The new attitude of the church toward the divorced.

At the end of the discernment, the bishop decides whether he will allow them to receive the sacraments or invite them to receive the sacrament of reconciliation and the Eucharist.

Bishop Holub introduced this decision on the first Sunday of Lent. “I have decided to entrust the Missionaries of Mercy in our diocese to offer their spiritual accompaniment from this first Sunday of Lent, in the spirit of the urgent recommendation of Pope Francis, to the sisters and brothers of our communities who have experienced a painful separation in their life relationship and are now living in a new relationship,” wrote their diocesan bishop in a pastoral letter to the faithful in Western Bohemia.

Neither the bishop nor the priest questions the indissolubility of sacramental marriage

Bishop Holub entrusted the Missionaries of Mercy to accompany people who live after divorce in a new union. One of them is the parish priest in Karlovy Vary-Rybár Romuald Štěpán Rob.

The priest for the World of Christendom repeated what his bishop also emphasized, that this step and this decision is a reaction to the eighth chapter of Pope Francis’ exhortation Amoris Laetitia, where the Pope calls “to look for ways to help those whose lives have collapsed in some way “.

“Nobody gets married or married to get divorced. It is a call to go out to the periphery, as is characteristic of the Pope, and seek the lost and the lost. Leave ninety-nine righteous,” says the priest from Karlovy Vary.

Although the Bishop of Pilsen issued a directive according to which spouses who live in an irregular union and go through the path of discernment can be invited to the sacrament of reconciliation and the Eucharist at the end of the process, this in no way invalidates the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage. Bishop Holub’s step is mainly an effort to find “lost and stray sheep”.

According to priest Rob, Bishop Holub is trying to make this form of search an institutional form.

“The goal is to distinguish whether the situation, which reduces the subjective culpability and immutability of an objective irregular situation, is such that it allows them to receive the sacraments,” says the Czech missionary of mercy.

In practice, this means that even if a person commits a grave sin, the circumstances may be different. It is about the so-called exculpation, i.e. release from guilt.

Read also

The bishop commissioned the Missionaries of Mercy to offer spiritual guidance to those who have experienced separation and are now living in a new relationship.

“This also applies to other commandments. The so-called exculpation also applies, for example, to people who steal because of hunger. Or they steal to feed their children in extreme conditions. Yes, they commit an objectively grave sin, but subjectively it cannot be attributed to them,” explains the Czech priest.

According to him, such cases can also occur among people who have a sacramental marriage, are divorced and today live in a union with another partner.

Discernment is about dialogue and prayer

“Imagine there is a case, which does not happen infrequently, that someone lives in a sacramental marriage where there is domestic violence – and it does not matter whether it is on the part of the man or the woman. One side has a judgment in hand that she was a victim of violence. This person leaves such a marriage and suddenly raises three children alone. Then some other partner appears there, with whom he also has another child, and helps manage this situation,” says the priest.

Or there may be a situation where one of the partners leaves the sacramental marriage through no fault of the other person, and this person cannot handle solitude.

And it is precisely people in similar situations who, following the path of discernment and accompaniment, want to allow access to the sacraments in certain cases.#”Discernment should be guided by the path of dialogue, common prayer,” says the missionary of mercy, who emphasizes that the Pope calls on priests to approach similar cases even in the confessional individually and not in a blanket manner.

“The couple meets with the priest and talks about their situation, and how it happened. And be careful, it is not said that such a distinction must necessarily end with permission to receive the sacraments. In the end, it has to be approved by the diocesan bishop. This is something that is extra and that even the Pope does not mention in the exhortation,” explained the clergyman.

He explains that the meetings of spouses who live in an unsacramental union should also be about the partners talking in front of each other about the situation that led to the collapse of their sacramental relationship. They are supposed to talk about the circumstances of the divorce and what happened.

“It is difficult and hurtful for people, but I think that people who want to receive the sacraments should talk about these things in front of themselves in some atmosphere of trust. It’s an analogy to preparing for marriage, but you’re talking to people more about what led to the failure of their relationship. There should be common prayer and dialogue during the meetings,” Rob explained how the meetings will look like.

After the journey of discernment, the bishop should receive these people with the missionary of mercy and they should talk about it together. Finally, the bishop is the one who has the final say on the possibility of receiving the Eucharist and the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

However, the goal of this journey should not only be to enable these people to receive the sacraments, but also so that they do not feel on the periphery in their difficult situation so that they are integrated into the life of the parish.

“It’s about finding out whether people living in a new irregular union with all that goes with it, which is an intimate life, can be in grace and receive the sacraments,” says Reverend Rob, quoting point 305 of the eighth chapter Amoris Laetitia.

Therefore, the shepherd cannot feel content merely to apply moral laws to those who live in “irregular” situations, as if the given laws were stones to throw at the lives of persons. This is the case of closed hearts, which are often covered by the teaching of the Church “to sit on the throne of Moses and judge, sometimes with arrogance and superficiality, difficult cases and wounded families”.

In the same vein, the International Theological Commission expressed itself: “Natural law cannot be presented as an already created set of rules that are imposed a priori on the moral subject, but is a source of objective inspiration for his extremely human decision-making process.” Due to conditions and mitigating factors, it is possible that within the objective situation of sin – which is not subjectively guilty or not fully guilty – it is possible to live in God’s grace, it is possible to love and it is possible to grow in a life of grace and love, receiving help from the Church for this purpose.

Discernment must help find ways to respond to God and grow despite limitations. When we believe that everything is black or white, we sometimes close the path of grace and growth and discourage paths of sanctification that glorify God. Let’s remember that “a small step amid human limitations can be more precious to God than the outwardly flawless life of a person who spends his days without having to face serious difficulties.”

The concrete pastoral care of clergy and communities cannot forget to accept this fact as their own. ( Amoris laetitia , point 305)

The Czech priest repeats that the introduction of this option in the Pilsen diocese is not the abolition of the indissolubility of marriage, but rather an effort to go and look for those who can be in grace.

“Sacraments are not candy for a reward. They are necessary means on the way to salvation, where we all walk, that is, to heaven. It is also a call for parishes to be inclusive. It’s often the case that spouses or families who experience this are simply excluded,” adds Rob.

When we wrote about Bishop Holub’s decision to accompany the divorced and in some cases to invite them to the Eucharistic table, comments appeared under the article that the bishop would allow adulterers and people living in grave sin to receive the sacraments.

Romuald Štěpán Rob responds by saying that just like every football club has ultras fans, it is the same in the church, which also has ultras fans. “And that on both the liberal and traditional sides, where there are voices of those who see it as a revolutionary exception or voices who consider it a revolutionary failure. Both views are wrong and result from a misunderstanding of the situation. This is not saying that objectively it is not a violation of the sixth commandment, it is only saying that there can be situations when, due to various circumstances, people have less subjective responsibility,” states the pastor.

The Czech missionary of mercy thinks that it is good that Bishop Tomáš Holub got involved. “It will help the bishops to take the exhortation of Pope Francis and his invitation to look for the lost sheep seriously, to communicate about it,” concludes the parish priest in Karlovy Vary.