THE POPE AND THE DIVORCEE

A man in Argentina receives a phone call from someone identifying himself as Father Begoglio.

The caller asks to speak with the man's wife.

The call is reportedly in response to the woman's letter to the pope, 6 months earlier, complaining that her parish priest had told her that because she was divorced and remarried, she was sinning by taking communion.

The caller tells her that she is not sinning.

The wife tells her husband of the news. The husband posts the news on Facebook. The "press" reads the man's Facebook page. The story reaches the Italian publication La Stampa. The story is re-reported by the British publication the Telegraph and then out to all the world. 

The story is coincidentally timed with a synod that will soon be discussing the issue of divorced and remarried Catholics. 

So at the root of this, we have nothing more than a posting on a Facebook page by a guy in Argentina.

(The above details recorded here.)

However, HERE'S THE REAL PROBLEM. When the Vatican was approached about the story by the Telegraph, the Vatican spokesman said: "We would neither confirm nor deny that - this was a private telephone call made by the Holy Father and we would not divulge the details." 

And as Fr. Z says in his blog: "Sheesh! ….at least uphold Catholic teaching."

Of course this mad confusion will be blamed on the press. But the press attempted to get the story straight. And the Vatican essentially told them it was none of their business. 

But now let's look at the variables. Here is where the pope would be correct in his advice:

1. The woman's first husband is dead.

2. The woman's first husband was not a baptized Christian.

3. The woman's second husband was not a baptized Christian at the time they were married.

4. None of the above but the woman and her current husband are "living as brother and sister." 

5. There are a multitude of other factors including the complex problems with obtaining an annulment which might necessitate a particular pastoral solution.

However, the larger problem - as this is just one of several now that have cropped up since Francis is in the driver's seat - is captured in an interview with Cardinal Meisner who said:

“At my last meeting with Pope Francis, I had the opportunity to talk very open to him about a lot of things. And I told him that some questions remain unanswered in his style of spreading the gospel through interviews and short speeches, questions which need some extended explanation for people who are not so involved. The pope looked at me “with big eyes” and asked me to give an example. And my response was : During the flight back from Rio you were asked about people who divorced and remarried. And the pope responded frankly: People who are divorced can receive communion, people who are remarried can’t. In the orthodox church you can marry twice. And then he talked about mercy, which, according to my view, is seen in this country only as a surrogate for all human faults. And the pope responded quite bluntly that he’s a son of the church, and he doesn’t proclaim anything else than the teachings of the church. And mercy has to be identical with truth – if not, she doesn’t deserve that name. Furthermore, when there are open theological questions, it’s up to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to give detailed responses“.

To this, Fr. Z responds: "From this we can perhaps glean that Pope Francis may not be entirely aware of the havoc (¿lío?) that some of his home-spun, off-the-cuff comments in the mainstream media have caused."

EASY DIVORCE, CHILD ABUSE LINKED - GUAM PDN

This was printed in the Guam Pacific Sunday News, April 21, 2013, as an entry into the Sunday Forum relative to April as Child Abuse Prevention Month. 

In 2012, Guam Child Protective Services received 4,434 referrals of child maltreatment. According to the 2010 Census, Guam has a child population of 57,727. Notwithstanding the variance in population between 2010 and 2012, Guam's child maltreatment rate as of 2012 is 76.81 per 1,000 children. 

Read more here at the online version of the PDN or here if link no longer works.

HACKED OFF AT THE KNEES

The U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops has declared February 7 to 14, “Marriage Week”. There is no question that marriage today faces challenges like no other. Not long ago the words “marriage” and “challenge”, appearing in the same sentence, meant that a married couple was having difficulties. Today it means that marriage itself is having difficulties.

The challenge to marriage which gets the most attention is the current attempt to redefine marriage to include same-sex couples. However, long before same-sex advocates began to deconstruct traditional marriage, the norm of marriage as a life-long, life-giving, life-supporting union of two members of the opposite sex was already suffering from decades of no-fault divorce, cohabitation, contraception, and even the casual application of periodic abstinence (NFP).

