Thirty or so years ago, two very dear friends were married in a nuptial mass, and for a gospel reading they chose Mark 10:2-9, which includes this passage:



But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother [and be joined to his wife], and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate.”

Even in Jesus’ day, divorce was a theological challenge.

For the bride and groom the reading was a pledge of determination; one of them was still reeling from the recent divorce of parents married for over 20 years, and the subsequent remarriage of the mother.

The divorce created anxiety before the wedding: would the mother present herself for communion? We brilliant twentysomethings mused on it over wine and cheese, noting that from a purely legalistic view, the mother had ex-communicated herself by remarrying outside the church, and before attaining an annulment. Finally, in vino veritas, one pertinent fact came to the fore: “She never loved my father,” said our friend. “Her family wanted the marriage, and she was obedient, but she never loved him.”

Oh. That does matter in the grand scheme of things – where sin and sacraments are concerned, intentions matter.

Prior to the divorce, this had been a family of practicing Catholics. Three decades later, the mother is fulfilled in her healthy, loving, second marriage but still removed from the church, as are all of her children and grandchildren. If you ask them, they will tell you they're Catholic, but only nominally; everyone has been baptized and confirmed, but no one attends Mass or observes Holy Days – not even Christmas. Whether the grandchildren will feel compelled to baptize their own children is unknowable, but we can hazard a guess.

Within four generations, a previously-faithful family has experienced a categorical move away from Catholicism, trending toward 21st century “None-ism” (a belief in not much of anything) and that trajectory can be traced to a civil divorce that was met by inadequate outreach and, likely, inadequate catechesis.

It's precisely because of stories like these that Pope Francis has called for an Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family. This month, in anticipation of it, the pope will meet with the eight cardinals who advise him to discuss the pastoral care of the modern family, which has been wracked by divorce, redefined by secular interests and the sexual revolution, and is in dire need of spiritual direction and large slices of capital "T" Truth, served up with generous dollops of mercy.

They will be looking at data culled from a recent questionnaire sent to diocese around the world, which asked specific questions about matters of divorce, same-sex partnerships and the children being raised within them, in preparation for October’s Synod. By all accounts the question of divorce and annulment will be a primary focus.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – while emphatically declaring the need to obey the teaching of Christ Jesus on the subject of marriage – noted “the church has the authority to clarify those conditions which must be fulfilled for a marriage to be considered indissoluble, according to the sense of Jesus’ teaching.”

In 2005, as Pope Benedict XVI, he reissued the essay with additional notes, touching on how the Council of Nicaea and the practices of Eastern Orthodoxy, along with a reasoned conscience, might expand our present understanding of marriage – particularly in the cases involving the “baptized-but-unbelieving".

Particularly in his interview with La Civiltà Cattolica, Pope Francis has indicated that he is thinking along similar lines, and that is not surprising. He has called the church “a field hospital” doing triage and treatment to a wounded world, and he seems intent on advancing the medicine of the Holy Eucharist to its patients:

﻿The Eucharist, although it is the fullness of sacramental life, is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak. These convictions have pastoral consequences that we are called to consider with prudence and boldness.

Those Catholics whose first marriages were doomed by reasons of coercion, ignorance or immaturity have been in the waiting room for a long time. They have been hoping their wounds can be treated with something penitential and effective (yet less onerous than the thorough, exacting and complicated surgery that has been our annulment process) so they, and their children, can come home and receive the powerful healing that is inherent in the Eucharist and in the fullness of community.

We are in hopeful days.