The Joy of Love: a promise and an invitation, archbishop says

By Ana Rodriguez Soto - Florida Catholic newspaper

MIAMI | Those looking for wholesale change in the Catholic Church’s teaching on marriage will not find it in Pope Francis’ exhortation, Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love).

But they will find an invitation and a promise, Archbishop Thomas Wenski said at a press conference April 8 introducing the 325-paragraph document: Come home. The Catholic Church is a mother, “not a scold.”

“The pope hasn’t changed the tune. But certainly he presents a different tone,” said the archbishop, who had stayed up to read the entire document the night before. (Its release had been tightly controlled by the Vatican in an effort to avoid leaks.)

The gist of the document is this, Archbishop Wenski said: “The Church is not a scold and shouldn’t be seen as a scold. The Church is a mother, a loving mother and a patient mother.”

After two headline-grabbing bishops’ synods on the family (in October 2014 and October 2015), the papal document upholds the Church’s long-held teaching on marriage as being a lifelong, faithful union between a man and a woman.

It states that same-sex unions cannot be placed on the same level as Christian marriage.

And it does not open the door to widespread reception of Communion by Catholics who are divorced and remarried outside the Church — although the document does acknowledge that one-size-fits-all rules may not apply to every situation.

'Life is messy'

In fact, Pope Francis calls on pastors to accompany those who are struggling and “take the complexity of each situation into account,” according to a question-and-answer summary issued by the Vatican nuncio (ambassador) to the U.S.

“Life is messy. That’s why we can’t be judgmental,” Archbishop Wenski said. “It doesn’t mean you split the difference and say that sin is not a sin.”

But, he added, the Church is constantly calling people to conversion in all areas of life, “and all of us need conversion because life is messy across the board.”

That message might seem anti-climactic, especially in the U.S., where the polarized political climate sometimes spills over into Church debates between so-called conservative and liberal Catholics.

In The Joy of Love, there are no winners and losers. The document practices what it preaches, urging accompaniment rather than judgment amid the myriad ways that marriage and families “fail” in today’s society.

It also is a faithful reflection of the lively discussion that took place among bishops at those synods — a discussion that Pope Francis encouraged — mainly because it recognizes that the hot-button issues in the U.S. are not hot-button issues in the universal Church. In many places, poverty is the most pressing concern, and questions of sexual orientation are not even part of the conversation.

Pope Francis “states principles and in a lot of ways he leaves the details up to the bishops in their local communities,” Archbishop Wenski said.

Divorce and remarriage

On the question of divorce, The Joy of Love recognizes that “divorce is a tragedy,” the archbishop noted — reiterating that divorce alone does not prevent a Catholic from receiving Communion.

But even when dealing with people who are divorced and remarried outside the Church — or living together without benefit of marriage — the document calls for pastors to “accompany” people, not judge them, the archbishop said.

That might mean leading divorced Catholics to ask the Church whether their broken marriage was truly a sacrament in the first place — that is, to request an annulment. It is not the adversarial process one might imagine from programs such as Divorce Court, Archbishop Wenski stressed. For many people, it is “a healing process.”

But in countries where the Church infrastructure is as poor as the civil one, seeking those annulments might be logistically challenging. That’s where Pope Francis’ earlier “ motus propio,” streamlining the process, will be most applicable and most useful, the archbishop noted.

For example, someone who was married in Colombia and now living in Miami would not have to return to his or her former diocese to start the process. The new rules enable Miami’s Metropolitan Tribunal to study the case.

The document calls for a similarly pastoral approach to people in same sex unions. Be “patient, welcoming, tolerant, not judgmental,” Archbishop Wenski said. “But at the same time we stand by our teaching” as expressed in Genesis: God created them male and female.

Good news

Notably, the document begins by stating that those teachings are “good news” — despite the fact that a lot of people think of them as “bad news, something very difficult and something very burdensome,” the archbishop said.

In essence, the pope is saying that “our lives are about transformation and the Church is here to assist us with that,” said Kari Colella, who along with her husband, Stephen, was one of two married couples who spoke alongside the archbishop at the press conference.

Stephen Colella is director of the archdiocese’s Secretariat for Evangelization and Parish Life, which oversees the Ministry of Marriage and Family Life. Kari, his wife of 19 years, is executive director of Annunciation Ministries, which offers consultation and training in marriage preparation to dioceses and parishes.

Both were involved in creating the Transformed in Love marriage preparation program while working for the Archdiocese of Boston, where they lived before coming to South Florida. Both are now heading a Marriage Preparation Task Force, called for by Archbishop Wenski, to recommend ways to strengthen the marriage preparation programs in the archdiocese.

That task force is a result of the archdiocesan synod which concluded in October 2014. But whatever tweaks are recommended will certainly be informed by The Joy of Love.

“We must re-design our ministries,” Stephen Colella said, keeping in mind the pope’s descriptions of marriage and family life as “a multi-faceted gem.”

“This ‘3D’ model of ministry would be less about polarization and more about providing many more entry points back into the heart of the Church for so many,” he said. “The tune hasn’t changed but the tone has and I think it’s time for us in Miami to turn up the volume.”

Marriage prep

The archbishop noted that preparation for priestly life takes about 10 years of study. The archdiocese requires only six months’ notice and participation in a weekend-long program for couples wishing to be married in the Church.

“That maybe a little bit too short,” he said. But what if the preparation began not when couples begin planning their wedding but years before, as part of youth and young adult ministry, “helping them to prepare for a life of commitment,” and reminding them that marriage “is not just about the ceremony. It’s about the life that begins with the ceremony.”

Giving testimony of that life was the other married couple at the press conference, Mildred Ratcliffe and Felix Tirado, who will celebrate 49 years of marriage in November. Ratcliffe has just been named coordinator of Marriage and Family Life for the archdiocese.

The couple have three daughters, “two children in heaven” and eight grandchildren. Both survived cancer — Ratcliffe was given six months to live 25 years ago. They have endured bankruptcy and watched their house burn down.

“We have lost jobs. We have started anew,” said Tirado. “I won’t tell you it’s a bed of roses because there are thorns along the way.”

He offered this advice for couples facing difficulties: Go back to the beginning, when you first met, and remember that foundation, that love that led you to marriage in the first place.

For as Ratcliffe put it, citing the same Pauline passage Pope Francis cites in his exhortation: “Love bears all things.”