Q. I read your recent answer concerning
divorced Catholics and their standing in the church. You and others fail to
remind Catholics that the Catechism (No. 2384-85) calls divorce a grave
injustice to the abandoned spouse and the children and also introduces disorder
into society.
How can you (and, it seems, most
spokesmen) say that someone who inflicted this can still receive Communion? In
order to be forgiven in the sacrament of confession, don't people need to
repair the damage they have done? Isn't the abandonment of sound Christian
moral teaching the reason the church is in the mess it is right now?
How many spouses who have abandoned their
marriages would return to their families (and maybe wouldn't have left in the
first place) if the church clearly taught — as Christ did 2,000 years ago when
speaking to the Pharisees — "What God has joined, no man may sever."
(Suburban Cleveland)
A. In the column to which the reader refers, I was asked whether
a divorced person, never remarried, may serve as an extraordinary minister of
holy Communion in the Catholic Church. I responded that he or she can — and is
encouraged to — participate in all aspects of parish life, including as a
minister of holy Communion.
I mentioned that sometimes it can happen that a person winds up
in a divorce through "little or no fault of their own." I stand by
that answer because it is the solid and consistent teaching of the church.
But I run the reader's question because it makes the valid point
that divorce can bring considerable pain to families and should be avoided,
using every opportunity for counseling, if at all possible.
Truly, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church points out,
children can be "traumatized by the separation of their parents and often
torn between them" (No. 2385). The view of the Catholic Church on the
permanence of marriage, besides having been taught by Christ, represents wise
social policy.
Questions may be sent to Father Kenneth Doyle at
askfatherdoyle@gmail.com and 30 Columbia Circle Dr., Albany, New York 12203.