I 1960’erne og i begyndelsen af 1970’erne var Joseph Ratzinger blandt de mere nytænkende teologer. Senere som ærkebiskop i München, præfekt for Troslærekongregationen og pave var det så som så med progressive udtalelser. Fra da af drejede det sig for ham udelukkende om at bevare og forsvare kirkens traditionelle læremæssige synspunkter, idet han fór frem med brask og bram mod teologer, der vovede at komme med afvigende meninger. Ja, blot det at ville debattere deres nutidige relevans, var galt nok.
Derfor er det befriende at se, at han selv engang kunne tage traditionelle synspunkter op til overvejelse og fremkomme med løsningsforslag, der rokkede ved de fra fortiden nedarvede regler. Et af dem var spørgsmålet om kommunion til fraskilte, som havde giftet sig igen uden at have opnået en kirkelig annullering af deres første ægteskab. Det var, hævede han dengang, i visse tilfælde og under visse betingelser i overensstemmelse med den kirkelige tradition at lade gengifte modtage kommunionen. Forudsætningen var, at deres andet ægteskab var stabilt og havde bestået årenes prøve, samt at de opdrog deres børn moralsk og katolsk og selv var aktive katolikker.
Vi bringer her en artikel derom, som har været lagt ud på Vatican Insider’s hjemmeside.
Den er skrevet af den italienske journalist og Vatikankender Andrea Tornielli.
In 1972, less than five years before his nomination as bishop and cardinal, when he was still a member of the international theological commission set up by Paul VI, Joseph Ratzinger expressed himself in favour of admitting remarried divorcees to the sacrament of the Eucharist. This was on the condition that a couple’s second union was based on a solid bond that had stood the test of time. The couple had to respect its moral obligations towards their children and actively practice the faith. Admission to the Eucharist would be through extrajudicial means, with the parish priest and members of the community as witnesses. According to Ratzinger, this solution was backed by tradition.
The future Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and future Pope expressed these thoughts in a scientific essay that has been published in a collection of Christological reflections (pp. 35-56 of Zur Frage nach der Unauflöslichkeit der Ehe. Bemerkungen zum dogmengeschichtlichen Befund und zu seiner gegenwärtigen Bedeutung; in: Ehe und Ehescheidung. Diskussion unter Christen, edited by F. Henrich and V. Eid, published by Münchener Akademie-Schriften 59, Munich 1972).
Now this essay has has been published again in Ratzinger’s Opera Omnia, published by Herder and edited by Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller. But having carried out a thorough review of the text, Ratzinger has decided to make significant changes to the conclusion, removing the bits in which he took an open approach toward remarried divorcees back in 1972: it is important to remember that as Prefect of the former Holy Office, with John Paul II’s approval, Ratzinger rejected the possibility of readmission proposed in a pastoral letter he received from three German bishops, one of them being the future cardinal Walter Kasper. The volume of the Opera Omnia that contains the new version of the essay is about to go on sale in German bookstores. Meanwile, German magazine Herder Korrespondenz has published an article quoting key passages from both texts.
“With utmost prudence,” the theologian-come-Archbishop-of-Munich wrote, “I wish to attempt to formulate a proposal which I believe fits into” the category of situations where making an exception is strictly necessary. “In cases where both spouses see their first marriage as having been irretrievably destroyed a long time ago; and when a second marriage follows and proves to be a moral union and filled with the spirit of the faith, especially with regard to children’s education (where the destruction of this second marriage would lead to the destruction of a moral greatness and would cause moral harm), in this case, those who have contracted a second marriage of this kind should be allowed to approach the sacrament of communion, through extra-judicial means and with the parish priest and members of the community as witnesses.” Joseph Ratzinger believed this “rule” to be “supported by tradition in two ways”.
The first is to do with the marriage annulment process. “It is important to stress that the annulment process is subject to the discretion of the individual. This factor, as well as the difference in possibilities open to individuals depending inevitably on their level of education but also on their financial situation, should steer us away from the idea that this route is an irrefutably just one.” In any case, besides this, “a great deal of what cannot be judged is nevertheless real.” “The marriage annulment process is necessarily limited to what can be demonstrated legally and yet this is precisely how certain decisive facts can be neglected. Most importantly, this means that formal criteria (such as defects of form or ecclesiastical form which is intentionally overlooked) are attributed disproportionate importance which leads to injustices.” Hence, Ratzinger concluded that “the anulment process … does not solve the problem” and “it cannot be given such strict exclusivity”.
It is not at all surprising that a theologian has decided to change his mind after 42 years. St. Augustine’s retractationes are a case in point. Nevertheless, those pages Ratzinger wrote back in 1972 seem significant. The ideas presented in said pages are interesting because they were published in a scientific journal, when the author was no longer a young theologian said to form part of the so-called progressive wing of the Church; he was no longer the outsider who had participated in the Second Vatican Council as an expert advisor to the Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Josef Frings. By 1972, Joseph Ratzinger had already spent a number of years criticising certain theological currents of thought that formed after the Council: in 1966 he had given his speech at the Katholikentag in Bamberg which distinguished the “progressive” Ratzinger from the Ratzinger we know today.
The Bavarian theologian had in fact left the troubled University of Tubingen where he had worked as Hans Küng’s colleague and had began teaching in Regensburg where things were quieter. Also, on 1 May 1969 he had joined the international theological commission established by Paul VI after the Synod discussions which presented it as a useful intrument for encouraging theological research based on the magisterium. In March 1977, four and a half years after the essay was published, Pope Paul VI chose this 50-year-old theology professor – who was a part of those circles that respected the magisterium following the Council – as Archbishop of the Diocese of Munich. Then, weeks later, he joined the College of Cardinals. What we can deduce from all this, is that the question of the admission of remarried divorcees to the sacrament of communion in certain circumstances and under certain conditions, was and still is a subject that can be studied further and discussed in light of the changes in family life today. And the issue can be discussed without making it appear as though the foundations of the Catholic faith are being called into question.
Av Andrea Tornielli.
Fra Vatican Insider’s hjemmeside.