The real issue is that marriage is not just another institution. It is not like the Boy Scouts, the Rotary Club, the United States of America, or even the Catholic Church. Marriage is unique in that it is an organic institution - the first of all institutions, and as such, the foundational societal unit upon which all other human unions and social constructs are built. Thus, to redefine marriage is to unmake the world.

In 1968, Paul VI prophesied the “unmaking of the world” which would follow the redefinition of marriage wrought by the separation of the unitive and procreative realities of the conjugal act. His warnings were rejected, not just by the world, but by many Catholic leaders. Forty years later, Catholic schools and churches (for lack of population) are closing by the hundreds every year, Catholic families are splitting and collapsing at the same rate as the rest of society, and same-sex marriage is knocking loudly at our door.

Attempting to stem the crisis, the USCCB has issued a series of initiatives and statements including the above-mentioned Marriage Week and a pastoral letter entitled “Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan.” Unfortunately, the letter proposes a definition of marriage that is symptomatic of how we often hack ourselves off at our knees:

“Marriage...is a unique communion of persons. In their intimate union as male and female, the spouses are called to exist for each other...This communion of persons has the potential to bring forth human life and thus to produce the family, which is itself another kind of communion of persons.”

Finer theological minds than my own may not see the problem, but I disagree that bringing forth human life in a marriage produces “another kind of communion of persons”. Such language, at least for us regular lay folk, gives the impression that the marital union is fundamentally altered by bearing a child.

While begetting a child may alter the daily life of a married couple, the marriage covenant is not only NOT altered, it is rendered whole. The marital union was made to image the Trinity and is completed in the child who issues forth from the husband and wife - or, in cases of natural infertility, at least in the intention to bear one.

The “first this and then this” view of marriage employs a language which not only appears to separate the unitive and procreative meanings of the conjugal act, but also seems to makes the unitive and procreative properties of marriage serve two separate (“another”) kinds of communities.

Thus we see this view of marriage - a view in which the couple is made first to “exist for each other” with only the “potential to bring forth human life” - made manifest in the otherwise often capricious off-putting of children so that couples might finish their education, buy a home, establish careers, see the world, or whatever.

True, most lay people do not read episcopal statements and thereupon design a course of life. However, episcopal statements do shape catechetical formulas and influence pastoral application, which then forms how we laity think and act.

Ultimately one must wonder why the USCCB felt it could improve upon the definition of marriage carefully constructed at Vatican II and subsequently found in Gaudium et Spes (48), the 1983 Code of Canon Law (1055), and ultimately, the Catechism (1601):

“The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring.”

Here we do not see the couple first existing “for each other” with the “potential to produce...another kind of communion”. Instead, we see the fundamental establishment of a new life order: a single generative communion of persons and the very image of God on earth. I think I like this definition better.

THE CRUDE FACTS ABOUT GUAM'S CRUDE DIVORCE RATE (CDR)

We don’t need studies to verify the maxim: “As marriage goes, so goes the family, and as the family goes, so goes the culture.” But there are plenty of studies which show exactly that. Broken families lie at the root of most of our societal ills simply because the family is the essential societal cell, and marriage is its nucleus. 

Guam has traditionally been a very pro-family culture, characterized by large numbers of children, commitment to the elderly, and mutual support. However, especially over the last 25 years or so, the family on Guam, like much of the western world, has been fragmenting on a frightening scale.

Everyone seems to be aware that “something bad is happening” to Guam’s families, but  few seem to understand the cause, its proportions, or what to do to turn it around. Obviously, blaming outside influence and asking for more money for more failed social programs is not the answer. 

This report is an attempt to shed some light on the issue in the hopes that we might stop this monster before it stops us. As we might suppose, divorce is at the root of most family fragmentation, and on Guam, as we shall see, divorce is a much bigger problem than what many might imagine.

Before we begin, I want to say that I have several friends who have suffered through divorce and I am entirely sympathetic to their struggles, and am certain they will appreciate the intent of this essay.

