Hoping for longer communion lines

Sometimes when I’m in church, my mind wanders. In communal prayer, just as in private prayer, I have to consciously pull myself back to the centering place where I’d like to be. Last Sunday my mind wandered, and I reflected upon the exclusivity of the Eucharist as I watched the communion line pass. Old and young. Male and female. Children and parents. Hands clasped and heads bowed. But no divorced and remarried people. At least none who hadn’t first received an annulment.

In one Pew Research Center survey, it found that of the individuals leaving the Catholic Church, about a third left due to its teaching on divorce and remarriage. And, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate estimates there are 4.5 million divorced and remarried Catholics in the United States and only about 15 percent seek an annulment.

Bishops will be meeting in Rome in October to discuss the challenges facing families at the Synod on the Family. Many dioceses have recently invited parish members to complete a questionnaire about these challenges in order that the sense of the faithful may participate in the discussion. The synod is not intended to change Church teachings, but rather to consider improved pastoral approaches to challenges facing the family. One of those challenges lies with the inability of divorced and remarried Catholics to receive the Eucharist.

It’s divorced and remarried Catholics with young children that really wrenches the heart. Parents are the primary teachers of the faith to their sons and daughters. It’s a responsibility they must accept and acknowledge at the baptism of their children. Vatican II document, Lumen Gentium, explains that the family unit is the Domestic Church. The family unit is holy. And yet, a void is created between children and their parents by separating them—welcoming children to receive communion while the parents remain in the penalty box.Last-Supper-Da-Vinci-1495

Pope Francis said, “The Eucharist is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.” If it’s not a prize, how can it then be a punishment?

In the “New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law,” the message of Canon 915 is that ministers are to refuse communion when they are certain (1) that a person has committed a grave sin, (2) that the sinner is obstinately persevering in a sinful state and (3) that the sin is manifest—or publicly known. The canon also speaks to the need to preclude grave scandal on the part of the community that would arise from the public sinner’s reception of communion. However commentary states, “The fact of actual scandal is, moreover, culturally relative. What causes scandal in one part of the world may not cause scandal elsewhere. In North America the faithful often are more scandalized by the Church’s denial of sacraments and sacramentals than by the sin that occasions it, because it seems to them contrary to the mercy and forgiveness commanded by Christ.”

I realize it’s not that simple. Marriage is a sacrament. There are three involved in this sacrament—the baptized man and woman and God. God does not make mistakes. The union is indissoluble. There can only ever be one sacramental marriage for a man and woman.

But although God does not make mistakes, people do. There are many reasons why a marriage may fail, and they’re all painful. Nobody makes this promise to God unless they believe the marriage will last forever. And although an annulment is the correct path for some, for many others who examine their conscience it’s not a truthful way or honest solution. They believe their first marriage was sacramentally valid and without errors. No tribunal will convince them otherwise.

Thankfully, some are able to find companionship with another individual and enter into a loving, committed and selfless relationship—a second marriage. It will not be considered sacramental by the Catholic Church, but it provides many unmistakable and realized goods that can only be found in a marriage.

These cradle Catholics long to participate in the summit of our faith, which is the Eucharist. Some are questioning if a new pastoral approach can be taken—one aimed at affirming the first union, lamenting its failure, extending mercy, blessing the second union, and then readmitting these individuals to the Lord’s Table.

However, many Catholics aren’t so hopeful. In the book, “The Catholic Labyrinth,” author Peter McDonough argues that when faced with what is perceived as an unjust teaching, the average Catholic finds the most reasonable thing to do is nothing because, “Personal choice is available at zero cost.” Salvation can be found in other Christian traditions, and many find it more sensible to simply leave the Church and join another denomination that welcomes them in every way.

At a former place of my employment, a factory manager related a story to the executives of the corporation. An employee in the plant gave a scathing criticism of a particular practice of the manufacturing process to the plant manager. The employee finished by explaining that he was complaining because he cared about the place and wanted it to be successful.

I care about our beloved Roman Catholic Church. It’s upsetting to see disaffected Catholics leave the Church. Within your parish family, you should feel safe. You should find acceptance, healing and support. Many of our divorced and remarried brothers and sisters in Christ do not experience this. And so they leave.

