The final report from the Synod is out - Kasper’s Relativistic Pastoral Applications

A Critique of Cardinal Kasper’s Latest Arguments

By Monica Migliorino Miller, Director of Citizens for a Pro-life Society and Associate Professor of Theology at Madonna University in Michigan.

The final report from the Synod is out. Those concerned about the hijacking of the faith in a heterodox direction can breathe a sigh of relief as the new report scraps language in the draft that appeared to approve of, or find “value” in, the homosexual “orientation” and also because it does not take up the issue of Holy Communion for the divorced and remarried. This proposal in the final version failed to gain the needed two thirds support of the bishops. This does not necessarily mean that this hugely troublesome proposal will simply be shelved in some dark closet of the Vatican. We must be prepared to provide well-reasoned arguments against what may be called the Cardinal Kasparian agenda. It’s not too early to put those arguments forward in anticipation of next year’s Ordinary Synod. This article responds to two recently articulated arguments in favor of admitting divorced and remarried Catholics to Holy Communion.

It is clear that Cardinal Walter Kasper, joined by a majority of German bishops and other European prelates, did all he could to facilitate this major pastoral change. While Kasper acknowledged there can be no change in Church doctrine on the indissolubility of sacramental marriage—there is no way of getting around the fact that were such a pastoral change ever to be made it would undermine Catholic teaching on marriage and legitimize adulterous unions contrary to the teachings of Christ.

The initial Interim Report or relatio post disceptationem, ignited serious controversy due to its vague terminology, ambiguous articulation of moral doctrine, a near failure to mention sin or the need for conversion, and its apparent willingness to accommodate the Gospel to the spirit of the age with an emphasis on the so-called “law of gradualism.” Msgr. Charles Pope in his fine critique of gradualism explains:

Gradualism is a way in which we meet people where they are and seek gradually to draw them more deeply into the true life of a Christian. All of us who have journeyed toward Christ realize that we have not always been where we are today, and that future growth is necessary. Growth usually happens in stages and by degrees, ideally leading us more deeply to Christ.

Matthew 19 and the “Law of Gradualism”

A major argument of the Interim Report holds that the law of gradualism would permit the divorced and remarried, without benefit of annulment, to receive the Eucharist. No matter where this whole thing is headed, it is important to understand the way in which the Kasper faction argues this position—a theological position that affects not only the issue of Holy Communion for the divorced and remarried but many other Catholic moral teachings, such as co-habitation, artificial birth control and homosexual unions to mention just three that were taken up by the draft report and still linger in the final Synod report.

The report justifies its peculiar reliance on the “law of gradualism” by seriously misinterpreting and misapplying Matthew 19: 3-9—Christ’s teaching on marriage in His exchange with the Pharisees. The passage states:

Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?” And He answered and said, “Have you not read that at the beginning the creator made them male and female and declared ‘for this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and cling to his wife, and the two shall become one.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together let no man separate.” They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command divorce and the promulgation of a divorce decree?” He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. I now say to you, whoever divorces his wife, (lewd conduct is a separate case), and marries another woman commits adultery and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

Focused on the “law of gradualism,” the draft report comments on this passage by stating: “Jesus Himself, referring to the primordial plan for the human couple, reaffirms the indissoluble union between man and woman, while understanding that ‘Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning’ (Mt 19:8). In this way, He shows how divine condescension always accompanies the path of humanity, directing it towards its new beginning, not without passing through the cross.”

To use this passage to justify a New Covenant “gradualism” is to totally corrupt the sense of Christ’s teaching. Even if there is a legitimate place for “pastoral gradualism” this passage does not confirm it.

Certainly, it is true that God, beginning with the Hebrew people gradually disclosed His divine plan for salvation and thus Judaism is a preparation for the fullness of the Covenant. One can say there is a kind of economy of gradualism within salvation history.

Yet, this is not what is being taught in the Pharisees’ confrontation with Jesus. The Kasper faction tries to exploit the fact that, based on the authority of Moses, there was a compromise with the human condition and thus concludes that gradualism is itself divinely ordained in the plan of redemption and normative for the Christian dispensation. This is certainly the point of the remark, “He shows how divine condescension always accompanies the path of humanity.”

Christ’s dialogue with the Pharisees is hardly an endorsement of gradualism. Rather, Christ rejects the compromise of Moses who, based on the Jews’ “hardness of heart,” allowed the practice of divorce. To the consternation of the Pharisees, who hope Christ will contradict the great prophet and thus be discredited, Christ repudiates Moses and locates the doctrine of marriage from before the time of sin, before “hardness of heart” entered the human condition. Christ insists that the new dispensation, the era of grace will have no room for basing the law on “hardness of heart.” Bible scholar Gerald Lemke points out, when Christ replies to the Pharisees “Your hardness of heart” the word “your” indicates that Christ makes a distinction between the expectations of the Old Law and those of the New—that such “hardness of heart” has no place among the true followers of Christ.

Just as Christ rejects Moses’ “divine condescension”—his allowance for divorce—neither can the synod fathers use this passage to advocate a “divine condescension” that legitimizes Holy Communion for divorced and remarried couples which is contrary to what we might call Christ’s “Law of the Beginning.” Moses made a concession to the evil conditions of his time—a concession Jesus nullifies by going back to The Beginning. It would appear that the Kasper faction, when it comes to certain moral behaviors will, like Moses, concede to the evil conditions of our own times.

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