Month: October 2006

A reader writes:

Our parish’s confirmation program includes two years of worthless
("exploring your dreams") classes, and then an unnegotiably mandatory
weekend sleep-over retreat. My son went on the retreat and had to deal with
a room full of teenage boys at night telling dirty stories and teasing him
for not wanting to look at photos of women in a car magazine. Also, the
girls in their pajamas (do you know what teenage girls wear for pajamas?!)
were mixing with the boys.

Actually, I don’t know what teenage girls wear for pajamas these days, but I gather from the implication that it is not at all modest.

When I complained to the DRE, she accused me of being "judgmental," and
didn’t see anything wrong with what went on–the stories were "mild" and the
models in the magazine weren’t naked. When the girls and boys were together,
they were supervised. So she doesn’t think there was a problem–I’m
over-reacting to something that was harmless and innocent. She and the
pastor will not budge on the mandatory nature of the weekend retreat: if you
don’t go, you can’t be confirmed.

This is a violation of the parents’ natural law rights as the primary educators–including religious educators–of their children. The idea that a sleepover of any kind could be so essential to preparation for confirmation that those who do not participate iin it sould be denied one of the sacraments of Christian initiation, and thus be denied the fullness of Christian initiation, is unconscionable. This is a raw exercise of power in denying the sacraments to those who will not toe the line on a matter that is trivial at best and those involved in it sin gravely by denying the sacrament on this pretext.

This is like saying that you can’t have baptism or the Eucharist or confession if you don’t attend the sleepover.

Rome will agree with me on this point, by the way.

 

Next up for confirmation is my daughter, who’s homeschooled. She is not used
to this atmosphere. Like my son, she recognizes evil for what it is, no
matter how "mild" it is compared to the stuff most teens are into. I cannot
in conscience allow her to go on the retreat. I have every reason to expect
the problems she encounters will be similar, and probably worse, because she
spent half of a year in our parish school.

I will have to defer to you on this point. There are times in which, for the sake of the greater good, one must hold one’s nose and do somehting unpleasant or even potentially risky. When children are born they are totally helpless and have to be shielded from countless risks, but since they will one day have to function as adults in society, they have to be eased into situations involving risks that in progressively greater ways approximate those they will face as adults. Whether the risks posed in this instance are unacceptable for your daughter is a serious question that should be given thoughtful consideration, but it is something that you would know far better than I, as you know both what has happened in the previous classes and what risks and situations your daughter can handle far better than I.

 

I do not want to switch parishes, because the others in the area aren’t
orthodox. In my parish, the pastor doesn’t mess with the liturgy, and never
intentionally preaches heresy.

My question: can I bring my daughter to my home state, where my parents have
a pastor who would understand all of this, so that she can be confirmed
along with the candidates in that parish? I would see that she is properly
prepared (my husband is a Catholic high school religion teacher and well
qualified to oversee her preparation). Is there any rule in canon law about
being confirmed in your own parish? Would she need permission from anyone
besides the pastor of my parents’ parish?

In the Latin Church, canon law regarding who can administer the sacrament of confirmation is unusually complex. Frankly, the law is a mess, and I hope that a future edition of the Code of Canon Law will rectify the matter, both in terms of simplifying who can confirm and in establishing a mandatory age for confirmation (the patchwork of ages we have in the United States–ages which vary from one diocese to another and allow confirmation to be treated as a "coming of age" sacrament that leads to nonsense like co-ed sleepovers–is just set up to cause problems).

The short answer to your question is that it is possible that you could have your daughter confirmed by the pastor of your parent’s parish. The law allows for that if certain conditions are met. Here are the relevant canons:

Can.  882 The ordinary minister of confir-mation is
a bishop; a presbyter provided with this faculty in virtue of universal law or
the special grant of the competent authority also confers this sacrament
validly.

Can.  885 §2. A presbyter who possesses this faculty must use
it for the sake of those in whose favor the faculty was granted.

Can.  887 A presbyter who possesses the faculty of
administering confirmation also confers this sacrament licitly on externs in
the territory assigned to him unless their proper ordinary prohibits it; . . .

If you put the highlighted clauses together, they sketch the framework under which the pastor of your parents’ parish could confirm your daughter. He will not have the faculty by law to confirm her, so he would need a special grant from his own bishop (can. 882) to confirm either your daughter specifically or a group of people including your daughter (can. 885) and the fact that she is not a resident of his diocese would not be a barrier unless the bishop of your diocese prohibits it (can. 887).

