Recently Pope Francis used the Gospel
of Mark10:1-12 as an opportunity to encourage his own view on divorce and
remarriage. Condemning hypocrisy and the “logic of casuistry,” Francis said
that Jesus rejects the approach of legal scholars. This
is the case. But in his rebuke to the Pharisees, what exactly does Jesus say about
marriage?
“So they are no longer two but one flesh. What
therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” …and… Whoever
divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; and
if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.
Denouncing “doctors of
the law” and the “rigid” application of Catholic moral doctrine is a recurrent
theme in the Holy Father's homilies at morning Mass in the Vatican. But in his homily on the
Markan passage, the Pope amazingly twisted the Gospel reading, if the Vatican
Radio account is to be believed. The account, by Vatican Radio’s Christopher Wells:
Pope Francis: In God there is both justice and mercy
“Is it lawful for a husband to
put away his wife?” That is the question the doctors of the law put to Jesus in
the day's Gospel.
Jesus does not give in to a
casuistic logic, but always explains the truth.
They asked the question to once
more put Jesus to the test, the Pope observed. Looking to Jesus' answer, the
Pope explained what matters most in the faith:
“Jesus
does not answer whether it is lawful or not lawful; He doesn’t enter into their
casuistic logic. Because they thought of the faith only in terms of ‘Yes, you
can,” or “No, you can’t” – to the limits of what you can do, the limits of what
you can’t do. That logic of casuistry. And He asks a question: “But what did
Moses command you? What is in your Law?” And they explained the permission
Moses had given to put away the wife, and they themselves fall into the trap.
Because Jesus qualifies them as ‘hard of heart’: ‘Because of the hardness of
your hearts he wrote you this commandment,’ and He speaks the truth. Without
casuistry. Without permissions. The truth.”
The logic of casuistry is
hypocritical, deceptive.
But if this is the truth, and
adultery is serious, how then, the Pope asks, does one explain that Jesus spoke
“many times with an adulteress, a pagan?” That He “drank from the glass of her
who was not purified?” And at the end He said to her: “I do not condemn you.
Sin no more”? How does one explain that?
“And
the path of Jesus – it’s quite clear – is the path from casuistry to truth and
mercy. Jesus lays aside casuistry. Not here, but in other passages from the
Gospel, He qualifies those who want to put Him to the test, those who think
with this logic of ‘Yes, you can’ as hypocrites. Even with the fourth
commandment these people refused to assist their parents with the excuse that
they had given a good offering to the Church. Hypocrites. Casuistry is
hypocritical. It is a hypocritical thought. ‘Yes, you can; no, you can’t’…
which then becomes more subtle, more diabolical: But what is the limit for
those who can? But from here to here I can’t. It is the deception of casuistry.
From casuistry to truth to
mercy: this is the Christian path.
The path of the Christian, then,
does not give into the logic of casuistry, but responds with the truth, which
is accompanied, following the example of Jesus, by mercy – “because He is the
Incarnation of the Mercy of the Father, and He cannot deny Himself. He cannot
deny Himself because He is the truth of the Father, and He cannot deny Himself
because He is the Mercy of the Father.”
Justice and mercy: This is the
path that makes us happy.
“And this street that Jesus
teaches us,” the Pope noted, is difficult to apply in the face of the
temptations of life:
“When
the temptation touches your heart, this path of going out from casuistry to
truth and mercy is not easy: It takes the grace of God to help us to go forward
in this way. And we should always ask for it. ‘Lord, grant that I might be
just, but just with mercy.’ Not just, covered by casuistry. Just in mercy. As
You are. Just in mercy. Then, someone with a casuistic mentality might ask,
“But what is more important in God? Justice or mercy?’ This, too, is a sick
thought, that seeks to go out… What is more important? They are not two things:
it is only one, only one thing. In God, justice is mercy and mercy is justice.
May the Lord help us to understand this street, which is not easy, but which
will bring us happiness, and will make so many people happy.”
Oremus.
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