Opinions Clash Over Pope’s Divorce Views

Mary Rourke’s story “Butting Heads With the Pope” (March 3) conveys several misconceptions about Catholic teaching on divorce that I would like to clarify.

Nowhere does Rourke report that the church’s teaching on the indissolubility of marriage originates with the teaching of Jesus Christ who said: “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery. The man who marries a woman divorced from her husband likewise commits adultery” (Luke 16:18).

The story gives the incorrect impression that separated and divorced Catholics may not receive Holy Communion. This is simply not so. Only Catholics who have divorced and remarried outside the church have chosen to exclude themselves from receiving Communion by creating irregular marital situations.

Rourke says, “A Catholic marriage can be officially ended only by annulment.” This is incorrect. A Catholic marriage can be ended only by the death of one of the spouses.

THE REV. GREGORY COIRO,

OFM Cap.

Director of media relations Archdiocese of Los Angeles

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When I read that the pope has decreed that no divorced person was allowed to ever have sex again, I was struck by the amazing ability of the pope to be so continually and persistently out of touch with human need and God-given desire. I am reminded of the Atlantic Monthly article written by a woman attending a Catholic Youth conference about three years ago who concluded after viewing the pope up close and personal that the bloke was indeed a fundamentalist. As we’ve all seen, fundamentalists are all about the letter of the law and not the heart of it.

I would urge any Catholic to look more deeply into the scripture. There, any person of average intelligence will find that the God depicted there is about acceptance and love. This attitude is especially revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. Most of his anger and disgust were leveled not at the poor slob trying to live a decent life, but was quite deliberately directed at those who would lay down the law (Judaic in his time) on others.

GABRIEL MESSNER

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The latest statement from the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family says nothing new regarding moral doctrine on the reception of Holy Communion by those who were married sacramentally in the Catholic Church, and now are divorced and remarried civilly.

Yes, we certainly need to be pastorally sensitive and compassionate to our parishioners who come to us with serious problems with regard to their marriage situations. But what does it mean to be truly pastoral?

No one would deny that the institution of marriage is under great crisis today. At a time when fidelity and indissolubility are most needed to protect the spiritual welfare of people, these marital attributes are being neglected and even denied.

So many couples today do not understand the demands of self-sacrifice and generous commitment in marriage. As priests in the Catholic Church, we do our people a great disservice when we advise them to “follow their own conscience and ignore the Vatican and the pope.”

We must remember that the nature of conscience is always based on a truth higher and greater than itself. As I see it, a priest or bishop is truly “pastoral” when he teaches moral truth clearly and without compromise to the people he serves.

THE REV. CARL D. TRESLER

Associate pastor of Resurrection Catholic Church

Archdiocese of Los Angeles