If you’re trying to get your parents’ pastor to confirm her based on a mandate to confirm a group of people, you will need to make sure that the mandate he has includes your daughter. For example, if he is empowered to conduct confirmations for those who live in his parish then your daughter won’t be included in the mandate since she doesn’t live there but the the mandate is phrased more generally, such that he can perform confirmations within the territory of his parish then, if your daughter is in it at the time of the confirmation, she would fall within the scope of the mandate.

You’ll also note that nothing here requires the permission of anyone in your parish or diocese, though it is required that your bishop not have prohibit your daughter from being confirmed in this way.

The problem with problematic pre-confirmation programs that you are encountering is a widespread one, and the faithful have tried a variety of means in dealing with it. I have also known of cases where people took their children down to Mexico to be confirmed by a bishop there. There have also been cases where they took their children to be confirmed by an SSPX bishop, and Rome ruled that doing this was not a schismatic act. The Code of Canons for the Eastern Churches also provides for the possibility of having Latin children confirmed by an Eastern priest.

There is a question in my mind, however, whether you should be exploring this kind of matter or whether you should take an entirely different approach. While the law allows for such things, in view of the signal that could be sent to your daughter by pursuing them and in view of the fact that you will have Rome on your side in avoiding the sleepover–and even the worthless classes themselves–a different potential course of action recommends itself.

According to the Code of Canon Law,

Can.  843 §1. Sacred ministers cannot deny the
sacraments to those who seek them at appropriate times, are properly disposed,
and are not prohibited by law from receiving them.

The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has interpreted this canon in such a way that diocesan policy is subordinated to the right of the faithful to receive the sacraments if they are otherwise qualified to receive it. Diocesan policy is then regarded as a template for ensuring the orderly administration of the sacraments, but exceptions must be made to it if sacramentally qualified members of the faithful insist on exercising their right to receive the sacrament.

Thus there was a case a few years ago in which the parents of an eleven year old girl wanted their child confirmed in a diocese which did not ordinarily perform confirmation until some time later. The matter was appealed to the CDW and the response came back that

As has been stated before, the Code of Canon Law legislates that Sacred Ministers may not deny the Sacraments to those who opportunely ask for them, are properly disposed and are not prohibited by law from receiving them (cf. can. 843 §1). Since it has been demonstrated that the girl possesses these requisite qualities, any other considerations, even those contained in the Diocesan Policy, need to be understood in subordination to the general norms governing the reception of the Sacraments.

The Congregation considers it useful to point out that it is the role of the parents as the primary educators of their children and then of the Sacred Pastors to see that candidates for the reception of the Sacrament of Confirmation are properly instructed to receive the Sacrament and come to it at the opportune time (cf. can. 890). Consequently, when a member of the faithful wishes to receive this Sacrament, even though not satisfying one or more elements of the local legislation (e.g., being younger than the designated age for administration of the Sacrament), those elements must give way to the fundamental right of the faithful to receive the Sacraments. Indeed, the longer the conferral of the Sacrament is delayed after the age of reason, the greater will be the number of candidates who are prepared for its reception but are deprived of its grace for a considerable period of time.

In conclusion, this Congregation for Divine Worship must insist, given the concrete circumstances of the case under consideration, that the opportunity to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation be extended to the girl as soon as is conveniently possible [SOURCE].

It therefore occurs to me that, rather than seeking confirmation for your daughter through an alternative means that the law provides for, it may be best to simply prepare your daughter for confirmation yourself and the inform your parish that you have done so and will be presenting your daughter for confirmation, omitting some or all of the parish’s problematic confirmation program. I would say all this as graciously as possible and offer to demonstrate that the daughter has been suitably instructed. I would act as if it is assumed that this will not be a problem. If resistance is met, I would then show them the CDW letter linked above and explain how the principles in it relate to this situation. If resistance continues, I would elevate the matter to the attention of the bishop, and if a satisfactory solution is still not reached, I would elevate the matter to the attention of the CDW, at all times showing proper respect and politeness to the parties involved.

Whether you do this or pursue the plan you originally outlined or allow your daughter to go thorugh the problematic program and make up for its deficiences as best you can at home is a matter that you will ultimately have to decide based on your knowledge of the situation, and it is a judgement call, but I wanted to call your attention to another possibility that you may not have considered.

