Reflections on Amoris Laetitia

Reflections

On Some Responses to Francis’ Amoris Laetitia

Carla Mae Streeter, OP

Francis released his Apostolic Exhortation, “On the Joy of Love,” on March 19, 2016, the Feast of St. Joseph. The document was the pope’s long awaited response to the Synod on the Family, which concretized Francis’ vision of the Church as a participative community engaged in a participative event. A questionnaire was issued beforehand, with the explicit invitation to speak freely on the issues. It was to be an experience of a truly listening Church.

 What followed the publication of the Exhortation was a variety of responses. I will name two that the reader might want to pursue, while commenting mainly on one of them. The first response I reference appeared in Commonweal on May 20, 2016, and was entitled, “A Balancing Act: Reading ‘Amoris Laetitia.’ The article featured perspectives from Peter Steinfels, Paige E. Hochschild, William L. Portier, Sandra Yocum, and George Dennis O’Brien.

 The second was a booklet in English, Rebuilding Lives: Divorce, Welcome, and Communion, published by Cristianisme i Justicia from Barcelona. It featured the responses of four Jesuits, Xavier Alegre Santamaria, “The Teaching of the Bible: What did Jesus say About Marriage?, Josἐ Ignatio Gonzάlez Faus, “Theological Approaches,” Jesús Martinez Gordo, “Truth and Mercy: The Theological Cogency of Cardinal Kasper’s Proposal,” and Andrέs Torres Queiruga, “The Ecclesiological Background: A Shepherd Pope Faced With Ecclesial Restorationism.” The perspectives of Gordo will be the main focus of these reflections.

                                       What Francis Intends to Do in the Exhortation

 In his seven paragraph introduction, Francis offers us a remarkable guiding statement: he states that “…not all discussions of doctrinal, moral or pastoral issues need to be settled by interventions of the magisterium.” (3) With these words he acknowledges not only the true authority of the magisterium and its place, but affirms that the Holy Spirit operates significantly in the entire People of God, and all need to be attentive to this wide action.

Then he proceeds to sketch his approach to bring before all of us what he considers significant from the recent synod. His first chapter will explore the scriptures. Chapter two will examine the actual situation of families in our day as he perceives it. The third chapter will reaffirm the Church’s teaching on marriage and family. Two chapters will be dedicated to the nature of authentic loving, chapter four in marriage uniquely, and chapter five on love’s distinctive fruitfulness. Chapter six will offer some pastoral approaches, specifically on marriage preparation. In chapter seven Francis will tackle the sensitive issue of the education of children, including a specific call for sound sex education. Chapter eight is dedicated to a call to the entire Church to accompany, discern, and integrate the weakness of unions that do not measure up to the ideal, and provide pastoral care for those who struggle in these situations. The balance Francis envisions means “To show understanding in the face of exceptional situation never implies dimming the light of the fuller ideal…” (307) Finally in chapter nine, Francis offers a spirituality of marriage and the family. It is chapter eight, and the pope’s explicit call for mercy in irregular situations, that in my view offers a refreshing affirmation of the activity of the Holy Spirit in the consciences of couples while simultaneously affirming the guidance of the wisdom of the Church’s teachings. It is also the most controversial.

                                              The Focus of this Particular Reflection

 Standing firmly on the balance principle above, I turn now to a specific section of Jesús Martinez Gordo’s article, “Truth and Mercy: The Theological Cogency of Cardinal Kasper’s Proposal.” In section 3.4 of the article, Gordo asks the reader to identify the “it” that God has joined in marriage. Theologically, Gordo is asking for the res or substance that the marriage ritual signs to us.

 Gordo begins by reminding us that for the Eucharist itself to “last,” the matter of the sacrament, namely the bread and wine, must last. They must remain intact. If they dissolve, if they decay, then the Eucharistic presence, as sacrament, ceases in what remains.  The “it” of the Eucharist as sacrament is the presence of the risen Christ in the elements. When the elements cease, the sacramental presence of Christ ceases to be present in the destroyed or corrupted remains.

Gordo wisely chooses the most central of the sacraments to make a point. When the matter or sensory element of a sacrament ceases, the divine active presence that is its substance ceases also in that local instance. The matter and form are inseparable, as modeled for us by the incarnation itself. The presence of the eternal Word of God was intact as the Christ suffered. That divinity was present as the sacred humanity died. It was present in the deceased body of Jesus in the tomb, and it was the Father who through and in the person of the Word, raised that sacred humanity from death.

 Gordo then sides with Cardinal Kasper against the more rigid cardinals who interpret the “indissolubility of marriage” in a more literal manner. In doing so, interpreters such as Cardinal Cafarra blur the distinction between fallible teaching still in process of discussion, and infallible teaching which has clear and limited characteristics: the doctrine must be a truth revealed by God, proclaimed in a solemn act, requires an irrevocable response of faith, and excludes any contrary heretical proposition. The exact nature of the indissolubility question is clearly a work in progress and does not qualify according to the four criteria as infallible teaching.

The argument of Cardinal Kasper that Gordo supports is simply this: The human love and self-gift that is the matter of the sacrament of matrimony is a sign of the indissolubility of Christ’s love. When the human love dissolves, the matter of the sacrament in that case ceases. Thus the couple is no longer a sign of that indissoluble love. The sacrament ceases. It is not the human love that is indissoluble, but Christ’s. The human love is but its sign. When the sign dies, when the love and self-gift ceases, the sacrament ceases. The couple no longer signs the ongoing reality of Christ’s love. One or both the man and woman can destroy this sign.

Gordo is presenting an argument for the Latin Catholic Church similar to that which has been long held by the Orthodox Church. A marriage can die. And when it does, one or both partners are free to attempt to sign that self-giving love with another. Divorce thus becomes the declaration of the death of a marriage, and remarriage becomes possible, because the self-giving love of Christ still seeks a living sacramental sign.

This understanding opens a new pastoral possibility. Access to the Eucharist for Catholics whose marriages have died becomes the healing for one or both persons to recover and again reach out in self-giving love. It is the Christ whose love never dies, whose union with us in the baptismal bond is indissoluble. Francis is asking that this pastoral mercy be discussed further in the Latin Church. Amoris Laetitia is not a final word, but a call for the Church to move forward in mercy. It is a call for the development of doctrine into the fullness of its truth as it is lived in the lives of the People of God.

 Carla Mae Streeter, OP is professor emerita of systematic theology and spirituality at Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis.