A Port in the Storm

When I go surfing on the Internet, I have a wide range of web sites I visit—including strange sites maintained by eccentrics at both ends of the Catholic spectrum. I do this because I have found that you can find the most interesting things in the craziest places. For example, the other day I was browsing through a sedevacantist site.

In the midst of headlines that warned of impending doom on all fronts of the Church, I found a link to an English translation of an essay written in the early 1970s. A prominent German theologian at that time proposed a radical plan for ministering to Catholics who are divorced and remarried, while lacking an annulment from the Church.

Where a first marriage broke up a long time ago and in a mutually irreparable way, and where, conversely, a marriage consequently entered into has proven itself over a longer period as a moral reality and has been filled with the spirit of the faith, especially in the education of the children (so that the destruction of this second marriage would destroy a moral greatness and cause moral harm), the possibility should be granted, in a non-judicial way, based on the testimony of the pastor and church members, for the admission to Communion of those in live in such a second marriage.

When I asked my Facebook Friends to guess who made this shocking proposal, I was mildly disappointed when they readily knew the answer—not because they perused the same Internet sites I do, but because the theologian’s essay had appeared recently in a more mainstream source. Cardinal Walter Kasper quoted this essay in his recent proposal for divorced-remarried-no annulment Catholics that will be debated during the upcoming Synod on the Family in October.

So, who was this theologian who dared to treat the Church as his own personal laboratory, a habit of theologians roundly condemned by Pope Benedict XVI during his tenure as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF)? It was Joseph Ratzinger, in a 1972 essay titled On the Question of the Indissolubility of Marriage.

Anyone who knows Joseph Ratzinger’s later career in the CDF may be confused. Isn’t this the same Joseph Ratzinger who, during John Paul II’s pontificate, was embroiled in a highly-publicized struggle with the German bishops over the question of Communion for the divorced and remarried? Isn’t this the same Joseph Ratzinger who signed off on a CDF letter to bishops around the world on this very subject, in which, as prefect, he said:

With respect to the aforementioned new pastoral proposals, this Congregation deems itself obliged therefore to recall the doctrine and discipline of the Church in this matter. In fidelity to the words of Jesus Christ, the Church affirms that a new union cannot be recognized as valid if the preceding marriage was valid. If the divorced are remarried civilly, they find themselves in a situation that objectively contravenes God’s law. Consequently, they cannot receive holy Communion as long as this situation persists.

When I was searching online for this second document, published in 1994, I came across a discussion among Catholics in which this apparent contradiction between the Joseph Ratzinger of the 1970s and the Joseph Ratzinger of the 1990s was facilely explained away with a simple “He changed his mind.” This theory neglects to take into account two things:

One, Ratzinger is known to have become more “conservative” in his theology by the late-’60s, early-’70s. At the time this essay was published, he had established himself at the University of Regensburg and that same year helped to found Communio, a theological journal created in reaction to more “liberal” theological journals of the time. One of his co-founders of Communio was fellow theologian, later cardinal, Walter Kasper.

And, two, when Ratzinger was no longer head of the CDF, but had been elected pope, it was reported:

Benedict XVI himself admits that Communion for divorced and remarried persons is an open question. He spoke about it in a meeting with the priests of the diocese of Aosta on July 25, 2005, and, more officially, in his speech to the Roman Rota, on 28 January, 2006. Both times, the Pope urged them to “deepen” a particular case: the possible invalidity of a marriage in the Church celebrated without faith, for those who, having passed to a second union, have returned to the practice of Christian life and request Communion (emphasis added).

How do we reconcile the seeming contradictions over the decades in someone not generally known to be the kind of person who lifts his finger to the sky to test which way the wind is blowing before speaking his mind? I think the key is to note the position Joseph Ratzinger held in the Church from 1981–2005: prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. He offered his understanding of the responsibilities of that office to Peter Seewald in their first interview book, published in 1997.

Peter Seewald: “Does this mean that everything the Prefect of the CDF says is automatically the teaching of the Church?”

Joseph Ratzinger: “Of course not. I would never presume to use the decisions of the Congregation to impose my own theological ideas on the Christian people. I really try to exercise restraint in this area, and I see my role as that of a coordinator of a large working group. . . . When the cardinals meet, we never make decisions if the consultors aren’t in substantial agreement, because we say that if there are markedly different opinions among good theologians, then we can’t declare by some higher light, as it were, that only one is right” (Salt of the Earth, p. 14).

In other words, Ratzinger did not consider his position as prefect of the CDF to be an appropriate platform for making his personal opinions binding on the consciences of the faithful. It was a principle he would import into his pontificate when he published his three-volume series Jesus of Nazareth under his own name:

It goes without saying that this book is in no way an exercise of the magisterium, but is solely an expression of my personal search “for the face of the Lord.” . . . Everyone is free, then, to contradict me. I would only ask my readers for that initial good will without which there can be no understanding (Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1, Foreword).

