Dear Cardinal Pell,
In the lead-up to next month’s Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family you and a number of your confreres are re-asserting the church’s longstanding exclusion of divorced and remarried people from communion.
Your foreword to The Gospel of the Family appears to leave us with little doubt: outsiders are not welcome.
As you have said, “The sooner the wounded, the lukewarm, and the outsiders realise that substantial doctrinal and pastoral changes are impossible, the more the hostile disappointment (which must follow the reassertion of doctrine) will be anticipated and dissipated.”
Respectfully, I have a number of questions I’d like to consider with you; conscious, of course, that neither of us in our grappling can claim to really know the mind of Christ.
So, what was it that our Lord had in mind when he instituted the Eucharist with these self-emptying words, “This is my body, this is my blood?” Whose hunger was he responding to? Who was welcome? And what are the implications for our Sunday worship and beyond?
Well, we do know this: The tax collectors and sinners were all crowding round to listen to him, and the Pharisees and scribes complained saying, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them …’ (Lk 15:2-3)
And this: It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. Go and learn the meaning of the words: ‘Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice.’ And indeed I came to call not the upright, but sinners. (Mt 9:12-13)
And this: Let anyone who is thirsty come to me!
Let anyone who believes in me come to drink! (Jn 7:38)
And this: When he arrived at the Pharisee’s house and took his place at table, suddenly a woman came in, who had a bad name in the town … She covered his feet with kisses and anointed him … the Pharisee said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would know … what sort of person [was] touching him and what a bad name she has …’ (Lk 7:36-39)
And this: They were at supper … and he got up from table, removed his outer garments … and began to wash his disciples’ feet … (Jn 13:2, 4, 5)
And this: Peter said …‘You know it is forbidden for Jews to mix with people of another race or visit them; but God has made it clear to me that I must not call anyone profane or unclean … God has no favourites … and who am I to stand in God’s way?’ (Acts 10:28, 34 & 11:17)
Could it be, given the exclusivity of our Communion, that when we proclaim these words we are potentially condemning ourselves as well?
Just think: Jesus, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of sinners (Lk 7:34), real and present in our Breaking of Bread. Wow. Extraordinary. Out of this world. We actually believe this … don’t we?
If we answer in the affirmative, there are profound consequences: are we not also compelled to look beyond the in-crowd and welcome outsiders; are we not also compelled to take risks: like the risk of being labelled and pilloried for sharing our table with those we are not supposed to; for doing something that is forbidden by law. I am not thinking here of people who do not care. I am concerned for those who are hungry for love and long to share even the crumbs from the table.
Can any of us truly look at our Lord and Master and say without a profound sense of foreboding: ‘Yes, I am a follower; but you must understand there are rules …’
His disciples were hungry and began to pick ears of corn and eat them. The Pharisees noticed it and said to him, ‘Look, your disciples are doing something that is forbidden on the Sabbath’. (Mt 12:1-2)
If the Eucharist is essentially an encounter with the real presence, rather than essentially an institutional-cum-cultic event, then surely the Master’s social interactions make it abundantly clear: hunger, not worthiness underpins Table Fellowship. To allow the law, cultic statutes, and theology to take precedence over mercy and love and encounter, is tantamount to perpetuating the hard line rigour of those Pharisees who complained bitterly and moralised pompously about so many things.
Their approach fostered a cold, superficial temple-based religion. But Jesus invited his followers to a change of heart, a heart oriented to the one called, Abba – Father : a relational, God-based faith.
Indeed, if Jesus himself was bound by the strictures of his religious tribe and the social mores of his day, he would never have encountered the woman at the well because ‘Jews, of course, do not associate with Samaritans’ (Jn 4:10). Thankfully, he was not. Thus, a women consigned to the margins, and thirsting for love, was afforded one-on-one time with the One who risked everything to offer her living water.
Yet, despite the extraordinary inclusiveness and openness of our foot washing Master; not to mention the accusations his behaviour attracted – blasphemy, law-breaking, ‘prince of devils’ – there are still those who insist that the meal instituted by him who emptied himself, taking the form of a slave (Phil 2:7) be an exclusive, High Church event with all the accoutrements, pomp and ceremony, do’s and don’ts, and rules about who’s in and who’s out, as if the Holy One needs protection and distancing from an encounter with the great unwashed.
If this non-relational Temple-centred worship takes hold, then we too leave ourselves open to the criticism:
Now here, I tell you, is something greater than the Temple. And if you had understood the meaning of the words: ‘Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice’, you would have not condemned the blameless. For the Son of Man is master of the Sabbath. (Mt 12:5-8)
And if, in the depth of our being, we believe Jesus is real and present at the breaking of bread, then how do we justify the exclusion of so many? Can we in good conscience continue to turn away those longing to drink from the well-of-life because Catholics, of course, do not break bread with …?
There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither slave nor freeman, there can neither be male nor female – for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal 3:28-29)
I do not presume to know the mind of Pope Francis either, but his musings on spiritual worldliness seem especially apt:
[There] are those who ultimately trust only in their own powers and feel superior to others because they observe certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style from the past. A supposed soundness of doctrine or discipline leads to a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism, whereby instead of evangelising, one analyses and classifies others, and instead of opening the door of grace, one exhausts his or her energies in inspecting and verifying. (Evangelii Gaudium #94)
In some people we see an ostentatious preoccupation for the liturgy, for doctrine and for the Church’s prestige, but without any concern that the Gospel have a real impact on God’s faithful people and the concrete needs of the present time. In this way, the life of the Church turns into a museum piece or something which is the property of a select few … The mark of Christ, incarnate, crucified and risen, is not present; closed and elite groups are formed, and no effort is made to go forth and seek out those who are distant or the immense multitudes who thirst for Christ. (Evangelii Gaudium #95)
It prompts the question: has a simple, inclusive and profound ‘family’ meal been overwhelmed by an impersonal and, often times, sterile institutional sacrifice; one that tends towards mass exclusion?