First, a look at the numbers. A 2008 United Nations report shows Russia, the nation with the world’s highest incidence of divorce, with a Crude Divorce Rate (number of divorces per 1000 population) of 5.0. (1)The report does not have current data for Guam, however, our divorce rate can be found in the 2010 Guam Statistical Yearbook which shows a Guam CDR of 4.7. (2)

However, the 4.7 number was based on a higher than actual projection of total population, which the 2010 census eventually reported as 159,358. (3) Given the 849 divorces reported in 2010, Guam’s actual CDR is 5.3, which puts Guam on top of the world in the number of divorces granted by our courts relative to the population.

This is, no doubt, a rather dubious distinction. Guam: the divorce capital of the world? The picture darkens further when we consider that Russia was for the better part of a century under atheistic communistic domination, and Guam, for the better part of half a millennium has been predominantly Catholic.

What has happened on Guam is a classic illustration of “Lex Magister” (the law teaches), or, as it has also been expressed: “the law shapes the culture.” It is also an illustration of the consequence of our careless choices in electing the people who make those laws which “shape the culture”.

About 25 years ago, our divorce laws were relaxed to provide a loophole in the residency requirement - effectively allowing “mail order” divorces. The divorce rate did not change noticeably at first because Guam had not yet allowed no-fault divorce. However, we took care of that in 1998 (4).

Again, the divorce rate did not change right away, and in fact, in 2002, had dropped to a low of 3.0. However, it was the calm before the storm. The combination of an intended loophole in the residency requirement and no-fault divorce was an opportunity just waiting to be exploited. And as one Guam attorney said “I picked up and ran with this.” (5)

And run he did, as did many other Guam attorneys. In 2003, Guam’s CDR almost doubled to 5.4. In 2004 it more than doubled to 11.8. And by 2005 it reached a staggering 14.1, a feat which motivated another attorney to testify proudly: “Guam is the only U.S. jurisdiction that provides for these types of consent to jurisdiction divorces.”

Guam Statistical Yearbook 2001 Table PO17, 2005 Table 11-97, 2008 Table 11-05, 2010 Table 12-09, published by Bureau of Statistics and Plans, Office of the Governor

By 2005, not only was Guam averaging a scandalous 9.25 divorces per working day, other U.S. jurisdictions had begun to question the validity of Guam divorces given that jurisdiction to grant divorces is based on domicile, and Guam’s courts required no proof of it.

In other words, not only had Guam debased itself morally with its shameful shingle “Get Your Divorce Here”, we had also discredited ourselves by projecting the image that Guam was a judicial banana republic, granting divorces - as one attorney said - that were “not worth the paper they were printed on.” (6)

In an attempt to salvage Guam from this moral, ethical, and legal mess, a bill was introduced in 2005 which “would have” eliminated non-resident divorces entirely by restoring enforcement of the 90-day residency requirement (though even that requirement is still liberal by most state and national standards). (7)

“Would have” is in quotes because, pro-divorce senators who wanted to keep Guam’s divorce mill humming with revenue (which is why the residency requirements were relaxed in the first place) replaced the bill’s 90-day residency requirement with a vacation length “stay” of a mere seven days. (8)

Though the seven-day requirement did eliminate the ethical and judicial scandal of mail-order divorces, it created an opportunity to prostitute Guam anew as a divorce destination, an opportunity many Guam law offices, once again, “picked up and ran with.”

The new law had the comical effect of immediately turning some law office websites into vacation blogs, such as GuamDivorces.com which gushes about all the wonderful things you can do on Guam while waiting for your marriage to be dissolved:

"Guam offers an amazing variety of leisure activities as well as historical and cultural attractions. In addition to its beaches, duty free shopping, and varied nightlife, Guam boasts seven world-class golf courses, some of the best scuba diving and snorkeling in the world, underwater parks and submarine tours, sunset dinner cruises, jet skiing, wind surfing, kayaking, parasailing, sky diving, and deep-sea fishing." (9)

Of course, Divorce Tourism would not be possible without those Guam lawmakers who saw nothing wrong with growing such an industry. During the debate, one senator commented: "I don't see the detriment to our island. I don't see that this causes any harm.” (10)

In attempting to rationalize the damning divorce numbers, some argue that because of our playing host to “mail-order divorces” and Divorce Tourism, the divorce statistics do not reflect the real state of things on Guam.

