Amoris Laetitia: divorced and cohabited

The Catholic Church has been waiting for the post Synodal exhortation on family after an extensive consultation and reflection across the globe. We do have this exhortation called "Amoris Laetitia" which means, "the joy of love." The Holy Father, a friend and a promoter of families, has exhorted every family irrespective of their situation. This is document is a little cumbersome with nine chapter inked across 263 pages. Every chapter is significant because of its information, reflection, experience, tradition, and most importantly revelation of the truth for the changing times. It is an easy read document with a pragmatic approach to life of the families. Hence, it must have involved families and married couples to draft this document as well. It has brought out a best end result of the Synod on Family. It treats scripture and traditions as key for its drafting, hence you will come across myriad citations from the scripture and the doctors of the Church. As I said it is a little cumbersome so you can read as and when you can, but make it a point to read so that we know the results of our discussion that our diocese undertook two years ago.

I would like to specifically concentrate and bring you a short synopsis of the eighth chapter, namely, "Accompanying, Discerning, and Integrating weakness." This I do for two reasons, firstly, it affects my ministry as priest and secondly, it affects every person who is struggling to keep up marriage and family.

The Jesuit Pope Francis is asking the Church to employ a familiar methodology of "discernment" that every Jesuit would have employed in their mission. Discernment requires God's aid with hardheaded human approach to life. Primarily, this chapter discusses a Christian marriage with an idealistic approach and the current situation affecting the institution of marriage. This discussion is done with an utmost care for the broken hearted.  This chapter opens by acknowledging the ideal of marriage and its fall, "although the Church realizes that any breach of the marriage bond “is against the will of God”, she is also “conscious of the frailty of many of her children” (AL 291). This is a profound starting point to this noble exhortation because it seems to bring forth two aspects of human nature of being created in the image of God yet we are so human.

A Physician Pastor for wounded couples

Holy Father urges every pastor to be sensitive in dealing with the issues of marriage and family. The Church must be like a hospital where the wounded gets treatment with a consoling balm for the wounds and not wound further by being judgmental. “The Church must accompany with attention and care the weakest of her children, who show signs of a wounded and troubled love, by restoring in them hope and confidence, like the beacon of a lighthouse in a port or a torch carried among the people to enlighten those who have lost their way or who are caught up in a storm" (AL 291).

Pastoral care is required for every family. It wouldn't be charitable to treat civilly married persons or even simple cohabitation as something outside the Church. St. John Paul II proposed, 'law of gradualness' to show affection to these kinds families, in other words, encouraging them by training them to embrace the Sacrament of Matrimony. In situation such as civil marriage or cohabitation, respect also can be shown for those signs of love which in some way reflect God's own love" (AL 293).

The Church has been merciful and charitable to weak and marginalized, "the true charity is always unmerited, unconditional and gratuitous”. Consequently, there is a need “to avoid judgements which do not take into account the complexity of various situations” and “to be attentive, by necessity, to how people experience distress because of their condition” (AL 296). Pastors are to be sensitive and not judgmental rather pastors are to understand the situation and its complexity. The persons who are divorced and remarried need not be condemned to separation from the community rather they need to be listened. They are to be allowed to take part in the community, "whether in social service, prayer meetings or another way that his or her own initiative, together with the discernment of the parish priest, may suggest" (AL 296).

The document cites the example of someone going into second marriage after divorce for the sake of upbringing children; this situation needs to be discerned well. The Synod Fathers stated that the discernment of pastors must always take place “by adequately distinguishing”, with an approach which “care- fully discerns situations”. We know that no “easy recipes” exist (AL 298).

The baptized that are divorced and civilly remarried need to be integrated into Christian communities in the variety of ways possible, while avoiding any occasion of scandal. The Church is like the mother who welcomes every child into her without any distinction. This integration is required for the sake of upbringing the children in the Christian faith.

Discernment is key to arrive at a proper consensus. The Holy Father instructed the pastors to be trained to discern so that pastors show upmost care keeping the Gospel value in the fore. The paragraph 304 lays a foundation to discernment in regards to the aforementioned aspects of family. It states, "It is reductive simply to consider whether or not an individual’s actions correspond to a general law or rule, because that is not enough to discern and ensure full fidelity to God in the concrete life of a human being. I earnestly ask that we always recall a teaching of Saint Thomas Aquinas and learn to incorporate it in our pastoral discernment: “Although there is necessity in the general principles, the more we descend to matters of detail, the more frequently we encounter defects... In matters of action, truth or practical rectitude is not the same for all, as to matters of detail, but only as to the general principles; and where there is the same rectitude in matters of detail, it is not equally known to all... The principle will be found to fail, according as we descend further into detail."

That is why it is not fair for a pastor to sit on the chair of Moses to judge 'irregular' situations as morally wrong, this would be as Pope cites the throwing stones of moral law at someone who is already wounded. "By thinking that everything is black and white, we sometimes close off the way of grace and of growth, and discourage paths of sanctification which give glory to God. Let us re- member that “a small step, in the midst of great human limitations, can be more pleasing to God than a life which appears outwardly in order, but moves through the day without confronting great difficulties ”. The practical pastoral care of ministers and of communities must not fail to embrace this reality" (AL 304).

To do this we need that Amoris Laetitia, joy of love, which is enshrined in Galatians 5:14 "fraternal charity is the first law of Christians". We need a Church which is like a mother and this aspect of motherly love in the Church comes across strongly in the apostolic exhortation, "I sincerely believe that Jesus wants a Church attentive to the good- ness which the Holy Spirit sows in the midst of human weakness, a Mother who, while clearly expressing her objective teaching, always does what good she can, even if in the process, her shoes get soiled by the mud of the streets." (AL 308).

Our God is a merciful God and so does the Church. This allows us to love each other by showing mercy to everyone because our Church has place for everyone.  It is true that at times “we act as arbiters of grace rather than its facilitators. But the Church is not a tollhouse; it is the house of the Father, where there is a place for everyone, with all their problems”  (AL 310). Therefore, this exhortation has a perspective of theology of mercy. The Pope emphasizes the theology of mercy with confidence and compassion for weak and wounded. I suggest that we read the whole document before we come to deductions and reproaches based on our own emotions. This will help us to understand what is truly expressed in the Amoris Laetitia and to avoid postulations.