The Archdiocese of Chicago is spending $1 million on a Catholics Come Home ad campaign. Nice, right?
But you’ve got to see how the Chicago Tribune reported it:
In order to return to the pews, Cindy Colman first must grapple with the Roman Catholic Church’s failure to forgive, alienating her and her mother from the institution that generations of their family have called home.
“I think I’m still in the process,” said Colman, 35 of Naperville. “I’m at that point where I’m coming back to learn more and understand the whole faith … It’s true. At my core, I know that.”After fleeing an abusive husband more than 30 years ago, Colman’s mother chose to raise her daughter Lutheran. Though she agreed to annul her previous marriage, the Catholic Church insisted on denying her the sacraments when her new husband declined to annul his marriage.
Colman has since agonized about the way her mother has been treated. Still, she yearns to reconcile with the church where she was baptized. She also longs to give her children the foundation she missed.
So people have to forgive the Church for its failure to forgive? Really? That’s the lede in a news story?
Divorces and annulments are heartbreaking. But the Church has rules. And let’s remember that standards and rules are what makes some people hate Catholicism.
But the story continues from there:
But others say the commercials fail to heal all the wounds inflicted by the church. They wish the church would proclaim a more modern message instead of stressing nostalgia. They say the ads missed an opportunity to reach out to those disillusioned by the sex-abuse scandal. Instead of acknowledging its own mistakes, critics say, the church suggests those who have fallen away should return to make peace with the past.
Sal Boccia, 39, of Alsip doesn’t want the mistakes of his past to take away from his children’s future. Married for less than a year before he divorced and met his current wife, Marissa, he took umbrage when the church refused to marry them until he sought an annulment.
“It just became a big hassle,” Sal Boccia said. “It really turned me off — and that’s when we started moving away from the church.”
But like Colman, the Boccias are contemplating a return for the sake of their three children. Their two oldest — ages 7 and 8 — have begun to ask questions about God and the afterlife.
It actually continues from there but it’s just so silly. I mean, it’s laughably poor reporting.
So the Chicago Tribune is essentially telling the Church that it should stop having rules and standards. Well, it looks like the Trib already has. And I’ll bet that the Catholic Church continues to exist long after the Tribune is gone.
February 12, 2010 at 8:40 pm
Most msm reporting doesn't begin to understand anything about Catholicism. Journalists, and the benighted "Catholics" they interview, see the Church as a club or a democratic institution. So its rules about marriage don't make any sense to them except as an attempt by a bunch of meanies to discriminate against people and make them unhappy.
February 12, 2010 at 8:49 pm
The Chicago Tribune needs a good, stiff dose of Hilaire Belloc. But of course Belloc uses really big words…
— Mack
February 12, 2010 at 9:15 pm
When it comes to divorce, no one wins, including the church. I feel distant from the church because they WON'T defend my 10 year marriage. Not a SINGLE priest I have spoken with would bother to even pick up the phone to call my "very" catholic who suddenly left to be with an old flame who just got out of jail for multiple felony convictions. Clergy counseled them coyly about annulments, while I prayed with my 4 and 7 year old. The church as NOTHING to offer the faithful, except annulments. To man with a hammer, the world is a nail.
My point is 1) to rant a bit so people may remember and pray for the plight of the separated faithful, 2) pray for the US church to recognize such plight, 3) to admit my ego is as grandiose as others. Everyone thinks they know better than the church – orthodox to liberal. We all like to complain and inflate our egos. For those in Chicago, only three words are needed for an appropriate response to the paper: Faithfulness, not success.
February 12, 2010 at 9:50 pm
I tried respond to everything that's wrong with the article, but where do you even start. My post would be longer than the article itself.
The fundamental problem here is that Catholics don't know their faith. The people quoted in this article don't understand marriage or annulments or their canonical rights. For some individuals this is their own fault, but the blame for the vast ignorance of Catholics has to fall on the priests and bishops.
