Cardinal Kasper's public support for dissent undermines his own proposal

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | May 07, 2014

In a May 5 interview broadcast by WYNC radio in New York—in which he was repeatedly identified by host Brian Lehrer as “the Pope’s theologian”—Cardinal Walter Kasper made the striking statement: “The Church is not against birth control at all.”

As is his wont, the judicious Cardinal Kasper stopped short of a clear dissent from Church teaching. He left himself a bit of wiggle room by saying that the question is “about the methods of birth control.” If you were inclined to give the cardinal the benefit of the doubt, you might think that he had Natural Family Planning in mind. But if you were more inclined to focus on reality, you would note that host Lehrer had referred explicitly to the use of condoms. Surely the vast majority of WYNC listeners interpreted the cardinal’s statement as a claim that the Church does not condemn contraception. And it strains credulity to suggest that Cardinal Kasper did not intend exactly that outcome.

The cardinal could have cleared up any confusion by explaining his statement. Instead he followed up by saying that he didn’t want to talk about the different methods of birth control. In other words, he didn’t want to be pinned down. He preferred to leave his statement ambiguous, allowing listeners to hear what they wanted to hear. He showed no interest in explaining to the radio audience what the Church really teaches about birth control.

At worst the German cardinal encouraged people to ignore the Church’s teaching. At best he passed up a golden opportunity to promote that teaching. And this happened in New York, whose Cardinal Dolan told the Wall Street Journal: “We have gotten gun-shy…in speaking with any amount of cogency on chastity and sexual morality." Speaking directly to the question of birth control, Cardinal Dolan said that as a result of this shyness: “We forfeited the chance to be a coherent moral voice when it comes to one of the more burning issues of the day."

Cardinal Kasper—who’s in the US on a tour promoting his book Mercy, in which he explains the “Kasper proposal” for allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion—has been making some waves this week. He has criticized the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and expressed his admiration for a theologian whose work has been criticized by the US bishops’ conference. If he’s trying to persuade the American bishops to back the “Kasper proposal” at the Synod meeting in October, he’s going about it in a very strange way. As the evidence piles up that Cardinal Kasper is unwilling to defend the teachings of the Church, the bishops who are willing are less likely to be sympathetic.

Update

And there’s more…

In a lengthy interview with Commonweal, Cardinal Kasper says that Pope Francis told him that “he believes that 50% of marriages are not valid.” (Now don’t blame the Pope for making another provocative public statement here; if the cardinal’s report is accurate, the Holy Father made this remark in a private conversation.) My reaction to the cardinal’s statement matches that of my friend the canon-law expert, Edward Peters: “I am stunned at the pastoral recklessness of such an assertion.”

Peters has his own convincing reasons for that reaction; let me state mine simply. At a time when pastors should be doing everything possible to help strengthen marriage, and to help troubled couples patch up their difficulties and revive their relationships, Cardinal Kasper’s statement is likely to prompt such couples to wonder whether they’re really married at all.

If you’re wondering whether it’s worthwhile to try to salvage your marriage, and then you hear someone touted as “the Pope’s theologian” saying that 50% of marriages aren’t real marriages, isn’t it likely that your first thought is that your marriage is one of those false unions, and might as well be abandoned? So the next stop is the divorce lawyer’s office, and then, with Cardinal Kasper’s quote in hand, a petition for annulment.

And what about the children of those unions? Does the “mercy” of which Cardinal Kasper speaks so often extend to them?