Can’t Say: Neither do I Condemn you?
Note:
“If you can’t say: “Neither do I condemn you”, as Jesus did, you in
positions of power, have only one heavenly option left: just quit and get out
of the way, as Benedict XVI did to steal yourself into heaven like the good
thief. Even if you are the 11th hour worker in the Vineyard, you
will be given one dinar. Doors of heaven, our Father’s house, stay wide open
always before you, in case you happen to be the worst prodigal in this world.”
This is the conclusion of my prayerful reflections. None of you have to accept
it, but you are welcome to it. Perfect freedom, perfect openness, perfect
readiness to embrace every one deformed or crippled and perfect humility to take the last place
are the sine qua non (things you can’t do without) for being a true
follower of Jesus. If to think so, is to be biased, then I am. You may accept
or reject the following reflections in the same vein.
dr.james kottoor
Family of Man is seriously
sick. It needs emergency treatment to save it from imminent death. Its ailments
are too many to recount. Doctors who examined it in Rome agreed on most of the symptoms but could not,
on three afflictions: 1.Gay and lesbian relations masquerading as families –
claiming marital status as between man and wife, 2. Broken families floating as
divorced ones – with new partners civilly recognised but not religiously, 3.
Divorced without annulment and cohabiting with new partners.
These
patients are all in the war-zone Field Hospital called the Catholic Church with
its Chief physician, an Argentinean
called Francis whose trump card is a generous medical mix of mercy and
compassion with any and every treatment to achieve infallible healing. Recently
he treated 20 couples – living together in a sexual mess -- with or without
children, no legal bonds and outside church regulations but held together by
the bond of what they call “love”. No questions were asked for blessing them
and none raised any objections either. All went hale and happy.
Doctors under
him treating families – all families’ not just Catholic families – are bishops
and medical practitioners called pastors. At the two-week Rome Synod some 191
doctors examined 62 common sicknesses and reached consensus, meaning agreement by two-thirds called Super
majority on all except three. The one-third or more who differed are asked to
continue discussion to reach a possible hundred percent agreement in
identifying illness and medication to be prescribed by next October 2015
latest, when a final call will be taken on each case. So they will have to
start with the three most contested issues first. The first one among them is
gay-unions which fell short just by two votes for two-thirds, reportedly. So
the margin of “Nay”-Sayers is expected to disappear fast during the current
year. Here those with opposing views are not aiming at reaching a balance of
terror as between political power blocks on a war path but the bonhomie of a
palliative nursing home exuding love and care
Define
Human Family?
We are not here
to define first what a “Family” is and then apply it to what constitutes a
marriage and what marriages deserve to be called families etc. What we call
human family is all inclusive: an
aggregate of married, divorced, cohabiting to stay permanently or for a short
period - a Noah’s ark if you like. Living together will not make it a marriage,
said one of our cardinals on his return from Rome. But “If a same-sex couple has been in a relationship for
thirty years, I can’t call that nothing…although it is not “all ok”, Pontier, the
President of the French Bishops’ Conference said and added: I’ll be surprised
if we don’t reach a consensus on the Synod’s final document. And Cardinal
Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of Munich, President of the German Bishops’
Conference and a member of the 9-member Council of Cardinals said: “Exclusion
is not the language of the Church!” So let discussion continue till Oct.2015,
to see what types of unions of love pass for family. What is important to note
here is that traditionalists and conservatives follow the top-down approach, while Francis
and his field hospital group start from harsh ground realities -- bottom–up
route -- saving the dying without wasting time checking minor things like cholesterol.
This is what Jesus also
did. He was the WORD made flesh, but never wrote even a single word to define dogmatic
prescription principles to start from. What comes from Jesus is the only valid
route, and what is valid can come only from Jesus even if it is difficult for
weak stomachs to digest because only he can write straight with crooked lines.
Francis explained it beautifully when he said: “One, a temptation to
hostile inflexibility that is, wanting to close oneself within the written
word, (the letter) and not allowing oneself to be surprised by God.”
To the lady caught in
adultery he said: “Woman has no one condemned you? Neither do I condemn you
(Jn.8.11) Had Jesus met a divorcee, lesbian or cohabitant (he had met one at
Jacob’s well), in a similar situation, what else could have been His response?
That of the advocates of doctrine or discipline? The stick of severity or the caress of compassion and mercy? And whom
are we supposed to follow, Jesus washing the feet of a traitor Judas, or a
self-styled upright leader Peter rebelling and admonishing Jesus not to make
cheap jesters? Jesus had to tell him: “You will understand later.” In an
earlier similar instance he had to tell him point blank: “Get behind me Satan, your ways are not
mine”. Was not Francis imitating Jesus when he answered journalists on the
plane:”Who am I to judge?” about gays in the Vatican, searching for Gods mercy?