The sacrament of matrimony will not change. But the Eucharist, this “powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak,” should be nourishing divorced and remarried Catholics when they need it most—when they have gone through their own Paschal Mystery. When they have died to Christ through divorce and have risen again in a new, loving and promising union. May the Spirit move the synod to find a way to extend the ultimate invitation of God’s mercy to the divorced and remarried.

And may the communion lines grow. Longer and longer.

Early school start dates are fine when a little control is given up

 

Schools don’t take kindly to the state’s effort to control and push for later start dates. Earlier start dates mean semester-ending tests can be taken before winter break and schedules can more closely align with college courses. Later start dates mean families can attend the Iowa State Fair or do any number of activities planned for August. But if schools eased control on absenteeism policies, they could have their early start dates and families could also attend the state fair.

Language on absenteeism policies is pretty subjective. Iowa Code 299.8 states that a child failing to attend school as required is considered a truant unless there is a reasonable excuse for the absence. And school handbooks typically state that a student may be excused by a parent for a valid reason. I like to believe this vague terminology is intentional so that a thoughtful school administrator can identify a reasonable family request as an excused absence.

Thinking back to when my kids were younger, I possessed a reverse understanding. As a parent, I made decisions that I felt were best for my family and had the expectation that the school would support those decisions. That actually included pulling my kids out of school for a week to go on a cruise.

My kids used to joke that we couldn’t take a family vacation unless it was to a state that bordered Iowa. Like many young families, we were struggling to get a foothold financially and living within our means in the meantime. But when our ten-year wedding anniversary approached, we wanted to do something big to mark the event and do it together as a family. We went on a cruise. First time for all of us. Flew to Miami. First experience flying for the kids. Arranged to have a few extra days in Miami so that we could eat at an authentic Cuban restaurant and tour the Everglades. Rode an airboat and saw alligators. Saw the ocean. Another first for the kids. The cruise, itself, was quite an adventure for them. And in their young, sheltered lives they saw a homeless person for the first time when we docked at one of our ports. They gained experiences and perspectives in that one week that opened up the world to them and likely altered their view of the world as well.

Photo by Rachael Halvorson

Photo by Rachael Halvorson

The kids were good students, and I made sure they got their homework assignments for the week so they could be completed and turned in when they returned. The staff and administration were supportive and eager to hear about their adventure.

That was a private school. While I entrusted them with my children every other week of the school year, they entrusted me to be the cruise director of my children’s educational lives for one week. It seemed that the administration understood us to be their customers, a connection more easily made for a private school. Without voluntary, non-subsidized, tuition-paying families, there would be no school. Families are very important to them.

But, the same should be true for public schools. Even though public schools have a geographically determined and captured supply of students and are automatically funded by the taxpayers, the student/parent/family is still the customer. Hillary Clinton wrote in, “It Takes a Village,” that, “Children and their parents are customers of public education, but they are rarely asked what could be improved.”

Perhaps greater respect for families’ ability to be the occasional cruise director for their children’s educational lives is something that could be improved. School start dates are insignificant if families are allowed to make reasonable decisions that are beneficial to the child, regardless of whether or not it fits within a school’s absenteeism policy that sometimes allows for very few missed days—excused or unexcused. Showing cattle at the state fair, helping your family can or freeze a large harvest from the garden, or even celebrating with your family to mark an important event by going on a cruise—these are all reasonable family decisions that could, never less, put a black mark on their student’s attendance record.

My kids graduated from the private school and completed their junior and senior high years at a public school. I can say that both schools were staffed with competent and caring teachers. The majority of our teachers do an amazing job, and I understand they are under an enormous stress to see to it that our students are well educated and perform well on standardized tests. Parents want the same thing except they have even higher expectations. They want well-educated and well-rounded children. They want to provide as many life experiences as possible for their child, and some of those life experiences—such as competing for a blue ribbon at the state fair and all the important lessons that go along with it—simply cannot be obtained on a high school campus.

What could be the potential consequence if some schools continue to start in the middle of August? It is possible that families may choose not to attend the state fair. Even if they do not fear their school’s attendance policies, families may personally not want the added responsibility of trying to juggle both school and other interests. Families already have a lot of stressors. It would be reasonable for them to choose a simpler life. On the other hand, it is also possible that school absenteeism will be high in August because families may decide, for example, that 4H projects at the state fair take a higher priority than the classroom. Some families thrive on full schedules and multiple responsibilities. It’s a reasonable choice, as well.

In either case, the family—the school’s customer—will have spoken. We should all listen to those cruise directors.