Dominican paper opposing Kasper proposals

22 September 2014

In July, seven Dominicans of the U.S. Eastern Province published a paper entitled Recent proposals for the pastoral care of the divorced and remarried: a theological assessment. One key passage reads:

“[T]he Church has borne a consistent witness in the contemporary world to the full truth about human sexuality and the complementarity of the sexes. The good of human sexuality is intrinsically related to its potential to generate new life, and its proper place is in a shared life of mutual, loving fidelity between a man and a woman. These are saving truths that the world needs to hear; the Catholic Church is, increasingly, a lone voice proclaiming them.

Although the present proposals concern only the divorced-and-remarried, adopting the—even as a “merely” pastoral practice—requires that the Church accept in principle that sexual activity outside of a permanent and faithful marriage is compatible with communion with Christ and with the Christian life. If accepted, however, it is hard to see how the Church could resist admitting to Holy Communion unmarried co-habiting couples, or persons in homosexual unions, and so forth. Indeed, the logic of this position suggests that the Church should bless such relationships (as the Anglican communion is now doing), and even accept the full gamut of contemporary sexual “liberation.” Communion for the divorced-and-remarried is only the beginning.”