Peace and regards,
Fr Peter Day, Parish Priest, Corpus Christi
Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn, Australia
Comments
19 responses to “Peter Day. An Open Letter to Cardinal Pell”
Many thanks Peter for speaking from the heart.
It was clear to me that some bishops at the Synod on the Family failed to understand the story of the Samaritan woman at the Well or the parable of the Prodigal Son. No real conversion can take place until we first encounter the unconditional love of Jesus. Only after that can transformation followed by repentance take place.
Despite Pope Francis’ best efforts some people are still stuck on a punishing and wrathful God and insists that conversion must begin with punishment.
“Thank you Fr Peter Day for the reminder that Jesus embraced all , including robbers, prostitutes , Samaritans and those on the margins of society. In modern times would he not include the divorced and gays? All are thirsting for the love of God.
Let’s hope that the Synod exercises the same wisdom as St. Paul who at the Council of Jerusalem, in AD 90 , insisted that not just the Jews should hear the Word but also the Gentiles. As a result Christianity has spread to the for corners of the globe. “
Fr Peter Day,
Very convincing. Why is your lopen letter only to Cardinal Pell and why not to all the Bishops in the Synod. Some may not get to read this and may be getting open letters on the other side
Peter,
You have the courage of Christ himself to challenge the establishment to think right. Wow.
If Christ were in a grave he would have been turning so much by now that he would have resembled a corkscrew given the way Religion and Rules have replaced the simple joy of being a Christian. (Perhaps this was why Christ rose again and did not remain in a grave? 🙂 )
I cannot say I hope you do not face repercussions for your open letter. Rather I know you will but you will not have faced them in vain.
May there be more like you
Fabulous reflection as the Synod of Bishops approaches. https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/blog/?p=2459
Great response!
The most notable mark of the Catholic Church is that it is full of sinners. It is for sinners. Even Pope Francis has a confessor. The reception of Communion does not put asunder the bond of marriage. On the question of adultery Jesus said; “Let he that is without sin throw the first stone.” The Church claims the power of loosing and binding. This is not the first age in which there has been widespread adultery and fornication. Maybe there never was an age of purity. It may be time to put charity to the fore and exercise the power of loosing in a new way.
Thank you for a moving, challenging analysis.
We are more than blessed in Tuggeranong to have the spiritual guidance of Father Peter.
I think Cardinal Pell – never strong on interpersonal relations – should stick to his new, purely administrative job with the Vatican’s finances, where the drive and aggression he showed as a potential Richmond ruckman may be more useful than it was dealing with victims of clerical paedophilia and their families. I think his time is past, long past. This is a Church epitomised by Pope Francis, not Daniel Mannix. Some things need to be interred for the Church to move on. Pell is a dodo.
thank you for this clear and pastoral approach. I’m hoping the synod doesn’t go for the “whitened sepulchre” approach. I’d be pretty sure Pope Francis is looking for solutions, not exclusions.
Well done Peter Day. Finally one of you bastards has grown a pair! What Pell needs is a mirror – who’s the ‘sinner’ now?
Too often the Eucharist is exclusively the summit of Catholicism with little sense of it being a source of communion. If the essential source of Christian life is denied to those who crave it then we, The Church, are withholding Christ from those whose lives yearn for Him. Jesus came to call sinners – I suspect he didn’t mean “call sinners to look at the righteous feast while they starve.”
This makes my heart sing!
Jesus was forgiving, compassionate, and loving. I wish the institutional church to be the same.
Thanks Peter for your profoundly pastoral insights fed by the scriptures and the recent remarks of Pope Francis. I was also greatly taken by the observation of Johan Bonny, the bishop of Antwerp: “In these last months of preparation for the Synod, I have heard or read the following on numerous occasions: ‘Agreed that the Synod should support greater pastoral flexibility, but it will not be able to touch Church doctrine’. Some create the impression that the Synod will only be free to speak about the applicability of the Church’s teaching and not about its content. In my opinion, however, such an antithesis between ‘pastoral care’ and ‘doctrine’ is inappropriate in both theological and pastoral terms and it has no foundation in the tradition of the Church. Pastoral care has everything to do with doctrine and doctrine has everything to do with pastoral care. Both will have to be dealt with during the Synod if the Church wants to open new avenues towards the evangelisation of marriage and family life in today’s society.”
This excellent letter from Peter Day points us, with unusual clarity, towards a better understanding of the mind of Christ. And as St Paul tells us: “Let that mind be in you which is in Christ Jesus”.
thanks for taking the time to write what is in my mind and heart regarding the issue.
Thank you for this. As a religious perennialist I recall a highly respected Zen Master (who also taught comparative religion at University level) observing, ‘you say God, we say Buddha.’
I recall too reading an important 13th C Pure Land Buddhist thinker who suggested ‘ we don’t appeal to the Buddha, nor does the Buddha appeal to us — rather the Buddha appeals to the Buddha.’
No one can define God but one can hope for that whatever, or whoever God is, this essence is within us and all about us, but is also quite beyond being revealed to us or known by us through calculation or intention, nor can it be summoned with arrogance. A Church authority might dare to do so but shouldn’t, nor should it pretend to know God’s essence or mind. All one can say, God IS.
Thank you Fr Peter Day: I suggest any genuine Christian, or Zen Master or Pure Land Master, or any genuine seeker, would agree with every word that you have taken the trouble to write.