True, but prostituting ourselves to divorce dollars has come with a cost, a big one. How else to explain the massive number of fractured local families and the abuse and neglect of the 3294 children reported by CPS in just 2011 alone? (11)

Already in 2010, Guam’s child abuse rate was nearly twice that of Washington D.C., the worst place in the nation for children excluding the territories. And when compared to the national average of 10.22 maltreated children per 1000 child population , our figure of 72.80 for 2011 is scandalous to a monstrous degree. (12)

National statistics derived from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children’s Bureau. (2011). Child Maltreatment 2010, Table 3-6. Guam statistics derived from Guam Statistical Yearbook 2010, Child Abuse rate: Table 12-27, total child population: Table 14-03

So Senator(s), do you now see the “detriment to our island”?

Some will contest the connection between lax divorce laws and child abuse. However, there is simply no doubt about the societal impact of family breakdown, and our lawmakers have enabled the engine of that breakdown, i.e. divorce, to a radical, world-leading degree. And since the children are always the first to suffer, the rate of child abuse is a reliable measure of family fragmentation. (13)

Divorce is better for children?

It is indeed a curious thing to listen to endless talk about Guam’s social ills when most of the time the people doing the talking are the people who legislated the mess in the first place.

The testimony in support of the 1998 no-fault divorce bill contains the standard claims that divorce is better for the children of parents who no longer want to stay married. (14)

Not only is there absolutely no evidence for this position, there is massive evidence to the contrary: wherever states have implemented no-fault divorce, the family has imploded and child abuse has exploded (at least 67% of sexually abused children come from broken families). (15)

The burden of caring for the women and children from those broken families almost always falls to the government. And 40 years later, we are seeing states like California, which pioneered no-fault divorce, slipping headlong into bankruptcy.

Yet, Guam bought into this drivel in the name of compassion for unhappy spouses.

A note from the governor who signed Guam’s no-fault divorce bill into law states: “The aim of this legislation is not to encourage divorces or make it easier...The aim of this legislation is to reduce the hostility between married persons who are already embroiled in differences.” (16)

But now, with fourteen year hindsight, we can clearly see that not only did Guam’s divorce rate skyrocket to a world record high, so did “hostility between married persons” as evidenced by the still soaring rates of family violence. Except now it’s not the husband who beats the woman’s head in with a baseball bat, it’s her boyfriend, or her “ex”.

Perhaps the most ironic testimony in support of the legislation came from the then-Chief of Police, who wrote of his hopes that no-fault divorce would provide a “safeguard against violence occurring.”

The irony of course is that the CPS report alone would show that the opposite has occurred. In fact, as revealed in a 2011 report, as many as 28 victims of domestic violence and their children receive life-saving services daily from local domestic violence organizations. And of course, those are only the ones which were reported and responded to. (17)

What to do?

Sadly, there was no opposing testimony to the no-fault divorce legislation, no Marine Corps Drive “waves”, no signs on churches, no “just say no to divorce” t-shirt campaign, no announcements from the pulpit decrying the projected effects of the legislation even though by 1998 we had more than three decades of stateside evidence of the havoc wrought by no-fault divorce upon the family and the damage done to children.

Also, there has been no noticeable protest from Christians, Catholics or otherwise, over the promotion of Guam as a Divorce Destination, which as we have demonstrated, has produced the highest rates of divorce in the world, and has infected the local population of Guam with a divorce, if not an anti-marriage, culture of its own. (18)

It is not too late. It is never too late for a Church which has as its foundation the promise of Christ that “the gates of hell will not prevail.” But will we respond?

The quote from the senator who did not see how “this could be detrimental to Guam” is a classic illustration of why the government can’t fix this and why only the Church can. Without an understanding of the “Mystical Body of Christ” - of how the wound of sin in one part of the body affects the whole, the problem can neither be seen nor solved.

