Like most who have followed the life and career of Tony Blair, I was not surprised in the least by his decision to be received into the Roman Catholic Church, a decision made formal in a private ceremony last week. Long-affiliated with the fine old Christian Socialist Movement, his theology seemed to have been moving towards Rome for some time. (When Blair’s son Leo was born in 2000, a number of years younger than his other children with his wife, Cherie, there were very public rumors that the couple did not practice any form of artificial birth control, in keeping with Catholic teaching.)
I’ve had mixed feelings about Tony Blair for years now. But I wish him well, of course, as he moves forward on his spiritual journey. A great many Englishmen and women before him have “returned to Rome” before him, and he goes in fine company.
A little bit of me — just a little — is envious. My own religious peregrination has been fitful and dramatic, but it started with a late adolescent conversion from the atheism of my parents to Roman Catholicism. I was baptized and confirmed at the 1988 Easter Vigil, where I took the confirmation name Thomas. For a brief time, I seriously considered the priesthood — so great was my enthusiasm for the Church. My first marriage was solemnized with a full mass at St Paul the Apostle in Westwood, one of the larger Catholic parishes in West Los Angeles. During the first year of that marriage, I was a regular and enthusiastic communicant.
It was the end of my first marriage that, for me, made staying a Catholic untenable. Though we agreed on little else during the divorce process, my first wife and I were committed to not seeking an annulment, despite pressure from some of her Catholic relatives to get one. What had been done might now be undone, but we weren’t going to deny it had been done in the first place! And with the divorce came the bar from the eucharist. No more wafer and wine made into bread and blood for me, at least not in the Roman style.
I drifted away from Christ for the next few years after that 1992 divorce. When I came back, it was as a Protestant of one kind or another: an Anabaptist, a non-denominational charismatic, an Episcopalian. But here’s the rub: often, whether I’m at a Mennonite, Episcopal, or evangelical worship service, I find myself feeling as if what I’m participating in is somehow incomplete. There are churches, and then there is The Church. And while all the churches are somehow part of the Body of Christ, there is still for me a sense that the truest Church is Roman. Though I very rarely attend Mass any more, I admit that I feel something when I do that I have not felt anywhere else — and I have worshipped in more than my share of elsewheres.
I’m blissful in my fourth marriage. The chances of reconciling with my first wife are zero. I would never dream of raising our future children in a church community that didn’t see their parents’ marriage as being as licit and good as any other. As I understand it, the price of being allowed to become a regular communicant in the Catholic church would mean leaving my wife — or enduring a chaste marriage for the rest of our lives. I’ve checked this out with a few of my friends who know their canon law: without an annulment of my first marriage, or without a commitment to chastity within my current one, I’m going to have a hard time gettin’ to the communion rail. That price is much too high to pay.
It’s odd — I was a Mass-going Catholic for less than five years. That’s not even an eighth of my life. And yet Rome has a hold on me that nothing else has. And when I see the once-married Tony Blair received into the Church, my happiness for him is not untinged with envy.
And with the divorce came the bar from the eucharist. No more wafer and wine made into bread and blood for me, at least not in the Roman style.
It’s only with the remarriage that the bar came, and even then such things are not absolute.
In my case, the marriage with Wife number 1 came while we were both non-believers, and she was unbaptized; when she became a believer she never baptized anyway, and was vehemently anti-catholic, coming from a rather vitriolic anti-”papist” masonic family.
She screwed me around on an annulment for a long time. Finally I was told by a priest of something called “The Internal Forum.”
Basically stated, since I was sure of the truth, that I was entitled to a decree of nullity due to Petrine Privilege - BUT JUST COULD NOT PROVE IT - so long as I resolved not to cause scandal by flouting the whole divorced and remarried situation, I could receive communion.
(Not married, won’t be, so not an issue now. Still.)
Thing is, this isn’t widely advertised - and is even actively discouraged - because it is subject to a wide range of abuse. You have to be 100%, dead, no holds barred, no subjective interpretation positively sure before you are entitled to this. Not merely biblically, but by canon law and the magisterium. You have no wiggle room. And it is on your honor.
So if you are 100% certain, according to canon law, that your first marriage was not valid or sacramental in nature - receive away, keeping in mind not to cause scandal. (Because subsequent ones, since you lacked proper dispensation and form, are invalid on their face.)
Gonz, I am absolutely certain that my first marriage was valid, sacramental; entered into by two people who were very young, very naive, and very foolish. But foolishness is not the same as inability, and naivete is not the same as deception.