At the very least, priests need work the catechism into their homilies. Most of us were not properly catechized in our youth and, let's face it, most of us aren't going to do the work to learn our faith in our own time. Mass is the only time you're going to get to teach most people. Plus, it will be harder for religious ed teachers to fill people's heads with all the garbage of the past 50 years if they're hearing the truth every Sunday.
Another huge problem is that all the people list emotional reasons for staying away from the Church, not doctrinal ones. Our society does not encourage rational thinking. Not liking something about the Church a bad reason to stay away. There are lots of things I don't like, but I can't refute Her doctrine. I must go where the truth is and focus on removing the emotional obstacles that keep my from following it.
I respect people who have studied what the Church teaches and left because they find contradiction or untruth in it, even though I disagree with them. With this type of person you at least have a solid foundation to start from to try to address any disagreements. If someone's reasons for staying away from the Church are purely emotional, there's nothing to build from. No amount of apologizing for the sex abuse scandals or sympathy for the difficulty of their marital situation will ever be good enough.
February 12, 2010 at 10:58 pm
What I don't understand is why they want their kids to be Catholic if they don't agree with the Church's "rules"/standards. They fundamentally understand Catholicism to be the One True Faith, but want it their way. Sorry, "your way" is only at Burger King (and at BK only if you get competent staff).
February 13, 2010 at 12:23 am
The Tribune article appears to think 'annulment' is something we, or the Church, does:
Though she agreed to annul her previous marriage, the Catholic Church insisted on denying her the sacraments when her new husband declined to annul his marriage.
Annulment doesn't change a person's marital status. It is discovering what that status actually is.
February 13, 2010 at 12:55 am
As a native Chicagoan, one learns just how much the Tribune has deteriorated from being a paper that once offered news and opinion to one that offers nothing but politically correct opinions in everything that it prints. It's another reason for its continuing decline, not to mention that its format went from appealing to adults to catering to early adolescents. This story is just another mawkish piece by a writer who would be better off covering the news at the checkout counters of her local Wal-Mart.
February 13, 2010 at 1:40 am
It sounds like the campaign is working and people are coming back to the Church, but there are those who still have mixed emotions and unresolved conflicts.
Actually, that would be a good lead for the article: theirs is horrible. While the article does not attempt to explain or defend Church teaching or practice, it does paint a picture of how real-live-people are responding to the campaign. There's some value there.
Brian – nice response.
February 13, 2010 at 2:07 am
I live in Naperville too. I'm thinking of calling Cindy and inviting her back. Or at least inviting her personally to an event at our parish. What do you think?
February 13, 2010 at 3:39 am
When the message of the Catholic Church is duplicitous, as it is with marriage, divorce, annulment and the related issues, there will be people on all sides of these issues, depending upon how negatively they have been impacted by each circumstance, who will "vote with their feet".
I am one of them.
Until the Catholic Church comprehensively and universally addresses these issues, with canonically severe penalties that are fully enforced, especially when clergy or those in official positions(ex canon lawyers working on behalf of the Church) abuse their positions, there will not be any semblance of justice.
The Pope just recently addressed a part of these issues before the Rota. But he announced no actions to back up his talk. All this did was further complicate the issues involved.
The reality is that, based upon misguided and ineffective pastoral practices, the Catholic Church openly welcomes unrepentant adulterers into the Church and by doing so, effectively encourages them to stay together, when, in fact, the role of the Church is to encourage the VALID MARRIAGES to be healed or the invalid, presumed marriages(putative marriage)to be convalidated. This is most pressingly important when there are children involved and/or when these are long-term relationships that have been wounded. It is true of all marriages, but even more so under these and similar circumstances, for, I hope, obvious reasons.
This is a central issue in the demise of the Catholic faith. I can tell you that there is simply NO DESIRE, or perhaps no consensus, on the part of the Catholic bishops in America to address these terrible injustices.
My own bishop in the Archdiocese of New York, in spite of asking him and his two immediate predecessors to intervene on behalf of a valid marriage(held valid by the Roman Rota – twice) will do NOTHING to help heal a valid marriage.
This is a disgrace and at the minimum supports adultery and all the crimes that go with it.
