Presenting people with
black-and-white answers is not the way to help with marriage
difficulties, Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has said.
“No marriage is lived just in
clear and abstract black-and-white realities. The Church has to
understand the grey areas of success and failures, of joys and of
disappointments. Jesus’s method was that of accompanying. His method was
to show that,” he said.
The archbishop was speaking at a
Mass for workers with Accord Dublin, the archdiocese’s marriage advisory
service, at the Holy Cross pastoral centre.
“Marriages begin with a dream. Marriages hit difficult times. Marriages fail. Marriages begin anew,” he said.
Pope Francis
“stresses the role of the church in accompanying men and women on the
journey of married and family life, even when the initial dreams begin
to fade or indeed fail”, he said.
He said accompanying meant “being
alongside those who are troubled, pointing towards – and indeed
representing – Jesus who gently leads us beyond the often paralysing
doubts that beset us, gently leads us beyond our own limitations and the
imperfections of our love”.
‘Uncertainties’
There was “no ideal family in today’s
world. Indeed, the really great families which we all know would be the
very first to admit that their marriage and family life were far from
ideal. That does not mean that we do not propose an ideal for all to aim
at.”
He also noted how “there are some
in the church who are unsettled by the ability of the pope to place
himself in the midst of the uncertainties of people lives. Some, even
senior church figures, seem to feel that the affirmation of certainties
in an abstract and undoubting way is the only way.”
This is believed to be a
reference to four cardinals who submitted five questions to Pope Francis
last September. They asked whether his Amoris Laetitia (Joy of Love),
published last April , was consistent with church teaching. It indicated
that, in certain cases, divorced and civilly remarried Catholics may
receive Communion.
The cardinals were Carlo Caffarra of Bologna, Raymond Burke of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, Walter Brandmüller, president emeritus of the Vatican Committee for Historical Sciences and Joachim Meisner of Cologne.
In what was seen as a reference
to the cardinals last month, Pope Francis criticised those who sought
“black-and-white answers” to such questions.
“Some, as with certain responses
to Amoris Laetitia, persist in seeing only white or black, when rather
one ought to discern in the flow of life. But these critiques – if
they’re not from an evil spirit – do help. Some types of rigorism spring
from the desire to hide one’s own dissatisfaction under armour,” Pope
Francis said.