Sins Against and Sins By a Consecrated Person

In a recent post ("Thoughts on Blessing and Consecrating," posted on July 1, 2010), I mentioned that I had learned in Catholic school that priests are consecrated persons. Thus, if one murders a priest, one not only commits the mortal sin of murder, but the additional sin of sacrilege because one has desecrated a sacred person, a person consecrated to God in a special way.

In other words, a sin against a priest - murdering a priest, insulting a priest - is far more serious than the same sin committed against a lay person. The sin of sacrilege is added when the sin is committed against a priest - because of the priest's status as a consecrated person.

Now, here is what I wonder. I see that sins committed against priests are worse than sins committed against lay people. But what about sins committed by priests? Are not such sins worse than sins committed by lay people? I would think that they are.

Here is why. A sin committed by a priest does far greater harm than a sin committed by a lay person. Let us consider a priest who has sex with a twelve-year-old girl. The girl suffers terribly from being sexually violated. But her suffering goes even deeper when a priest is the perpetrator. In the case of a priest, the girl feels betrayed by God and by the Church. If she feels guilty about what was done to her, she will feel doubly so because it was a priest, a consecrated man of God, who did this to her. How irredeemably bad she must be for someone as good as a priest to want to do this to her. This will deeply affect the girl's relationship with God and may cause her to lose her faith. Or she may feel that God could never ever forgive her.

Even lesser sins committed by priests can cause people to lose faith in God and to mistrust the Church.

Therefore, I would say that a sin committed by a priest is a greater sin than a sin committed by a lay person because the priest not only does something wrong but also damages people's relationship with God and with the Church.

Annulment

The Catholic Church teaches that marriage is for life. Divorce is not allowed in the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church, however, does offer annulment. Annulment used to be a rare occurrence, but in the last several decades Catholics have come forward in unprecedented numbers to ask for annulments - and have been granted them. In this post, I will examine this phenomenon and reflect on what I see as its implications.

First of all, it is important to understand what an annulment is. An annulment is an official proclamation that no marriage ever existed between a man and a woman who were believed to be married. The man and woman went through the motions of a marriage ceremony, but no marriage took place because one or more impediments stood firmly in the way, though these impediments were unrecognized at the time. If there is an impediment, no marriage can take place.

A simple example of an impediment is being related by blood as brother and sister. If a man and a woman who are brother and sister go through a marriage ceremony, not realizing their relationship, no marriage takes place. The brother / sister relationship is an impediment to marriage. The two are not married.

In recent years, the impediment most commonly found in couples who present themselves for annulment is the emotional immaturity impediment. To be eligible to enter into a marriage, both parties must have the requisite emotional maturity for this commitment. If one or both parties lacks this emotional maturity, no marriage takes place. In case after case after case of couples presenting themselves for annulment, it has been found again and again and again that one or both members of the couple did not have the emotional maturity required for a marriage commitment at the time of the marriage ceremony - hence, no marriage took place and the marriage is nul.

If I had any authority in the Catholic Church with regard to marriage preparation for couples and I were faced with large numbers of couples over the last several decades receiving annulments because of the emotional immaturity impediment, I would be aghast. I would institute serious reform of the way couples are prepared for marriage in the Catholic Church. Surely, marriage preparation should include recognizing impediments to marriage. I find it very harmful for a couple to believe that they are married and to live as though married for five, ten, fifteen, twenty or more years, to build a life together, to raise a family - and then to find out that they were never married at all. For heaven's sake, let us do a better job of preventing this! Let us ferret out the impediments BEFORE the marriage ceremony! In the case of the emotional immaturity impediment, this does not mean that marriage is forever impossible for the couple. All it means is that more time and effort are needed to gain the necessary maturity. DOESN'T THE CATHOLIC CHURCH SEE THE NEED FOR SERIOUS MARRIAGE PREPARATION REFORM?

