her.” Although an exception on the grounds of unchastity is granted in Matthew 5:31-32, Jesus goes on to say that a man who “marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” Douthat believes on the basis of these statements that divorced Catholics should not be allowed to take communion if they remarry.
Douthat also rejects a penitential path in which a divorced couple expresses appropriate contrition and remorse in order to move on (94). He rejects the idea of a second marriage being a sign of “permanent grace,” meaning that the new couple has “rebuilt their lives, entered in a new and happier relationship, and achieved the proper psychological perspective toward their past” (134). {215}
I find it disconcerting that devout remarried Catholics cannot participate in the Eucharist. Their moral failings in one area have left them excluded from the one sacrament that proclaims the reconciliation of all people. The Platonism of Catholicism leaves the church in a bind in terms of weighing one ethical failing in relation to divorce against the ability of remarried divorced Catholics to be forgiven and reconciled in their lives, in the life of the church, and in the sacrament of communion.
Another example of this difficult dynamic involves the Catholic priesthood. Catholic priests who marry after their calling to the ministry need to receive a dispensation in order to annul the validity of their first vows, be considered faithful Catholics, and then get married in the Catholic Church. Married Protestant ministers who are called to the Catholic priesthood after their marriage vows, on the other hand, can be accepted as Catholic priests because their pastoral calling came after their marriage vows.
Douthat’s reluctance regarding the embrace of a penitential route is puzzling. Our sinful acts require penitence, facilitated in the Catholic Church through public and private confession and acts of service. This route of contrition and restoration is one of the things about which Jesus preached (e.g., Matt 9:13).
Separated and divorced inmates I have counselled as part of my prison chaplaincy work often wonder if there is a penitential path open to them. These inmates have sometimes unconsciously committed a criminal offence in order to “get out of a bad marriage.” These men had such a high view of marriage, reinforced by religious convictions, that they believed that they had to do something drastic to get out of the situation. Their spouses rather than they themselves could then be blamed, before God and others, for the divorce that inevitably ensued.
This example demonstrates the extent to which a moral law can have a powerful hold over us. The inmates believed that they would be eternally damned if they separated from their spouses. They therefore stayed trapped in a bad marriage with few means of addressing the situation in a constructive manner. This is one reason I believe Douthat is on the wrong path when he ends the book with an emphasis on moral law. While I, together with him, believe that human beings can live supremely fulfilled lives in one marriage, failings in our lives need the intervention of divine grace.
An historical anecdote brings a Mennonite perspective to this discussion. Several years ago, I picked a copy of Esther Epp-Tiessen’s Altona (1982), a history of the town in which I grew up. I was surprised to learn that the Altona United Church was started in 1953 by Mennonite service men who had joined the military in World War II. She succinctly describes how this came about: {216}
By enlisting in the Armed Forces, the men had gone against the nonresistant stance of the Mennonite Church. To regain full fellowship, they were required to admit their sin and request forgiveness. Many did not feel they could do so in good conscience (!!). After several years without any church homes, they contacted Gordon Freer of the Emerson United Church and asked for help in organizing their own congregation” (Altona, 278-79).
What would our stance be today? Would we change the way the Mennonite Church in Altona handled the situation seventy years ago?
Overall, Douthat’s reflections make for fascinating reading, especially for readers unfamiliar with the intricacies of Catholic debate, dialogue, theology, intrigue, and politicking.