20

I recently read an article that appeared in the current (Aug/Sept 2006) issue of Homiletic and Pastoral Review by Dr. David Carlin, professor of philosophy and sociology at the Community College of Rhode Island, that I thought was worthy of comment.

IT’S ONLINE HERE.

The article begins okay, like this:

I suppose all Catholics would agree that it would be totally inappropriate for a Catholic priest presiding over a wedding to conclude the ceremony by saying: "You have just entered into one of the most important of all human relationships — but I would caution you not to think of it as being necessarily a permanent relationship. It is only as permanent as you would like to make it. If either of you would like to end your marriage tomorrow, you have a perfect right to do so. If you would like to remain married until death, you can do that too. It’s all up to you. Don’t feel constrained by the vows you have just taken. The vows are expressed in traditional language, and this respect for tradition is a lovely thing; but the vows don’t really mean anything."

So far so good. All Catholics should agree that it would be totally inappropriate for a Catholic priest to say this at a wedding.

Unfortunately, the article then drives over a cliff:

Yet this is exactly what priests do say, at least by implication. 

What is the ground Dr. Carlin offers for this astonishing assertion?

In the United States, despite its famous separation of church and
state, priests perform two wedding ceremonies at the same time, a
religious ceremony and a civil ceremony. The laws of the Church give
the priest the power to perform a sacramental marriage, while the laws
of our states give Catholic priests (as well as clergypersons from
other denominations) the power to perform a civil marriage.

Dr. Carlin here makes several mistakes, and he ought to know better, because one of them pertains to his own field of study: philosophy. It is simply false that priests "perform two wedding ceremonies at the same time." Unless the priest is bilocating or pausing every few seconds to read a line from two different texts for wedding ceremonies, it is clear that he is only participating in one ceremony. That is an ontological fact, and as someone trained in philosophy, Dr. Carlin ought to recognize this fact.

It is this initial mistake that causes the rest of his argument to go over the cliff, though that is not the only mistake he makes. Just in the paragraph quoted above, he also mistakenly says that the laws of the Church "give the priest the power to perform a sacramental marriage." Not only is it not the priest who performs a sacramental marriage (the laws of Christ empower the baptized couple itself to do that; the priest is just the Church’s facilitator of the sacrament; he "assists" at the wedding but does not perform it). He also ignores the facts that priests also assist at valid but non-sacramental weddings (as when a baptized person marries an unbaptized person) and that deacons and even lay people can assist at Catholic weddings.

We’re already off to a very rocky start, but the main problem that causes Dr. Carlin’s article to go so disastrously wrong is that he does not have his head wrapped around the fact that there is, in reality, one marriage that is taking place when a priest assists at a Catholic wedding ceremony. The couple do not have two marriages with each other–one sacramental and one civil, or even one valid and one civil. This is a category mistake. They have one marriage that is being celebrated according to the Catholic form of marriage and, if we’re lucky, also recognized by the state.

It’s not that way everywhere. In some countries the state does not recognize marriages performed in the Catholic Church, and they require the couple to have a separate, civil ceremony. The effects of this civil ceremony, in terms of bringing about a valid marriage, are precisely nil under most circumstances. If either party is a Catholic then they are bound to observe the Catholic form of marriage unless very unusual circumstances obtain, and as a result the civil marriage ceremony that their government forces them to go through does absolutely nothing with respect to bringing a valid marriage into existence. In such circumstances, the civil ceremony results in a legal fiction whereby the civil law comes to regard the couple as married even though, in reality, they are not.

This results in enormous confusion in these societies because the situation sends the message to couples that they are already married and can act accordingly. It increases the temptations against chastity that couples experience before they are actually married in the religious ceremony, and if they are poorly catechized it can lead them to see the religious ceremony as an optional add-on that they can get around to if they feel like it. They will be especially prone to this idea if they grow up seeing couples who are only civilly married and if they have friends who have just never gotten around to having it done. There can even be temptations to indefinitely delay the religious ceremony specifically so that the couple can get divorced later in case it doesn’t "work out" and then marry somebody else. In other words, it encourages couples to shack-up in civil "trial marriages" before they decide if they want to get married to each other for real.