When a Catholic couple goes through a marriage ceremony with an unrecognized emotional immaturity impediment, so that no marriage takes place, what actually happens? Well, the sacrament of matrimony hasn't been received, even though the motions of the sacrament have been performed. Since the sacrament has not been received, the special graces specific to the sacrament of matrimony have not been given to the couple. These are graces that unfold over the course of the marriage - graces to help the two build their life as a couple, to prepare them for parenthood should children arrive, to see them through the ups and downs of married life. Think of the disadvantage that the children of such a couple will have. Their parents got "married" without the required emotional maturity to do so, and their parents have not received the special graces of the sacrament of matrimony to help them as spouses and as parents. We have, then, emotionally immature parents who, in addition, lack the graces for marriage and parenthood. And the children suffer for it.

Here is something else we should consider. It would be a mistake, I believe, to think that all those with the emotional immaturity impediment present themselves for annulments. They do not. Many "married" couples with the emotional immaturity impediment will not present themselves for an annulment until years down the line. Many "married" couples with the emotional immaturity impediment will never present themselves for an annulment.

What does this mean? First, it means that during the centuries before the 1960s, when it was extremely rare for a couple to seek an annulment, you nonetheless had "married" couples with the emotional immaturity impediment who lived their entire lives believing themselves to be married, died, and are buried side by side - but who nonetheless were never married. The emotional immaturity impediment prevented any marriage from taking place, and even though no annulment was ever sought, the couple simply was never married because of the emotional immaturity impediment. I firmly believe that this describes my own parents.

Second, this means that right now there are "married" couples in the Catholic Church who are not married. If a couple got "married" in 2000 and if that couple will seek and receive an annulment in 2020 because of the emotional immaturity impediment, then right now - in 2010 - the couple is not married. An annulment means that the couple was never married - not for one instant - during the whole time between 2000 and 2020 when they lived together as though husband and wife. I find this a serious matter. If I had any authority in the Catholic Church, I would want to do something about it. I would want to find a way for couples who believe themselves to be married to insure that they actually are, in light of all the emotional immaturity impediment annulments. If I were a married Catholic, I would want to make sure that my marriage was valid, again in light of all the emotional immaturity impediment annulments. Is not the Catholic Church concerned about all the "married" Catholic couples who are, in fact, not married at all because of the emotional immaturity impediment - the ones who have not yet or who will never come forward for an annulment yet who do have this impediment and are, therefore, not married?

Finally, it should certainly be obvious that, among Catholic couples now presenting themselves as candidates for marriage, there are those with the emotional immaturity impediment. I would say that anyone who prepares Catholic couples for marriage and never recognizes the emotional immaturity impediment in any of them is committing a gross and costly failure. At the very least, Catholic couples preparing for marriage should be made aware of the many annulments due to the emotional immaturity impediment and of the consequences of spending years as a "married" couple when no marriage exists, and they should be offered the option of being examined for this impediment so that they can be sure of being truly married. Is not the Catholic Church concerned about Catholic couples now entering "marriage" when no marriage is possible because of the emotional immaturity impediment?

If I were a Catholic preparing for marriage, I would absolutely INSIST that my fiancé and I be thoroughly examined for impediments, especially the emotional immaturity impediment. Whatever examination is done by an annulment court, let it be done BEFORE the marriage ceremony so that we can enter marriage confident that we ARE INDEED MARRIED. Then, we won't have the uncertainty of possibly finding out several years down the line - oops - there's an impediment - guess what - we're not married at all.

There is, of course, another way to look at annulment: annulment is a bunch of Catholic hocus pocus. Quite a few people do see annulment this way. Such people are Catholic and want to separate from their spouse, so they jump through the annulment hoops, recite the annulment hocus pocus, and voila - they are free to remarry and stay in the Catholic Church, which for some reason is important to them. Okay, that's one way to see it.

As for me, I left the Catholic Church. But I do wish to point out the problems with the Catholic view of annulment, according to the way I see it, and that is what I have done in this post.

The Episcopal Church

I was raised in the Roman Catholic Church, but now I belong to the Episcopal Church, specifically Trinity Episcopal Church in New Orleans. The Episcopal Church has many similarities to the Catholic Church but not the problems. Of course, any church has its own problems, but the problems that I find overwhelming in the Catholic Church are not present in the Episcopal Church.

