Frustrating

Radical trad and conservative Catholics are frustrating sometimes. For example, this was recently featured at Rorate Caeli with the implied insinuation that this was somehow a "Vatican II moment" involving yet another prominent hierarch, a cardinal even, advocating heresy or something not in keeping with the Faith:

The Church must rethink its approach to remarried divorcees and gay relationships, the world's youngest cardinal has said.

Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, 55, made his comments in an interview with the German weekly Die Zeit and said that while the Orthodox Church considers only the first marriage sacramentally valid, divorce and a second marriage is tolerated.

Asked whether this could be a model for the Catholic Church, he replied that the Church should talk about it. Commenting on gay men in relationships he said he tried not to see them as just violating natural law but as people trying to take responsibility for each other in lasting partnerships.

"We must find a way of allowing people to live without going against church teaching," he said.

The trads in the combox went crazy, of course.

When I tried to comment, my comments were never approved.

Specifically, I made two points. The first was sharing the idea I have written about here before about how Catholic and Orthodox approaches to marriage can be reconciled. 

Some Catholics think, "Well, it's easy enough, we just need to recognize Orthodox 'divorces' as equivalent to an annulment granted by the bishop. There's no need to require the legalistic bureaucratic Western canonical process." But, as I explained, it's a little more complicated by that. The Orthodox are disturbed by the notion inherent in the annulment mentality that "nothing actually happened" if the first marriage is annulled. As if it was all just unintentional fornication. No, they say, the first marriage needs to be recognized as a real human relationship that tragically broke down due to sin.

The problem seems to lie in the Western "all or nothing" notion that, between two baptized parties, a marriage is either the Sacrament or it's Nothing At All, merely "putative." I've suggested that this may not, in fact, be dogma (though Ott suggests it is) but rather a Western canonical situation that is unessential. Perhaps two Christians can, in fact, contract a natural but non-Sacrament marriage. There are some other caveats that would have to go along with this (such as the sinfulness of two baptized parties contracting a "merely" natural marriage on purpose and a corresponding obligation to convalidate as soon as possible), but if annulled marriages could be recognized as having been valid natural marriages, even "sacramentals," then the Orthodox "penitential" approach to subsequent marriages might be more intelligible and they, on their part, might be more willing to admit the "annulment" idea at least relative to the Western definition of what constitutes a Sacrament strictly-speaking.

The second point I tried to make, however, more importantly, was that the Cardinal doesn't seem to be approving of sin here. He doesn't seem to be talking about altering Church teaching on adultery or sodomy, and in fact makes that very clear in the last line. I think, instead, he is getting at the same thing Cardinal Schonborn has tried to get at (though Schonborn did so a little more sloppily, I think). Namely: we have to figure out a (non-scandalous) way to recognize the validity of human relationships, even if we can't, of course, validate the sin any such relationship may contain (and what relationship doesn't?)

That's all I said. I don't know why Rorate found that so controversial.

However, I'll say a bit more here. I've written about this before rather recently. The "living in sin" notion really doesn't make much sense. People sin or they don't; there aren't two tiers of sinners. Acts are sinful, human relationships are not (though they may be marred or deformed to different degrees by sin.) For most divorced and remarried couples, or cohabiting couples, or gay couples, sex acts (if they take place) are not the basis of their relationship. As someone on a comment I read once said, you don't need to get married or move in together to have sex! Frankly, you don't need any sort of committed or long-term relationship, period; you need twenty minutes...

No, when people make that commitment, it's not about sex. Sex may or may not be taking place (in our culture, it's probably likely) but if it is, it's a separate question that should be dealt with as individual acts just like all other sins. I mean, we don't generally construct a man who lives by himself and happens to masturbate sometimes as "living in sin with himself" as if that's the basis of his "lifestyle" after all. No, it's something abstractable. He shouldn't receive communion until he's been to confession, of course, and made a contrite resolve to stop (even if he knows, given his own patterns, that it is likely he'll fall again if he is being honest). But generally we don't require "humanly impossible absolute guarantees of an irreproachable future conduct."

But then for divorced and remarried couples, cohabiting unmarried couples, and gay couples...we have this double standard, as if it is the relationship itself that is the problem, and not merely the acts which may (or may not) be going on in private. The relationship itself is, even, treated as public "proof" or equivalent to the private acts and so conservatives will often advocate for denying these people communion (even though plenty of married couples use contraception privately and then still take communion; they shouldn't either, of course, but the point is the double standard).

