“THE DEAL” is more than just a cringe-worthy acronym

Last updated on: July 7, 2015 at 8:48 am by Jane the Actuary

“THE DEAL” is more than just a cringe-worthy acronym 2015-07-07T08:48:35-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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So last Sunday I went to church at the neighboring parish, since its mass times fit in better with the activities for the day, and we got there partway through a very earnest woman announcing a new ministry. Divorce is difficult, she said, and thoughts go through your mind: excommunication? Go to another church? But what if you don’t want to go to Willow Creek or Harvest Bible Chapel? Even Pope Francis said that divorce can be “morally necessary”* and that “we must find a place for divorced people in the church” (the last said with extra earnestness). Hence, they were beginning a new ministry at the church for divorced people.

* Actually, he was referring to separation, and did not express anything counter to the Catholic belief that a valid sacramental marriage can never be cancelled out, and a new one undertaken, even if a secular divorce occurs. See this patheos writer or this one for more context.

Now, this is a bit of a flaky church — apparently conditioned by their applause for this speaker, the assembly then applauded the priest after the homily. But here’s the further information in their bulletin:

New Ministry Coming Soon – THE DEAL

(DIVORCE, EDUCATION, ADVOCACY, LITURGY)

Divorce is difficult! There so much to deal with. You’re a divorced Catholic, now what? If you’re facing divorce or already divorced, please join us for a wine and cheese reception to hear about this much needed ministry.

Now, one shouldn’t read too much into this sort of thing, but this sure sounds indistinguishable from a divorced support group at the local Methodist church, where the focus is (I presume) on supporting each other through the legal process of divorce, and the long-term issues of shared custody, for instance, and ultimately beginning to date again, with the issues that creates for family life. And if the “education” and “advocacy” and “liturgy” means creating a false hope that remarriage afterwards is A-OK because any day now Pope Francis’ll put his stamp of approval on it (or, worse, with respect to the “L”, “let’s celebrate mass and tell everyone they’re fools if they don’t troop up for communion”), we’ll that’s all the more unfortunate.

(* Snarky side comment: heck, maybe we just revive polygamy to fix the issue! One spouse you live with, and one that you don’t.)

But, really, I go back and forth on the issue. There are many people who take it as a given that for pretty much any marriage that failed, grounds can always be found for an annulment, so that the easy-peasy solution is to just send everyone to the annulment tribunal, and help them get their paperwork in order, or perhaps encourage the idea of — oh, what was this called? the notion that, if you know in your heart that, even though you couldn’t persuade the tribunal of it, you, or your ex-husband, really didn’t take the commitment of marriage secretly, you decide for yourself that there really wasn’t a valid marriage. And it’s clearly nonsensical to say that definitionally any marriage whatsoever in which the couple divorced was doomed from the start, because one or the other party was clearly too immature to make that commitment or else it would have lasted.

But yet: in the year 2015, even well-intentioned couples hear repeatedly, “marriage is a means of obtaining state benefits and social approval for your loving relationship.”

The default assumption in Catholic teaching on marriage is supposed to be, if I’m not mistaken, that not just Catholics’, but other Christians’ marriages are sacramental if they meet the key requirements of proper intention (permanence, faithfulness, openness to children) and ability to truly make that commitment (sufficiently mature, mentally well, no coercion) — but (speaking without any knowledge of the annulment process) I would think that the large majority of American marriages are not sacramental any longer, insofar as the couples believe that divorce is a real possibility, and that whether to have children is a question to be decided entirely apart from getting married. Marriage in the year 2025 may have removed even the aspect of faithfulness, based on the increasing number of positive stories (e.g., CNN) about open marriages which present the decision of whether to have sex exclusively with one’s spouse as just that, a decision.

And even with respect to Catholic marriages, against this, is pre-Cana really enough?

Discuss among yourselves.

(But — by the way: you guys that are not Catholic, and not even Christian, are invited to share your comments, but please do so in a way that furthers the discussion, and don’t justtoss out a statement like “Catholic teaching is dumb and does nothing other than make people unhappy.”)

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