Pope Francis
and my Likely “Null” Marriage
Oh, yes ... and yours,
too
“The great majority of sacramental marriages are null.
… I've seen a lot of fidelity in … cohabitations, and I am sure that
this is a real marriage, they have the grace of a real marriage because
of their fidelity.”
Pope Francis on the Opening
of the Pastoral Conference of the Diocese of Rome June 16, 2016
Once we recover from this devastating statement,
it is noteworthy that Francis does not allow any latitude
by qualifying it with, “probably”. He does not say,
“The great majority
of sacramental marriages are probably null.” He quite
emphatically states the opposite:
“The great majority of sacramental
marriages are null.”
In this case, even the most deftly casuistic
Catholic apologist cannot make a wrong statement right. Why? Because
Francis left out an extremely important qualifier even were such an
absurd statement remotely true: “probably”. Without this
qualifier there is no possible way to make such a broad a priori
assessment of the state of the “great majority” of Catholic
marriages (although he did not limit this statement to Catholics only).
How does anyone determine if (very likely) they are among “the
great majority”?
Without empirical evidence it
is impossible because Francis did not inject even the most
remotely extenuating notion of probability.
Probability implies the determination that evidence is forthcoming
to validate a statement. But there is no such evidence. Indeed, even
if there were, what criteria would be invoked? How would it be
established and on what authority? At what numerical point would the criteria culminate
in a de facto annulment of a marriage? The evidence that Francis
appeals to is, for all purposes, entirely anecdotal. However, even the
injection of probability does not warrant such a sweeping and grievously
injurious statement. Even if he had invoked “probability”, the resulting
statement would still be scandalous, for he did not simply
say that “a majority”, but “a great majority” of marriages
are null (a specific canonical term) — which multiplies the scandal.
51% to 49% constitutes a majority.
On that basis alone, half of all marriages are invalid. 75% to
25% constitutes a great majority which would mean that
75 of 100 marriages (at a minimum) are null — or over 7 out of 10 marriages.
Has Pope Francis effectively annulled 75% of
all marriages (not just Catholic)? “That is absurd”, you
say. No. It is not what I say — it is what Pope Francis said.
As a Catholic, I am confused. Are you?
Pope Francis is making quite a mess of things,
yes? But that is his ... “style” ... as he said in another context.
What a curious and frightening notion.
My own confusion derives from
the likelihood (being of “the great majority”) of not
having been sacramentally and validly married for some years now —
despite all appearances during the apparent illusion of a Nuptial
Mass at that time.
Despite Pope Francis's
insistence that “they do not know what they
are saying” — that is to say, the bride and the groom — when
they make their marriage vows, the clarity and simplicity of the
words used suggest otherwise:
Groom:
“I take you for my lawful wife, to have and to hold,
from this day forward, for better, for worse, for
richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until
death do us part.”
Bride:
“I, take you for my lawful husband, to have and to hold,
from this day forward, for better, for worse, for
richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until
death do us part.
These are not recondite,
confusing, cryptic, equivocal, and complicated words or concepts.
Can anyone argue that “the great majority” of men and women
do not understand what
-
“from this day
forward” means?
-
“for better, for
worse” means?
-
“for richer, for poorer”
means?
-
“in sickness and in
health” means?
-
“until death do us part.”
means
Seven Words and an Insult to all — except the genuinely
cognitively impaired
To argue — as Francis does —
that such simple understanding is beyond the
intellectual or verbal capacity and the lowest common level of human
communication is an insult not simply to Catholics or the
married or the unmarried — but to everyone who is not
clinically diagnosed as cognitively impaired. Are such words foreign
to you? Are you incapable of grasping what better, worse, richer,
poorer, sickness, health, and death mean? Do you not know
the difference between what is better and what is worse?
Do you really not know the distinction between being
richer and poorer? Do you hold that these seven words
(and one phrase) are of such complexity that you do
not really comprehend them? When you utter them, do you really
“not know what you are saying?” How did you get this far
into this article?
If I believe that what
Francis says is true, it behooves me to remedy my own questionable
marriage by talking with someone who
is living a “valid and sacramental marriage” as he co-habits
with his perhaps-wife-to-be (if he weds her at a Nuptial
Mass, after which, of course, his own marriage, will then become a null
marriage also — until he abandons it and reverts to co-habitation
with another woman to authenticate that marriage
cohabitation as sacramental and real). No this is not the Twilight Zone.
It is the illogical and illusory world of Pope Francis, steeped in a
progressive and antagonistic agenda born of the “St. Gallen” Syndicate
where reason and tradition alone are anathema sit.
As I had stated, I am confused. Are you
now confused,
too? Are “The great majority” of Sacramental marriages really no more
than co-habitations, while cohabitations are really sacramental (possessed
of grace) marriages?
Of course not!
Ordinary People are not
presumed competent by Pope Francis to understand and enter into a
simple marriage contract when they are presumed to be competent
and liable for any complex civil contract, such as a loan, a
car, a house, or a lease? All such contracts are held actionable by
the parties entering into them and there is a presumed recognition
of the individual's mental, intellectual, and cognitive capacity for
entering into these far more subtle and legally involuted contracts.
Try, for example, telling your credit card agency that you really
were not competent to understand the loan you took out 5 years ago
and therefore now refuse to pay it.
The Oldest Institution in the World
Pope Francis wounded so many
people with his statement, and opened the way to the breaking of
many marriages. So many are fragile and hold together because of the
words of Christ and the Church, enduring much suffering and
remaining open nevertheless to each other in the hope that their
marriage will endure, and in the conviction that it IS a real
marriage and that vows mean something sacred and are not to be broken.
They full well know that they realized what they were saying when
they got married, however simple or uneducated they may have been.
Marriage is not only for scholars and canon lawyers. It is the
oldest and most widespread institution in the world!
How much doubt must now enter
so many marriages — and for those inclined to leave, to
break that contract, they now have nothing less than a papal
assessment that it never really was a marriage after all.
They will count themselves among “the majority” — and split. The
“annulment process” already “streamlined” by Francis will now become
a race track.
Moreover, how are we to tell
our children — many living in co-habitation — that it is sinful
and wrong when the pope openly approves of it? What
are we to say? As Catholic parents we have been divested of our
moral authority; for it has been subverted by the pope himself who
declares that we are wrong in discouraging
co-habitation — just as we were wrong when we thought that we were
sacramentally and therefore validly married. It is madness!
I am inclined to believe — as the most charitable
of two options — that Francis is non compos mentis. If that is so,
it is, in fact, canonical grounds for his being relieved of the papacy.
The more he speaks the more certain I am of this.
On the other hand, this may be an “impromptu”
preparation for a more formal statement concerning not so much further
“streamlining” the annulment process as in extending the divorce issue
so close to Kasper’s heart — and it is important to remember that Kasper
(one of the St. Gallen Syndicate) is, after all, one of the pope’s
most trusted theologians —
and one with the audacity to countenance the explicit and absolutely
unequivocal teaching on divorce
by Christ Himself.
To
this day Pope Francis has not publicly retracted his
statement that
“The great majority of sacramental
marriages are null.” The Vatican
press agency has tactfully, but belatedly revised
“the great majority” ... to
“some” — Francis has not.
It takes humility — the
celebrated “hallmark” of his papacy — to acknowledge
that one is wrong. The refusal to do so is the
remarkable absence of it. In that vacuum humility
becomes arrogance — which far better suits a tyrant than
a pope.
Geoffrey K. Mondello
for the
Boston Catholic Journal
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