This attitude needs to change. I think this is what Cardinals Woelki and Schonborn are talking about. Human committed relationships need to be affirmed and validated in a manner that constructs them as separate from whatever sin they may contain, abstracted from it and redeemable in spite of it.

The Church already has some precedent for this regarding the divorced and remarried, as I've said before: these couples are allowed (especially if it is a question of young children involved) to live "as brother and sister." This is considered a morally permissible option if occasion of sin can be mitigated, and they are then invited to confess and resume taking communion (though, I'd point out: who is ever going to know what's really going on behind closed doors? But also, on the other hand: who are we to ever make any assumptions??) However, there is still an unease about this situation, as if it's something to be tolerated but not celebrated. But especially if we are imagining sin has ceased, what's wrong? Surely the first divorce is tragic, but is this human relationship bad? The same question can be asked for homosexual couples, etc.

I don't see this happening for some time (though, the sooner the Church gets around to it, the less credibility we'll lose!) but I would even suggest, then, implementing some sort of Church recognition of these relationships (even while making the moral expectations regarding chastity very clear). If a married couple can "live as brother and sister," then perhaps the Church should implement a sacramental to bless this, a sort of "adopted siblinghood" (or, perhaps, more like "step-siblinghood," to avoid the notion of the taboo of incest if the two do fall into sin together.) The same could be done for gay couples; recognize "adopted brotherhood" or "spiritual sisterhood" or whatever. In fact, rituals of fraternatio or adelphopoiesis existed in the Church in the past, and still find some practice in the Eastern churches.

This sort of brother-making (or sister-making, or sibling-making) was not and is not marriage, at least not in the traditional Christian sense of the word (Boswell is wildly incorrect there). But, as I've said before, "marriage" is just a word, and which aspect of relationships are being primarily emphasized or described by it is subject to linguistic usage. (Indeed, nowadays, when a man asks a woman to marry him, is the emotional essence of that statement "be the mother of my children?" even if that is also implied, or is it "spend your life and find your home with me?" There's a good case to be made that, nowadays, people emphasize the life-partner aspect of marriage as essential, and as such it makes sense that other non-mating couples would want the same recognition). 

As such, though it would not be Holy Matrimony in the Catholic understanding, I would not think contracting civil marriage for legal purposes would be intrinsically immoral or unethical for such couples, as a way to establish their kinship legally, though (with the Scottish Christian Party) I'd rather prefer Civil Partnerships legislation that takes "the criteria [...] out of the bedroom and into the living room - sexuality should play no role because it discriminates against these other partnerships."

The point is, the Church could recognize (and not just in toleration, but in celebration) human committed relationships and partnerships without implying any sort of recognition for the sin they may (or may not!) contain. A re-sourcing of rituals of brother-making could be established as sacramentals to explicitly recognize the "brother-sister" relationships (already a model offered to them by the Church sometimes) of the divorced and civilly remarried, or of homosexual partners, and (like actual siblings) the benefit of the doubt could be given publicly regarding their chastity (which would in reality remain a matter between the couple and their confessors or spiritual directors and God). 

In fact, if the Church offered this sort of model (even if some would be inclined to call it a fig-leaf), perhaps people would find chastity more appealing or not feel as if unchastity was required for them to not be alone in life, and provide an understanding or model of life-partnership that was not constructed as necessarily sexualized or "matrimonial" (ie, taking heterosexual mating as its primary analogy, as most such relationships do currently, merely since that is the only model we currently have for companionate relationships or domestic partnerships).

However, given what I see on Rorate Caeli and other conservative and traditional Catholic forums online...I sadly think it will be a long time before anything like this is officially recognize or implemented, if ever, and we're going to wind up driving a lot of people away because of it. 

However, even if there is no formal Church recognition, I'd encourage individual Catholics to treat couples they know in such situations with this sort of compassion and benefit-of-the-doubt giving, recognizing and affirming and validating their relationships in spite of whatever sin might happen to take place sometimes (since the relationship cannot be reduced to that as if it is the essence). 

And I'd extend my support to any such couples who decide to forge ahead (hopefully striving for chastity; though even if not, as I've said, that still doesn't invalidate the relationship), encouraging them to express their commitment before God in whatever way they can find (we should remember that canon law already recognizes private vows undertaken for any just cause, and that there are already all sorts of generic blessings), protecting themselves legally in whatever way they need to (not worrying about semantics), and to remain witnesses in the Church (with whatever level of discretion they feel is appropriate) to the goodness, regardless of any marring by sin, which is to be found in all human love and relationship.