In less than a month, the Extraordinary Synod on the Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization will begin in Rome. Bishops, religious, and expert lay women and men from around the world will convene to talk about the issues surrounding marriage and families, upon which the future existence not only of states and civil societies but of the Church rests. For as St. John Paul II once said, “The future of humanity passes by way of the family.”

For the 6 months leading up to the Synod, the issue that has drawn the greatest attention (at least in the Western world and blogosphere) resulted from a pastoral comment made by Cardinal Walter Kasper a lecture before an extraordinary consistory of the College of Cardinals with Pope Francis in February 2014. His lecture has since been published in book and Kindle format under the title “The Gospel of the Family.” In it the Cardinal writes:



Many pastors are in fact convinced that many marriages, which were concluded in ecclesial form, are not validly contracted. For as a sacrament of faith, marriage presupposes faith and consent to the essential characteristics of marriage—unity and indissolubility. But can we, in the present situation, presuppose without further ado that the engaged couple shares the belief in the mystery that is signified by the sacrament?

In layman’s terms, Kasper re-articulated a question that was popular in the 70s following the conclusion of Vatican II, but that was then closed by John Paul II in the 1981 apostolic exhortation, and that was recently reiterated by Pope Benedict XVI before he humbly resigned the papal office in early 2013.

The question was and is again today: When two baptized persons come to the Church because they “like the venue” or “want to please mom and dad in order not to cause familial tension” or “to just do it by the book” and yet lack in faith or have no personal relationship with or are even hostile toward Christ and his bride the Church, is that marriage still a valid sacramental marriage? That is to say, was it a real marriage in the eyes of Christ and his Church?

For some, this immediately seems an obscure and bizarre case, but it has been presented as a serious pastoral concern in many countries, especially for those now cohabiting or in a second civil marriage seeking a more intimate bond with the Church.

A paper given at the International Theological Commission in 1984 by Carlo Caffarra (now Cardinal Caffarra) articulates a deeper question on the pastoral nature of this “closed issue”—not only that of rehashing an old debate from the 70s, but of an entirely new precedent for a synod on the challenges of the family. Caffarra, who has publicly taken the traditional stance against Cardinal Kasper over the past several months, had this to say:



The pastoral concern [regarding these issues of marriage] seeks to avoid taking a course of action that might sever any link which these persons may have with the Church. The real problem is of a different sort. The whole Christian community must shoulder the obligation of fostering in baptized persons an ever more intelligent, mature, and conscious realization of what was bestowed upon them when they were baptized. [W]e reach an essential point of the debate: we must be aware of the obligation of the Church to evangelize much sooner than when baptized persons come in to request marriage. Otherwise, we put ourselves in the position of having to redress the fact that the Christian community has failed to discharge its basic obligation with another error.

What Cardinal Caffarra captured 30 years ago remains true today, and it is something held in common with Cardinal Kasper.

Pope Francis, Pope emeritus Benedict XVI, every cardinal, bishop, priest, deacon, religious, and lay woman and man wants to be the Merciful Father who runs out with open arms to the prodigal son or daughter (Luke 15) returning home after hitting bottom. We want those who have distanced themselves from the Church to come home. We know deep inside that the Church longs for them, that we are members of the wounded Body of Christ, and that our faith is the sort of “field hospital” that Pope Francis spoke about last fall.

We want them—people divorced and remarried, and in every other pastoral circumstance—to be washed clean in the Sacrament of Reconciliation by the words “I absolve you” and to be given a chance to start anew. We want them reclothed in the light of Christ and the grace of His Church. We want to put a ring on their fingers and shoes on their feet. We want to throw a big banquet and welcome them home. We want them to help us strengthen our parishes. We want to be able to say to our friends, “Look! This person was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found once again!”

But what Cardinal Caffarra correctly argues is that we can’t solve this or other problems by a pastoral solution that only creates additional pastoral problems. Instead, he reflects on how many of these situations could have been avoided had we fulfilled our “obligation” and privilege to catechize the faithful and introduce them to Jesus, as Lord and Savior.

At the end of the day, as the Synod begins, it will only be a waste of time and a perpetuation of the problem if we play 'point the finger' to determine who deserves the bulk of blame for not having lived, shared, and taught the Catholic faith in joy, truth, and charity. What will hopefully result, however, is the drafting by the synod fathers of concrete directives that will be pastorally undertaken in all the corners of the Church in order to remedy this crisis of the handing on of the Faith.

For the over 99.9 percent of us who will not be at the Synod in October, this is where our contribution begins. We can each pray for the success and implementation of these directives. And we can each be bridge builders, offering unique invitations to those we know who are “loose threads” on the fringes of the Church, in order that they might once again be interwoven into the fold.