It is fully disingenuous to stipulate that the refusal of the Church to "marry adulterers" in the Church is "helping" a valid marriage, when the adulterers are otherwise accepted as a "couple" in the rest of the everyday life of the Church. Rather, that the Church takes no formal, canonical actions to encourage adulterers to repent and restore what they have abandoned and are actively attempting to destroy by their very adultery, is disgusting and can only do harm to the valid marriage.
But, the bishops where my wife and her lover live will, neither, address the defense of a valid marriage nor take action.
This has been the case for almost twenty years.
Very few Catholics understand the corruption in the Church that is present among the clergy and how this has corrupted the laity and vice versa.
It is a malignancy that is not addressed in any substantive manner.
Mr. Archbold you have no idea how dirty the Church hierarchy is. To fail to come to the aid of a valid marriage, especially when it has been upheld at the highest marital tribunal in the Catholic Church, is scandalous and when one realizes that such abandonment of valid marriages is ROUTINE among Catholic bishops in America, the magnitude of the problem/corruption becomes manifest.
The fact that this is KNOWN to the Roman Curia and to the Pope makes the entire issue a world wide scandal. Our marriages are being sacrificed because the hierarchy cannot decide what to do, so instead they support our adulterous malicious abandoners and their adulterous partners.
We are sinners, Mr Archbold, that is a given. we have made mistakes. But, our marriages and our
children deserve support from the hierarchy.
INSTEAD WE HAVE HAD A STEADY DIET OF BETRAYAL AND SUPPORT, NOT FOR OUR VALID MARRIAGES, BUT FOR OUR SPOUSES ADULTEROUS WAYS!!!!
February 13, 2010 at 3:52 am
Mr Walden,
Our paths have crossed before. While I agree with most of what you posted. In a case like ours, the Catholic Church has had the option from the beginning to act to bring two spouses together.
This has been REFUSED, at EVERY JUNCTURE, FROM THE BEGINNING! By this I mean from BEFORE our divorce. That is how THOROUGH the corruption is.
Our marriage was TARGETED through the actions of my wife, her lover and the Catholic Church, through its operatives.
Much can be done by the Church, but all that has been done is to encourage my wife and her adulterous partner to remain together.
No, my desire to leave the Church is not simply emotional, although it has been alot of pain for me. It is a rational reaction to a hierarchy that HAS KNOWN FOR ALMOST TWENTY YEARS that it was its own miscalculations and actions that encouraged all of this FROM THE START.
Until laity. like yourself, demand, action on these issues, there will be no change. NONE.
February 13, 2010 at 4:53 am
"Divorces and annulments are heartbreaking. But the Church has rules."
We're not talking about Her rules here. We are talking about Her teaching. There is a really, really big difference. Maybe that's part of the problem.
I could say a lot more, but I already wrote about it here and here.
That, and I'm too tired to argue.
February 13, 2010 at 1:01 pm
I think if you called Cindy, it would mean a world of difference to her. I believe it would be a great idea but it is up to you. A lot of people think the Catholic church is a "cold" church and your gesture would be a big step. God bless you for thinking of it. I will pray for you.
February 13, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Being a convert, I've not yet mastered the cognitive dissonance necessary to actually believe the nonsensical position from some, that what the church does in no way weflects who she twuly is. (the only intelligent response to this idiocy is, "then who she truly IS, is completely irrelevant, since who she is doesn't make any damned difference!")
Are annulments in the US simply another case of this fairy-tale belief?
Doug Sirman
February 13, 2010 at 2:43 pm
I guess the "Catholics Come Home" campaign is a good way to show that we can be loving Christians and all that, but it's stuff like this that makes me slightly against it.
Those that return to the Church would do better to return because of education, not emotion. I think our communities would do better to support each other right now than reach out to those who "voted with their feet" or "don't feel it in their hearts."
But… that said, a phone call to say that you'll be welcomed and that you're missed does often make a world of difference in people's lives. That's difficult to argue against.