For one thing, women are welcome as priests in the Episcopal Church, and Episcopal priests are welcome to marry. The Catholic Church does not allow women to be priests and does not allow priests to marry. I should point out an interesting phenomenon, though. There are married priests in the Catholic Church. Guess who they are. They are former Episcopal male married priests who objected so strongly to women as priests that, when the Episcopal Church began ordaining women in the 1970s, these male priests left the Episcopal Church in protest and became Roman Catholic. These priests were allowed to transfer into the Catholic Church and to continue both to be priests and to be married. However, if the wife of such a priest dies, the priest is not allowed to remarry.

Having women priests and married priests, first, is sane, and second, solves many problems. One huge problem in the Catholic Church is that it is run by unmarried men. This all-male hierarchy lacks the balance of the female viewpoint. Not only is the female viewpoint unrepresented among Catholic priests, but Catholic priests are not even exposed to the female viewpoint in their daily lives through interaction with a wife. Catholic priests not only work but also live in an all-male society. This is unbalanced. In the Episcopal Church, priests are male and female, married and single. This provides balance and a much greater in-touch-ness with the lives of parishioners.

The Catholic Church has done a terrible job with monitoring candidates for the priesthood and weeding out those without a vocation. Many pedophiles have slipped through and have been ordained. Somehow, during all the years of training for the priesthood, no one seemed to notice that certain candidates were extremely unsuited to be priests. I am sure that there are problematic priests in the Episcopal Church, but one sees nothing among Episcoal priests like the widespread sex scandals of the Catholic priesthood.

The Episcopal Church encourages thinking. The Catholic Church encourages conformity to official dogma. There is a wide latitude of beliefs in the Episcopal Church. Holy Communion is a case in point. Some understand the bread and wine as symbols of Jesus' body and blood. Some understand Jesus to be present in a special way along with the bread and wine (consubstantiation). Some understand that the bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood of Jesus (transubstantiation).

The Episcopal Church has the same seven sacraments as the Catholic Church: Baptism, Confession, Holy Communion, Confirmation, Matrimony, Holy Orders, and Anointing of the Sick. The Catholic Church, though, warehouses children through the sacraments of Confession, Holy Communion, and Confirmation. Whether they want to or not, whether they feel ready or not, all Catholic girls and boys in a particular grade receive these three sacraments. When I was growing up, all second graders received Confession and Holy Communion, and all sixth graders received Confirmation. Nothing mattered except the fact that you were in second or sixth grade. No one cared what you really understood or how you felt about it. They just wanted to get everyone in your age group done.

In the Episcopal Church, children can receive Holy Communion whenever the parents and child feel that the child is ready, without making a big deal out of it. Confirmation is a bigger deal and is received when an adolescent or adult feels ready to make a mature commitment to the Christian faith. I say that Confirmation is a bigger deal because the Bishop comes on a particular Sunday to confirm all those who are ready to receive Confirmation. But the pressure of the Catholic Church is absent. When I was in sixth grade, I didn't see any possibility of refusing Confirmation. It was so totally assumed that I would be confirmed along with every other Catholic sixth grader that I saw no way to question this. Certainly, no one ever asked me how I felt about Confirmation. In the Catholic Church, the sacraments of Confession, Holy Communion, and Confirmation are inevitable - they happen to you because you're a Catholic child. In the Episcopal Church, you have a choice.

Also, in the Episcopal Church, Confession is completely voluntary, unlike in the Catholic Church, where it is required, especially if you have committed a mortal sin. The Episcopal Church does not have catalogues of mortal and venial sins, as the Catholic Church does.

The Episcopal Church has all the beautiful elements of the Catholic Church: Eucharist (nearly identical to Mass), liturgy, cycle of Scripture readings, church year, saints and angels, altar, vestments, sacraments, apostolic succession of priests, bishops, processions, music, art. All the things that were forbidding, remote, and scary to me in the Catholic Church are transformed in the Episcopal Church to be friendly, accessible, and joyful. The Episcopal Church is the way the Catholic Church should be.