Prof. Silvio Cajiao, S.I. – Bogotà

23-03-06

PASTORAL CARE FOR DIVORCED PERSONS WHO HAVE REMARRIED

Generally the painful decision to separate reached by a couple who had married in Church, on the grounds of their confession of Catholic faith, represents an option which is chosen after other solutions have been tried but, because of the reality of human and Christian immaturity, the lack of preparation to all the aspects pertaining to a couple’s life (integration of the spouse’s family, emotional-sexual dimension, co-responsibility in bringing up children, consolidation of the process of spiritual growth which starts with the sacrament of matrimony, or of the process within which the reality of sin and selfishness erode love and the reality of sin is established, etc.) the couple start to take into consideration and then decide that, for their personal psychological wellbeing and that of their children, if there are any, physical separation is advisable. In time new unions may be established.

The view that these relationships, because they are irregular, cause people to be in a state of excommunication and that they should be excluded from any kind of ecclesial participation, is an exaggeration, as indeed His Holiness John Paul II pointed out in Familiaris consortio: " Together with the Synod, I earnestly call upon pastors and the whole community of the faithful to help the divorced, and with solicitous care to make sure that they do not consider themselves as separated from the Church, for as baptized persons they can, and indeed must, share in her life. They should be encouraged to listen to the word of God, to attend the Sacrifice of the Mass, to persevere in prayer, to contribute to works of charity and to community efforts in favour of justice, to bring up their children in the Christian faith, to cultivate the spirit and practice of penance and thus implore, day by day, God's grace. Let the Church pray for them, encourage them and show herself a merciful mother, and thus sustain them in faith and hope." (n. 84).

On the other hand, with regard to participation in the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, on the part of people who have divorced and then remarried, or who are living in irregular unions, what John Paul II said on the subject is extremely clear: " However, the Church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried. They are unable to be admitted thereto from the fact that their state and condition of life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and the Church which is signified and effected by the Eucharist. Besides this, there is another special pastoral reason: if these people were admitted to the Eucharist, the faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the Church's teaching about the indissolubility of marriage. Reconciliation in the sacrament of Penance which would open the way to the Eucharist, can only be granted to those who, repenting of having broken the sign of the Covenant and of fidelity to Christ, are sincerely ready to undertake a way of life that is no longer in contradiction to the indissolubility of marriage. This means, in practice, that when, for serious reasons, such as for example the children's upbringing, a man and a woman cannot satisfy the obligation to separate, they "take on themselves the duty to live in complete continence, that is, by abstinence from the acts proper to married couples."" (n. 84).

This provides an indication of the fundamental importance of the preparation to be provided to people who are about to be married concerning the dimension of the great sacrament they have chosen for the day of their marriage.

By virtue of my bond with the Equipes de Notre Dame (or Our Lady's Teams), I wish to mention an initiative which has been quite successful in Brazil and which has now been adopted also in other countries of Latin America; it is called “Mas pareja” (more couple) and couples who find themselves in the position we have just described, or live in irregular unions although there is no obstacle to marriage, are urged to discover, or rather rediscover, all the aspects of the great sacrament that reflects Christ’s union with the Church.