What’s Past is Prologue

I have not recounted this interesting history of our Pope Emeritus’s thought on the question of whether Catholics, who have divorced and remarried without an annulment, can receive the sacraments for the purpose of wading into the current controversy over the matter. Waiting for the Synod to reach its conclusions before reaching my own conclusions seems to me a prudent course of action. My purpose is instead to distill the lesson that apologists can learn here from Benedict XVI.

Not infrequently these days, Catholic pundits will take to their blogs or webcasts and ask why popular apostolates like Catholic Answers are not stepping up on their soapbox to denounce Outrages Du Jour that spread over the Internet like lava flowing downhill. Why do some apologists appear reticent to take a stand when a high-ranking prelate is accused of scandalizing the faithful? The speculation offered for the reluctance is often less than charitable.

(Nota bene: As an aside, I will point out that Catholic Answers has occasionally published commentary on scandal in the Church and on concerns about bishops and even about a pope. But these are indeed exceptions, not the norm in Catholic Answers’ publications.)

Generally speaking, Catholic Answers’ apologists tend to respond to questions about current scandals in the Church with explanations of underlying principles, with analyses of the situation, with reminders when appropriate that all may not really be as it appears on the surface. This approach may draw mockery from the pundits, but there is a simple reason we do it.

It’s our job.

Apologists explain and defend the Catholic faith. That’s it. There may be some occasions on which personal opinion can be offered, such as in blog posts like this one, provided the opinion is appropriately flagged as opinion. But just as Joseph Ratzinger did not believe he could use his position as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to promote his own theological agenda, so we at Catholic Answers have it as a goal not to bind consciences with our own opinions on All Things Catholic.

This principle is not limited to commenting on the Outrages Du Jour. We also strive to avoid presenting Church teaching in a way that is colored by our personal prejudices. For example, my personal practice is to receive Communion on the tongue. Receiving Communion on the tongue is something I have done for well over a decade now. But you might be surprised to hear that, since I have defended the practice of Communion in the hand (where allowed for) whenever I have been asked about it.

What are the benefits to apologists striving to separate what the Church teaches from what they think about what the Church teaches? Here are a few:

• You become a port in the storm. If you can be trusted not to color your presentations with your own personal opinions, you have the potential to draw in people who may be open to what the Church teaches but disagree with you personally. But if you are perceived to be a demagogue, only those who sing in your choir will be willing to listen to you preach. In my opinion, it is especially important for priests and consecrated religious to be ports in the storm, and to avoid any appearance that they are in the pocket of a political or ecclesial faction.
• You gain credibility. One of the challenges of apologetics is sifting through Church documents to determine just how authoritatively the Church teaches on a certain issue, and then to re-present that teaching “in the Church’s voice”—in other words, distilling for inquirers what the Church teaches without adding to or minimizing the obligations the Church imposes. If you can do this well, your inquirers begin to trust your “take.” But let’s say, for example, you think all women should wear veils to Mass. If you use the Church documents to push your position, but the inquirer finds out later that you are wrong that there is such a requirement, you certainly will not be approached for your take on weightier matters such as Communion for the divorced and remarried.
• Your opinion is valued. Paradoxically, the more discreet you are about promulgating your opinion on every scandalous action that happens in the Church, the more your opinion is sought. Believe it or not, on a fairly regular basis I am approached for my opinions on the daily headlines—and I know the same holds true for my colleagues at Catholic Answers. At least in my own case (I can’t speak for others), my opinions don’t make much difference in the grand scheme of things. The only reason I can think of that I get asked my opinion so often is for the very reason that I try not to speak publicly all that often on the Outrages Du Jour. It’s not that I don’t have opinions, or am unwilling to offer them at all—just ask my Facebook Friends—it’s that I don’t think it’s appropriate to mix punditry into my public apologetics work.
• You gain the ability to surprise. One of the things that has most impressed me about the last three popes is how often they surprise their audiences. We have heard a lot about Pope Francis’s surprising commentary on various issues, but anyone who has been listening all along could be just as surprised by John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Perhaps Francis’s style is less mystical than John Paul’s and less wordy than Benedict’s, but all three have given the world surprises. To consider just one example, read back through the prologue in this post on the difference between Joseph Ratzinger’s personal opinion on the sacraments for the divorced and remarried, and the contemporary sacramental disciplines he defended while head of the CDF.

It is very easy and very tempting to use the platforms available to apologists to push for a personal agenda. It is far more difficult to limit apologetics to “speaking with the Church’s voice.” But, in the long run, discretion really does make a difference—both for you, as a lesson in humility; and for those to whom you do speak, who need you more for what you can tell them about the Church’s teachings than they do to tell them what to think about the Church’s teachings.

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires (William Arthur Ward).