Marriage, and the promotion and protection of it, is the proper domain of the Church. Not only did Christ elevate the one man-one woman, life-long, life-giving relationship to  a Sacrament - a path to Heaven, but marriage itself prefigures the eternal wedding feast that IS Heaven. Thus, it is our duty to announce Heaven in and through our marriages, and in so doing, bring about the Kingdom of God on earth.

It is time for the Church to move beyond Pre-Cana classes and start doing some Post-Cana training, combat training, spiritual combat. It is time for the Church to go beyond its ministry to “the youth” and start doing something (consistently) for their parents. And for the laity, it is time to stop talking about family and start holding accountable those lawmakers whose policies dismantle it.

1. United Nations Statistics Division, Demographic Yearbook, Table 25, Divorces and crude divorce rates by urban/rural residence: 2004-2008 (here)

2. Guam Statistical Yearbook 2010, Table 12-09, Vital Statistics Summary, Guam: Calendar Years 2006 to 2010 (here)

3. 2010.census.gov., "U.S. Census Bureau Releases 2010 Census Population Counts for Guam" (here)

4. Public Law 23-134, An Act relative to establishing "irreconcilable differences" as a ground for the dissolution or marriages. (here)

5. Bill 138-28, Committee Report, November 5, 2008 (here)

6. ibid

7. ibid

8. Public Law 28-93, An act to require court findings as to the residency of any party to a divorce (here)

9. GuamDivorces.com, FAQ's (here)

10. "Guam no longer a divorce mill", by Steve Limtiaco, Pacific Daily News, found reposted at international-divorce.com (here)

11. Guam DPHSS Division of Public Welfare, Bureau of Social Services Administration, Child Protective Services (here)

12. National statistics derived from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children's Bureau, Child Maltreatment 2010, Table 3-6 (here). Guam statistics derived from Guam Statistical Yearbook 2010, Child Abuse rate: Table 12-27, and total child population: Table 14-03 (here)

13. "Re-examining the impact of no-fault divorce", Emory Report, April 22, 1996, Volume 48, No. 30 (here)

14. Public Law 24-134 (here)

15. Wilson, Robin, "Children at Risk: the sexual exploitation of female children after divorce," Cornell Law Review, Jan 2001 v86 i2 p251 (here)

16. Public Law 24-134

17. Pacific News Center, "Survey Reveals Troubling Rate of Domestic Violence on Guam", March 3, 2011 (here)

18. Guam’s Crude Marriage Rate (marriages per 1000 population) has declined from 10.5 in 1991 to 7.8 in 2009. Data derived from Guam Statistical Yearbooks, 2001, 2008 and 2010.

Lost in Translation - The Last Word on Divorce

The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ and the events of Lent are still fresh in our mind. Actually on Guam, if you listen to Catholic Radio, you get to experience Holy Week twice since we are on a one-week delay as regards programs generated in the states and rebroadcast here. And while tuned in to a particular episode of Catholic Answers I heard an interesting discussion on the Seven Last Words of Christ.

I have come to realize as of late the significance of these Last Words. The final words of any dying person always merit grave attention, but how much more so in the case of the 2nd Person of the Holy Trinity, particularly since in order to utter those words Jesus had to push himself up on the nails through his feet which surely increased his incomprehensible agony.

Generations upon generations have meditated upon these “seven last words”. Great meditations have been written and momentous musical settings composed. It has been pointed out that the whole of Divine Revelation could be summed up in these Seven Last Words: all that God wants us to know of Himself is revealed in those dying moments.

If it stands to reason that if the Seven Last Words of Christ merit the deepest attention then perhaps the very Last Word would merit it all the more.

“It is finished”, said He…or did He? Most modern translations of Scripture use the word “finished”, but the official Catholic Scripture text does not. The “official Scripture text” (1) of the Catholic Church is the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome.

There are several reasons to give more weight to the Vulgate than to more modern translations:

1. The man who authored the Vulgate translation became a canonized saint. The NAB, RSV, NJB, etc., valid and useful translations though they may be, cannot make the same boast of its authorship.

