Vatican's top legal aide says divorced-and-remarried may receive Communion

Vatican City, Feb 14, 2017 / 17:20 pm

The head of the Vatican office charged with interpreting Church law has said that divorced-and-remarried persons who want to change their situation but cannot, may be admitted to Communion without living in continence.

"The Church could admit to Penance and to the Eucharist faithful who find themselves in an illegitimate union when two essential conditions occur: they want to change the situation, but they are unable to fulfill their desire," Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, 78, wrote in his booklet Chapter Eight of the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhoration Amoris laetitia, published last week.

Cardinal Coccopalmerio is president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts. His booklet, published by the Vatican Publishing House and presented Feb. 14 at a Vatican press confence, offers his own interpretation of Amoris laetitia. He said it is aimed at "grasping the rich doctrinal and pastoral message" of Pope Francis' 2016 apostolic exhortation.

Part of the reason for writing it, he said, is because the exhortation's eighth chapter has "been judged with either negativity or with a certain reservation."

In the text, Cardinal Coccopalmerio extensively quotes Amoris laetitia, saying Chapter 8 illustrates both the clear doctrine of the Church on marriage, as well as the conditions in which, due to "serious" repercussions, couples living in irregular unions might be able to receive Communion.

He reaffirmed the Church's teaching on the indissolubility of marriage, and stressed that the Church must in no way "renounce to proposing the full ideal of marriage, God's plan in all its greatness."

"Any form of relativism, or an excessive respect in the moment of proposing it, would be a lack of fidelity to the Gospel and also a lack of love of the Church," he said.

However, he noted that, as said in Amoris laetitia, there are many complex factors contributing to why marriages fail and irregular unions are so common, such as abandonment by a spouse, cultural stigmas, or other "mitigating factors."

The cardinal pointed to paragraph 301 of Amoris laetitia, which reads: "it is can no longer simply be said that all those in any 'irregular' situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace."

By referring to "any irregular situation," the exhortation, in his opinion, "intends to refer to all those who are married only civilly or only living in a de facto union or are bound by a previous canonical marriage," the cardinal said.

Further quoting that paragraph, the cardinal said, "a subject may know full well the rule, yet have great difficulty in understanding 'its inherent values,' or be in a concrete situation which does not allow him or her to act differently and decide otherwise without further sin … factors may exist which limit the ability to make a decision."

Offering an example of a situation in which a person might be fully aware of the irregularity of their situation yet faces great difficulty in changing it for fear of falling into greater sin, Cardinal Coccopalmerio pointed to couples in a new union who can't separate due to "serious reasons" such as the education of their children.

He also used the example of a woman cohabiting with a man and his three children, after they had been abandoned by his first wife.

In the book, the cardinal said the woman had saved the man "from a state of deep despair, probably from the temptation of suicide." The couple had been together for 10 years, adding another child to the mix, with the woman making considerable sacrifices to help raise the other three.

While the woman in the hypothetical situation "is fully aware of being in an irregular situation" and would "honestly like to change her life, but evidently, she can't," the cardinal said, explaining that if she left, "the man would turn back to the previous situation and the children would be left without a mother."

To leave, then, would mean the woman would fail to carry out her duties toward innocent people, namely, the children. Because of this, Cardinal Coccopalmerio said, "it's then evident that she couldn't leave without new sin" occurring.

Speaking on the point of continence, the cardinal pointed to St. John Paul II's 1981 apostolic exhortation Familiaris consortio.

In the document, St. John Paul II taught that the divorced-and-remarried who for serious reasons cannot satisfy the obligation to separate may receive absolution which would open the way to Communion only if they take on the duty to live in complete continence – to live as brother and sister.

However, for Cardinal Coccopalmerio, while the couples who are able to do this should, for others the temptation of infidelity increases the longer a couple refrains from sexual intimacy, potentially causing greater harm to the children.

He referred to footnote 329 of Amoris laetitia. The footnote is a reference to the quoting of St. John Paul II's words in Familiaris consortio acknowledging that some of the divorced-and-remarried cannot, for serious reasons, separate. The footnote applies the words of Gaudium et spes that "where the intimacy of married life is broken off, its faithfulness can sometimes be imperiled and its quality of fruitfulness ruined" – in its context, speaking about married couples – to "the divorced who have entered a new union."

Cardinal Coccopalmerio stressed that while for him the desire to change one's situation despite the inability to do so is enough to receive Communion, the conditions must be "carefully and authoritatively discerned" on the part of ecclesial authority, which would typically be the couple's parish priest, who knows the couple "more directly" and can therefore offer adequate guidance.

For the cardinal, the only instance in which a couple in an irregular situation could be barred from Communion is when, "knowing they are in grave sin and being able to change, they have no sincere desire" to do so.

He also suggested that a diocesan office charged with advising on difficult marital situations could be "necessary, or at least useful."

Cardinal Coccopalmerio was absent from his book presentation, and it was presented instead by Orazio La Rocca; Fr. Maurizio Gronchi; Fr. Giuseppe Costa, SDB; and Alfonso Cuateruccio.

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Cardinal Coccopalmerio is the latest prelate to speak out on the question of Amoris laetitia and admission to Communion for the divorced-and-remarried. The exhortation has been met with a varied reception and intepretation within the Church.

Several bishops, including the bishops' conferences of Germany and of Malta, have said the divorced-and-remarried may receive Communion.

Yet many have maintained the Church's traditional discipline, including recently Bishop Vitus Huonder of Chur and Bishop Stephen Lopes of the Ordinariate of St. Peter.

And Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has on multiple occasions maintained that Amoris laetitia is in continuity with Church teaching.

In an interview with Il Timone earlier this month, he said that Amoris laetitia "must clearly be interpreted in the light of the whole doctrine of the Church." He said that St. John Paul II's teaching in Familiaris consortio "is not dispensable, because it is not only a positive law of John Paul II, but he expressed an essential element of Christian moral theology and the theology of the sacraments."

Confusion on this point, he said, stems from a failure to accept St. John Paul II's 1993 encyclical Veritatis splendor.

Cardinal Müller suggested that in order to quell the confusion generated by the differing interpretations of Amoris laetitia, everyone ought to study the Church's doctrine, beginning with Scripture, "which is very clear on marriage."

"All of us must understand and accept the doctrine of Christ and of his Church, and at the same time be ready to help others to understand it and put it into practice even in difficult situations," he stated.

Observing the difference between the statements of Cardinal Müller and Cardinal Coccopalmerio, Dr. Edward Peters, a professor of canon law at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, wrote that "the Church's arguably two highest-ranking cardinals in the areas of canonical interpretation and the protection of doctrine and morals are in public, plain, and diametric opposition with each other concerning a crucial canonico-sacramental practice. This division cannot stand."