Cardinal Kasper and Communion: A Pastoral Ideology?

The philosopher John Rist takes to task Cardinal Walter Kasper’s comments in February concerning a relaxed approach to communion for the divorced and remarried. A true scholar and (thankfully) not one for the fray of public intellectualism, Rist constrains his criticisms to the historical foundations of Kasper’s remarks (full text in Italian here; digest in English here).

The content of Rist’s reaction is worth a quick look on its own merit.

Though others have put forward “early”—though non-existent—evidence for his position, the cardinal wisely offers nothing from the first 150-odd years of Christianity, presumably accepting that marriage rules were then still strict and apostolically based. The first text he cites, from the mid-third century, is Origen (Commentary on Matthew 14:23-24) reporting that bishops of certain local churches “not without reason” allow Communion to those divorced and remarried. Yet Origen also says—not once but three times—that this practice is contrary to the scriptures: hardly endorsement, nor even toleration from so biblical a theologian. Councils apart (I shall come to them), Cardinal Kasper offers further evidence only from the fourth century, observing that Basil (letters 188 and 199), Gregory of Nazienzen (Oratio 37) and Augustine are aware of the same practice occurring. What he omits to notice is that there is no indication of any of them concurring in what plainly contravenes their ordinary teaching.

Moving beyond “private” theologians, Kasper claims that a more pastoral attitude is evidenced by the Council of Nicaea (325)—presumably by Canon 8 which (so he and others tell us) “confirmed” the more relaxed approach. Though this has occasionally been read into the text, yet its virtually certain intent is to permit Communion not to the divorced and remarried but to the widowed and remarried. For we need to bear in mind that a Christian’s marrying twice in any circumstances—including widowhood—was much debated, giving reason for the Council to address this uncertainty. Nor is Cardinal Kasper’s case strengthened by misapplying the Pauline notion of metanoia and going on to presume that the Fathers would consider “repentance” of the failure of a first marriage to justify entering into a second.

Just as interesting, however, is Rist’s conclusion, which identifies acutely the cause for this apparently incomplete (just plain bad?) scholarship:

[U]pon examination the cardinal’s case depends on misinterpreting a tiny number of texts while neglecting numerous others which contradict them. How can this have happened? To my mind we have here an example of a procedure all too frequent in academia, more especially when work may be motivated by convenience or ideology: there is an overwhelming amount of evidence in one direction and one or two texts which might conceivably be read otherwise, from which is derived the desired conclusion, or at least that the matter is open.

While on the face of it Kasper’s conclusions might align with a pontificate characterized by pastoral sensitivity, if Rist is correct, they’re also fundamentally opposed to that same pontificate, which has made the rejection of ideology a hallmark.