2. The Vulgate is the only translation to be authorized by the Church with the force of an anathema. (2)

3. St. Jerome was 1600 years closer to the sources than any modern translation. (Jerome lived in the 5th century.)

4. Modern translators had to learn the languages of the original scriptures whereas Jerome actually spoke Greek and was very familiar with Hebrew (though he did need some help with Chaldeic).

The list could go on. But the important thing is that the Church actually says what the Vulgate says and the Vulgate does not say “It is finished”. The Vulgate says “consummatum est”, “It is consummated”.

It is true that the original Greek word (tetelestai) could be translated as “finished”, but there are several Latin words that could mean “finished” including the word “finis” from where we get our English word. It is thought that the ancient dismissal “Ite Missa est” actually included the word “finita” or “Ite, missa est finita” which translates literally “The Mass is ended (finished)” which is what we say in English anyway.

So the question is WHY did Jerome select “consummatum ” and not another word that could clearly mean “finished”?

The Church has always proclaimed the deep and true meaning of “consummatum est”, but in our modern sexually confused times it has take seven years of lectures by Pope John Paul II and another 25 years of reflection and study by the ablest of scholars to once again hand us the deepest meaning of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

The Theology of the Body reminds us that we are created for marriage, the marriage of the Apocalypse, where Christ, looking as a Lamb that was slain, marries his bride, the Church. Earthly marriage is a foreshadowing of that heavenly marriage.

On the cross, Christ initiates the wedding feast of Heaven by bodily giving Himself to His bride, The Church. This is why Paul exhorts husbands to “love your wives as Christ loved the Church”. And this is why in order for a marriage to be valid it must be “consummatum”!

A quick etymological investigation of the word is instructive: “con” = together, “summa” = highest (as in summit). Literal translation: the highest coming together, the pinnacle, the summit of union. There is nothing higher. And indeed, there was nothing higher than the sacrifice of Christ, the consummation of His Body for His Bride. Christ gave His All down to the last drop of blood and water…completely expiated, wrung out, “consumed” by love for us.

It is also instructive to note that the word “consummate” is also used to describe that which is most “exquisite”, “precious”, “wonderful”. (e.g. “He is a consummate violinist..”)

“Consummate” can also be translated as “complete”, which is perhaps closer in some sense to the word “finished”. But “complete” in this sense would not mean “done”, “no more to do”, but “complete” in the sense of “without flaw” or “perfect”.

In any event, the “more relatable” word “finished”, as we can see from the above discussion, is a sad and rather limp expression compared to the full meaning of the word Jerome chose (and which our Church still officially uses).

Once again the riches of our Faith are more impoverished, not because we don’t know Latin, but because translators have chosen their wisdom over Jerome’s and over that of the Church.

The words “It is finished” have caused much confusion and dissension on the apologetic front because our Protestant brethren like to use those words to proclaim the “finished work of Christ” as meaning “no more to do”, or that we can “add nothing”. This is all very ridiculous of course otherwise there would be no need to obey Christ’s instruction to take up your cross and follow Me (Mk. 8:34), or to heed the warning to “persevere to the end” (Mt. 10:22).

When understood in the context of the wedding feast of the Lamb, we see that Christ is just beginning His marriage, just as a couple upon consummating their marriage is beginning theirs.

It’s interesting to speculate how the radical rise in the rate of divorce (amongst other contemporary ills) has coincided with the release of these new translations. Hmmmm.





1 Bible Versions and Commentaries by Colin Donovan STL
http://www.ewtn.com/expert/answers/bible_versions.htm

2 But if any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin vulgate edition; and knowingly and deliberately contemn the traditions aforesaid; let him be anathema (Council of Trent - Decree Concerning the Canonical Scriptures)

Moreover, the same sacred and holy Synod,—considering that no small utility may accrue to the Church of God, if it be made known which out of all the Latin editions, now in circulation, of the sacred books, is to be held as authentic,—ordains and declares, that the said old and vulgate edition, which, by the lengthened usage of so many years, has been approved of in the Church, be, in public lectures, disputations, sermons and expositions, held as authentic; and that no one is to dare, or presume to reject it under any pretext whatever. (Council of Trent - Decree Concerning the Edition and the Use of the Sacred Books)