Was Francis frankly admitting he was just an ignorant infallible idiot? Or was
he boldly burying once and for all, the man-made doctrine of infallibility,
manufactured to appear Jesus-like before man? Pope Innocent III, of the time of
Francis of Assisi, did it when on his
own he promoted himself from the then held title of “Successor of Peter”
to the “Vicar of Christ” and finally
ended up naked in a Cathedral, as I remember reading Theologian Hans Kung.
Pride goes before an ignominious fall.
No
to Communion?
In spite of such glaring examples
staring in the face, why are some of the Synod Fathers hesitating, dithering, nay
on a war path, some saying: “Definite NO to communion,” think instead of the
“doctrine of sacramental indissolubility” etc., while the other “Casualty Field
hospital in a war zone” group say: “Save the dying from permanent death, admit
them to Table fellowship with sinners, publicans and prostitutes?”
For Jesus,
for Francis, for Walter Kasper, for Bishop Johan Bonny of
Antwerp, our God is God of Mercy and compassion who never “never tires of
forgiving......it is we who get tired of asking forgiveness” (Pope). The first
group of Synod Fathers who stay-put with their: NO, have also any number of
supporters, including mighty cardinals and zealous lay groups. For example
American Cardinal Raymond Burke (some called him the Ottaviani of this
synod) reportedly said: Francis owes the world an apology by issuing a clear
statement of Catholic doctrine. A Conservative American Catholic group called
“Voice of the Family,” had earlier called the interim report a “betrayal,” and
added: Kasper’s “medicine of mercy” had spread “sickness and disease.” The International Coalition of Pro-family
Groups tore to pieces the detailed
article of Bp.Bonny pleading for table fellowship for divorcees, saying among
other things, he (Bonny)“gives no criteria for worthiness to receive Holy
Communion, and no explanation how mortal sin could
possibly be compatible with receiving Holy Communion.”
Mortal Sin?
That reminds me of what a crazy writer
wrote demolishing MORTAL SINS and sins
in general. “I still have to find that guy smart enough to commit a mortal sin
in this world,” he wrote, “and win the priced price of a Hell in the next. For
example what are the conditions for rating a sin mortal? They are three: 1.Grave matter, 2. Full knowledge and 3. Full
freedom. Grave matter could be committing a murder in an attempt to rob a Crore
of rupees or raping a girl one is infatuated with. Full knowledge: when one is busy weighing various crooked
ways to succeed in a dastardly act, where is balanced mind to study and analyse
inherent goodness or wretchedness of the act he plans to commit? Full freedom:
How can there be any freedom in a person intoxicated with enjoyment of
the dream of possessing a Crore or his paramour in his embrace? Also remember
that no crime, however dastardly it is, is ever committed except under the
aspect of the good it brings to the doer. In other words, no one embraces evil seen
as evil or tasted as bitter. That is still the Catholic theology. So is it impossible
for any one to commit a mortal sin?.
But all of us, the best and worst
of us, commit small and big mistakes and blunders, unknowingly or half
heartedly like the little child trying to walk, and falls down many times,
before it succeeds. Such falls can cause hurt, fracture or even death. But we
don’t call them sins. We call them unintended mistakes, or costly blunders.
Learning and making mistakes will come to a stop only when we die. So just
forget about mortal sins. It is like calling a dog a bad name just to hang it.”
One who wrote it was the Editor of New Leader some 40 years ago and he got a fitting
rebuke from his then Archbishop but not a convincing explanation to prove him
wrong. I for one still hold on to that view. Hence my staunch refusal to
believe in a Hell. What other message is Francis giving by his “who am I to
judge”? While he does not condone homosexual behaviour, in the end is he not
saying that it’s up to God to
decide what does and does not qualify as sinful behaviour?
Now think of the plight of many a
divorcee. Before finding that out, we should first define: What is
marriage? The best description I have
come across is: “Union of Love in the
service of Life,” that is, fulfilling Love flowering eventually, not
necessarily, in a new life. How many
marriages can claim to possess these two characteristics to the hilt? First, what
are the marks of true love that never fails? One has only to read Cor.l, 13:
“Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous; love is never boastful
or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offense, and is not
resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins but delights in truth;
it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.
Love does not come to an end.”