You’re right that I could have stayed chaste and divorced, too, but that wasn’t an option. I have to say, on a gut level, I loathe annulments — just like I loathe mulligans in golf.
There are churches, and then there is The Church. And while all the churches are somehow part of the Body of Christ, there is still for me a sense that the truest Church is Roman.
:-)
As you know, I was raised Catholic, from Baptism to Confirmation (I even received my Sacrament of Confirmation from the infamous Cardinal Roger Mahony in 2003.) I have attended church services at other places, like Paznaz, and a couple of other Protestant churches in the area. But in my heart, I will always be a Catholic. It seems to me that you, too, might still be a Catholic were it not for the Church’s stauch views on divorce. I don’t understand why the Church is so reluctant to even recognize divorce. Thier rules on it motivate a lot of Catholics to stay in abusive relationships in order to avoid shame from the church, and therefore God. But, like you say, every church has it’s issues.
It seems to me that you, too, might still be a Catholic were it not for the Church’s stauch views on divorce. I don’t understand why the Church is so reluctant to even recognize divorce.
Possibly because if the Church easily recognized divorce, it would include people like Hugo who have divorced three times. Which wouldn’t exactly be a testimonial to the Church’s marital teachings.
The difficulty with taking things seriously is that you have to, well, take them seriously. If we have a teaching about marriage and we actually believe it, then people who won’t or can’t live that teaching can’t be part of the community. Hugo couldn’t or wouldn’t live the teaching; so he’s out. We have to decide which is more important: inclusiveness, or fidelity to what we believe is the truth. Catholics choose fidelity on this one.
Oddly, here, I agree with Robert. I’m not lobbying the Church to change its position on divorce. I am sad that my own life and the Church’s teachings are irreconciliable, but it’s the Church’s prerogative to say “You are not welcome at the communion rail.” I know enough to go where I am welcome. Let the “bread and wine made holy” be for those who have had the luck, the grace, or the will to match their private affairs to Church teaching.
This is probably a long conversation, but I wonder why you believe that the truest church is Roman. Such a statement encourages this budding Catholic, of course, but I am just curious to hear you go into a little more detail on that. (Maybe a post for another day… or something to talk about later.)
Luck and grace in my case; I meant to (but didn’t) indicate that I don’t judge Hugo harshly in this matter. My own MIL is barred from communion, though she remained in the church, and I see firsthand the pain she goes through from being denied the Eucharist.
I personally don’t live up to church teaching in any number of areas of life, but (luck again) they aren’t public areas of life. So I should have acknowledged that, hey, whited sepulchre, right here.
Mermade, that is a long post that will show up eventually…
Robert, thank you. I didn’t feel judged harshly. I have never claimed that actions shouldn’t have consequences. My divorces and remarriages are real events, and though God’s forgiveness has wiped clean the slate, that doesn’t change the fact that they really happened. And the Church, in its ancient wisdom, decrees that communion is only for those whose circumstances are less, uh, messy than my own. I can disagree with that, even lament that — and accept that all at the same time.
I understand exactly how you feel about Catholicism. I was raised Catholic, but left the church behind a long time ago and am an avowed atheist these days. Even aside from my disbelief in God, though, I have serious, serious issues with the Church and will probably never reconcile myself with some of the teachings (particularly birth control/abortion/pretty much anything regarding reproduction and the rights and humanity of women). But it still feels like home. I love the ceremony and solemnity of mass and the community of church and I’ll probably always miss it a little bit and still call myself a Catholic, even though I’m really not these days.
And incidentally, the divorce/annulment issue was what sealed my mother’s breach with the church. Her and my dad divorced about five years ago, after almost 30 years together. They were married young (and pregnant) and had fallen out of romantic love long before, but they had some issues that they couldn’t get past and decided to split up. Once Mom started dating again, she looked into an annulment, but the priest told her flat out (and in a decidedly non-tactful way) that if she did, the church would consider her to have never married and that my sisters and I would be illegitimate in the eyes of the church. She wasn’t willing to say that her marriage (and they’re still good friends) never happened and she certainly wasn’t about to say that her children are illegitimate (she’s very old school on the whole marriage, then kids question, and in fact, I was exactly the reason they got married in the first place). She got pissed and hasn’t been back to mass, other than the odd wedding or funeral, since. It makes her incredibly sad, though, to not be in the church anymore.
The priest was lying. Children are not made illegitimate by annulment.