Because marriage is a unitary thing–you’re either married or you’re not–it gravely harms society, the institution of marriage, and the family if the government refuses to recognize where actual marriages are taking place (in the religious ceremony) and insists on the couple going through an invalid civil ceremony that pretends to render them married when in fact it doesn’t. Adding that fictitious overlay to the situation can only bring confusion and grave harm, both to the society at large and in particular to the individuals who are led into grave sin by the temptations and confusion that is created.

We are fortunate here in America that state law recognizes it when valid marriages are brought into existence in the Catholic Church. In our situation the civil law is in these cases in harmony with the reality of the situation, and that sends the right message to the couple: You are now married–for real.

That civil law also has provisions that are contrary to reality (e.g., that the couple can sever their bond by divorce and then marry someone else, when in reality they can’t) is a sad thing–which itself is one of the reasons that the institution of marriage has been so weakened in our country. If civil law tells people that they’re divorced with the right to remarry then many of them will tend to act that way and, under the influence of their passions, they will act in defiance of what their Church teaches.

Long experience has shown that people take their cues from civil law as well as Church law. That’s one of the reasons that social acceptance of divorce is so common. It’s one of the reasons that social acceptance of abortion is so common. And it’s one of the reasons that social acceptance of homosexuality is so common. Before the law changed on these points, social acceptance of all of them was far smaller than it is now. The farther out of line civil law gets with reality, the more people are led astray from reality.

As a result, it is jaw-dropping that in his article Dr. Carlin urges that the situation should be pushed even further out of line with reality by having Catholic priests "abandon their practice of performing civil marriages" and instead have the dual religious/civil marriage system that has been so detrimental to some countries.

Dr. Carlin is not clear on whether he wants priests to do this on their own initiative or whether the wants the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops–with the proper Vatican approvals–to pass norms requiring priests to "abandon the practice of performing civil marriages," though he makes no call for the latter.

His ground for this is that he thinks it would more sharply underline the differences between the Catholic idea of marriage and the distorted one that civil society has.

I can have some degree of sympathy for this argument. There can come a point when it is better for the Church to refuse to participate in civil institutions, but experience has shown that the situation of the Church and its members is worsened when this happens with the institution of marriage, for the reasons cited above.

The better strategy, as long as the Church is going to require Catholics to observe the Catholic form of marriage (which it does precisely so that it can control the content of the marriage preparation and ensure the validity of the celebration of the sacrament itself), is to say "What we are doing in our churches is marriage–real marriage, the only kind of marriage that counts. If the state recognizes that fact, great. If not, that harms society and the good of souls."

If the state were requiring that the Church import into its marriage preparation or marriage ceremonies material that is at variance with the Catholic understanding of marriage–for example, if California required that for the state to recognize Catholic marriages that the priest must explain to the couple their options regarding divorce and remarriage without annulment–then I would agree that the Church would have no choice but to defy civil law and perform marriages without them being recognized by the state.

But California has not yet done that, and as long as that is the case, Dr. Carlin’s statement that Catholic priests are implicitly preaching the secular idea of marriage to the couples at whose weddings they preside is simply false.

The priest–if he is doing his job as a priest–performs his duties in accord with the mind of the Church–not just omitting information about the secular view of marriage but specifically warning couples against it.

It is false and defamatory to accuse priests of fostering the secular idea of marriage if they are doing precisely the opposite.

Even if a particular priest is lax in his duties in this regard, it remains false that by presiding at a wedding ceremony according to the laws of the Church that a priest is simultaneously performing a second ceremony that is out of accord with Church teaching. As the evidence of our senses clearly attests, he is participating in one ceremony–a Catholic one–that the laws of the state happen to recognize as having legal force.

One final note: If Dr. Carlin’s suggestion is that priests should refuse on their own initiative to perform their role regarding the civil recognition of Catholic marriages (e.g., signing wedding licenses brought to him by the couple) then Dr. Carlin is urging the priest to violate canon law. The faithful have a right to the sacraments (can. 843), including marriage, and canon law requires that "Except in a case of necessity, a
person [e.g., a priest] is not to assist without the permission of the local ordinary at . . . a marriage which cannot be recognized or
celebrated according to the norm of civil law" (can. 1071 §1, no. 2). So a pastor can’t simply refuse to perform his duties regarding the civil recognition of the marriage on his own initiative. He’d have to get the bishop’s permission.

I trust that the priests reading Dr. Carlin’s stunningly bad article know that.

MORE FROM ED PETERS.