If this is what love, Christian or otherwise means and should mean and
ought to bind together a married couple, how can there be a broken marriage? Even
the possibility of a breakup is to be ruled out if all these ingredients of
love are present in every marriage. On the contrary if any or many of these
ingredients are missing, hasn’t one to conclude that such a marriage is flawed
at the very source? That may be why Francis said: “Many people, without really
knowing what they are doing, get married without knowing what it means to get
married and what it involves.” So half
of the marriages are invalid, he is reported to have said. Another controversy in
The Times, NY ,is that Francis permitted an Argentinean Lady living with a divorcee to receive
communion. Factors that prompt one to marry are too many to list. Few of them
are: sexual urge seeking fulfilment, falling in love at first sight, need of companionship
among adults, mutual attraction based on beauty, personal traits like position,
possession and other benefits and finally external pressure coming from parents
and relations in arranged marriages.
In spite of many objections to love
marriages, normal course should be the love between two persons leading to
marriage, not marriage leading and coaxing two to love one another. In the
later instance marriage becomes a cage for a male-female pair to learn to fall
in love. Where arrangements play major role, such marriages are to be
discouraged. Even in so called ideal marriages, one may find many flaws. As for
the second part of our definition:”in the service of Life”,
three lives are contemplated, lives of existing partners and the life or lives
of children they plan to bring into this world.
But in today’s work culture, when
one gives precedence to one’s career and
while commercials are clamouring to them:
“Say good bye to motherhood, until career is built up,” there is the compulsion to postpone or follow the
Chinese model of one Child homes, for two reasons: it helps one to build up a
fat bank balance, provided one has a good job, 2. Christians can boast they are following the ideal
Nazareth Family of one child (Just forget for the moment some bishops giving
awards to families with four or more children.) Forgive them for they know not,
what they are talking. Just recall the comment: “Celibate old males
sitting in boardrooms, should not decide the fate of young couples in
bedrooms.”
One Litmus
Test for all?
The heart of the conflict is, some say,
there should be a general rule on the basis of which each instance of divorce
must be judged to see if their first marriage was valid or not because of the
presence or absence of essential ingredients. The opposing group say every
marriage is singular or exceptional and so will find itself like a square plug
in a round hole when applied to man-made general rules. In fact according to
Archbishop Marx of Munich “majority” of German bishops were for admitting
divorcees to communion even long before Kasper made his position known and even
before Francis was elected Pope. That discussion can go on endlessly. For me
the overriding principle is totally different. It is the answer to the simple
question: What is the biggest wonder of creation?
It is that no two individuals in this
world are exactly the same: you are not like me and I am not like anyone else.
No one’s dress will suit me. To make a long discussion short, no church court
or civil court can sit in judgement over the validity or nullity of a marriage.
The only court that can give a verdict with minimum margin of error is the
honest commanding conscience of individuals concerned before God. To prevent
anarchy in the field of marriage and divorce, what I could suggest is that
divorced couples should be mediated to settle issues between them, by a
religious or civil authority which is cost free, not time consuming but plays
more an advisory role of a mother rather than the prescriptive or judgemental
role of a court imitating the way Francis dealt with the 20 couples. Also let
us remember all sacraments were man-made after the 3rd century and
not God-made and so have to keep on changing, change being the only
unchanging law of nature. Sabbath is for man and not man for Sabbath
and who wrote the Bible: God? Jesus?
Beautiful,
Enticing & Convincing
Some of the very beautiful statements I read and readily agree with are
the following: Life centred on Jesus will begin only
when last are first in Christian communities, when serving the poor, sick,
homeless, despised and marginalised become our first priorities. Church is the house of God
where the doors are always open wide to the prodigal. In addition it is the
emergency field hospital busy attending to the mortally wounded, not a mortuary
to perform autopsies on the spiritually dead. Revere the church calling it
holy, catholic, apostolic etc but don’t forget, whole of it, is made up of holy
sinners (santi peccatori). Weren’t all the apostles sinful, cowardly deserters of Jesus in
custody. Yet he chose them.
What is truly of God: mercy or
punishment? Gentleness and acting tough? Hence the call of John XXIII:
go forward with the medicine of mercy, and the cry of Cardinal Kasper: “Name of
our God is mercy.” To be graceful and merciful like
Jesus, both rigourism and laxism are
to be avoided; so too “hostile
rigidity” of conservatives and “destructive good-will” of liberals.“ As
for table fellowship, “communion should be withheld only in situations where we can
visualise Jesus turning someone away from the table empty-handed and that is NEVER.”
Let all argumentative theologians bent on finding out how many angels can stand
on the pin point of a needle, put the above statements in their pipe and smoke
it for one whole year!
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