I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. [Ephesians 4:1-3, NRSV]
Pope Francis and 20 wedding couples in St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City on Sept. 14, 2014.
Popes rarely preside over public marriage ceremonies, but when they do, the world never misses the opportunity to interpret the events as those moments when the papacy is trying to make a point about the place of marriage and family in society. So Pope John Paul II presided at the last public marriage ceremony in 2000 as part of the Jubilee for Families, an event that focused thematically on the positive gift of children and the negative destruction of abortion. Earlier, in 1994, he presided over a public wedding ceremony for the International Year of the Family, proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly. On Sunday 14 September this year, Pope Francis presided over the wedding of twenty couples in St. Peter’s Basilica. What event was he marking? What message was he sending? In coffee-corner conversations, statements were made and questions raised. We offer three comments.
1. What It Is Not
The group of twenty couples seems fairly typical, ranging as they do from ages 25 to 56 and are all from the Diocese of Rome. Upon checking their background, journalists hastily put together an underlying story line that they claimed to be quite telling: one bride was already a mother, some of the couples had already been cohabiting for many years (and thus technically “living in sin” for years), and others had previously been married and so on. And so the media as usual was a little too quick in their attempt to sensationalise the event by suggesting that, in solemnizing their marriage and presiding over the Wedding Mass, and, above all, in allowing “sinners” to receive Holy Communion, the Pope was hinting that some doctrines would be changed at the coming October Synod on the Family. Some even judged that he was undermining tradition and changing age-old practices.
All this is not true.
Throughout the world, couples who have cohabited or who even have borne children before marriage, have been admitted to church to have their marriages blessed and solemnised, and to say their “I do” before the altar of the Lord. But the truth of the matter is, and this is what the journalists would omit saying, these couples would have gone through the regular process, like every other “regular” couple in their respective parishes, of interviews, confessions and all the rest. Even in the case of one bride who had been previously married, information discloses that her new marriage this time is legitimate because she has already gone through the regular tribunal process.
Truly, there is no reason for us to pay any attention to media sensational spin in this case.
2. What It Is
And yet, there is no denying that now is another moment of historical importance. Shortly, on 5 October, Pope Francis will convene the Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, a major item he put on the papal agenda when he became Pope last year. This October’s Extraordinary Synod is only the third ever to be called since the Synod of Bishops was created in 1965. The Holy See reserves such Extraordinary Synods for moments of urgency in the Church’s life, and this October gathering’s theme will be “The Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization.” In other words, the focus of the big October event will be to explore how the Church can show compassion in the context of modern views and practices on marriage, sexuality and family life.
In presiding over the wedding celebration of those twenty couples of mixed history, and according the event a high visibility by blessing their union at St Peter’s Basilica, the Holy Father must be aware that the occasion would capture world attention. Whatever he stressed implicitly as well as explicitly, would be matters of import to him in terms of the direction he wishes the Church to take in confronting pastoral challenges. In that regard, what the Holy Father was stressing was the consistent message that the Church must prioritise her pastoral ministry. And in that ministry, priority has got to be given over to compassion and mercy.
- Instead of setting up more road blocks, and waving doctrines and the law books, the Church as the sacrament of Christ, must show forth Christ’s face of love, compassion and mercy.
- Couples living in ways that contradict their baptismal dignity must be helped to once again get on the right path, to be encouraged and supported to stop living in errant ways.
- Through work of compassion and mercy, the Church facilitates an encounter with Christ as the heart of its life.
By now, observers know that to understand Pope Francis, one must pay attention not only to the content of any given occasion in which he participates, but even more importantly the tonality of his actions. While there is no doubt that doctrinally the Vatican’s official position is that remarriage can only happen if a previous marriage has been annulled, that cohabitation is frowned upon, that divorce is a no-no, and so on, it is by now of common knowledge that what Pope Francis is about is mercy and compassion, and that the Synod document that the Vatican has circulated carries the Holy Father’s pastoral priority on mercy even as it discusses the Church’s hard teachings. Through all this, a forgiving tone is unmistakable and quite easily detected.
- This, above and beyond anything else, is the tone that a suffering soul longs to hear.
- This is the voice that never fails to remind the People of God of the gentle and healing voice and touch of Jesus.
- This is the voice that cuts right through a dense thicket of doctrinal harshness and moral judgments regularly and effusively gushing out from ecclesiastical heavyweights, as it was during Jesus’ time, and as it is today.
All this is because, from the moment of his election to the papacy, Pope Francis has never ceased emphasizing the importance of pastoral care. From his words and actions, the world has been impressed by his singular message that, at its best, the Church’s mission must not be self-referential, but must be ad intra and ad extra in zeal matched by faith and trust, and always carried out according to the model set by the Lord – a model of love, of compassion and of mercy.
What the September 14 wedding ceremony does indicate, therefore, is that Rome is signaling a new or renewed openness to be inclusive in the church’s sacraments towards people who have been cohabiting, have borne children out of wedlock, or even divorced. Parishes around the world may boldly proceed to identify worthy cases and proactively do likewise. This ought to be a regular activity of every parish pastoral outreach, characterized as it must be by an approach that is “intelligent, courageous and full of love”.
Like Holy Communion or Holy Orders, marriage is Holy Matrimony, a sacrament in Catholic theology, by which the faithful can experience life in communion with God and in community with fellow believers. Pope Francis’ example of presiding over a wedding for these twenty couples and granting them a sacramental blessing is, in our view, as much to encourage Catholic priests of the world to follow suit, as it is to send a timely message to the Synod Fathers who shall gather in Rome this October 5-19.
3. To Every Married Couple
This was a wedding ceremony, so the Holy Father did not miss the opportunity to encourage the couples on their common journey through life.
- On the couple’s complementary roles, the Pope said: “This is what marriage is all about: man and woman walking together, wherein the husband helps his wife to become ever more a woman, and wherein the woman has the task of helping her husband to become ever more a man. Here we see the reciprocity of differences.”
- Far from idealising marriage and ignoring the hardships and the frequent discords, Pope Francis acknowledged the burdens of marital life and urged the brides and grooms to make peace always, assuring them that being mindful of Christ’s redemptive sacrifice would enable them to resist the “dangerous temptation of discouragement, infidelity, weakness, abandonment.”
- The Pope also highlighted the potential spiritual depth and strength of Christian marriage and family, saying: “It is impossible to quantify the strength and depth of humanity contained in a family: mutual help, educational support, relationships developing as family members mature, the sharing of joys and difficulties. Families are the first place in which we are formed as persons and, at the same time, the bricks for the building up of society.”
The media has got it right where it is suggested that in Pope Francis’s homily, he affirmed that marriage in the Catholic Church remains a union between one man and one woman.
[L] Pope Francis blesses new spouses with holy water. [R] The 20 newly married couples.
Copyright © Dr. Jeffrey & Angie Goh, October, 2014. All rights reserved.
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