February 13, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Doug Sirman – who the Church truly is, is a billion sinners, who insist on constantly demonstrating their sinfulness, nonetheless guided by the Holy Spirit. The Church's teaching is right; the Church's practice – including the this or that bishop's, or this or that national council of bishops' application of the teachings is never perfect. Ultimately, it's Whose the Church is that makes all the difference in the world.
If Anonymous' experience reflects the trend in the hierarchy and clergy's handling of such cases – if there's a presumption that an annulment can be rationalized if people fall out of love or one spouse commits adultery – then the bishops are (have apparently for a while) soft-pedaling the Church's teaching on marriage, and it IS a scandal.
Just finished reading *Brideshead Revisited* last week, and – the character of Julia Flyte is moved to leave an adulterous relationship and an invalid marriage to a previosuly divorced man when her father – who defied the Church and lived in sin with a mistress for decades – makes the sign of the cross when the priest gives him the last rites. Her lover, Charles Ryder, an agnostic and scoffer, ultimately converts…
This outcome is ridiculous in the present social climate. It shouldn't be, and it wouldn't be if the seriousness of the sacrament of matrimony were properly taught.
There's a combination of emotion and logic in Ryder's and Julia's reaction to Lord Marchmain's deathbed conversion. His reaction has an emotional impact on them, but they also follow through on the logical consequences of what they clearly saw happen. When God works on our hearts, it's something deeper than just the emotional reaction to something. He can use our emotions to draw us in, and He can use our minds to reasure us that our emotions didn't mislead us… and His grace is something deeper than our minds or our feelings.
Unfortunately, as the examples in the post show, and as Brian Walden pointed out, our culture thinks a feeling is an argument, and that the emotion of the moment is the last word, rather than a phenomenon to be examined logically, and given its proper priority.
If a priest doesn't have the stones to say 'I'm sorry you feel this infatuation for your jailbird lover; but your marriage is valid, and your Christian duty is to overcome the infatuation and be faithful to – and truly love – your husband,' he's not doing his job.
On the other hand, if Anonymous in Naperville calls Cindy, s/he might give Cindy an emotional counterweight, in the form of that welcome and encouragement, to the hurt resulting from what was probably a combination of human sin and failure to understand the Church's teaching. (Not trying to pass judgment on Cindy's mother or step-father.) In other words, that phone call might be an emotional Bangalore Torpedo to help clear a path through the emotional minefield between Cindy and the Church. We can hope, and we should pray.
S. Murphy
February 13, 2010 at 5:56 pm
Anonymous @
Mr. Archbold you have no idea how dirty the Church hierarchy is.
Hold on, here. I fully sympathize with your grief and outrage (and you have every right to it–I'd tremble to be the bishops in question, on Judgment Day), but let's be fair, even in our anger; no one who's read anything by the Archbolds for any respectable length of time could seriously say that they're unaware of the problems in the clergy/hierarchy of the USA–especially those formed in 1960-1990. As a seminarian in 1991-1993, I saw first-hand how horrid the state of clerical formation was (i.e. aging hippie priests, who were professors/formation staff, promoting homosexual experimentation to seminarians, and the like). It's slowly getting better; the next generation of priests and bishops are actually formed in the notion that "holiness is not only good, but essential". It may be cold comfort to those (of us) who've suffered damage from the generation of "lost Catholic leaders" (heck, do a search for "pro-choice nun" on Google, and see what you find), but it's a sign of hope… and it's at least validation of the fact that you're not "crazy" (like some hippie priests might've suggested in the past).
You're in my prayers, BTW.
February 13, 2010 at 7:11 pm
I left a message for Cindy Coleman telling her that I was praying for her and was attempting to be helpful to her in finding peace in the Church. I also invited her to some Lenten events. (Hopefully it was the right person. I could only find one in Naperville so it's likely to be her.) When I called I was surprised by how much emotion I felt. It is sad that so many people are separated from the love of Christ & His church because of they many reasons listed above. Jesus must grieve so . . .
February 14, 2010 at 12:32 am
"Mr. Archbold you have no idea how dirty the Church hierarchy is."
This was NOT meant as derogatory. I do not think, in real terms, that many understand how dirty the hierarchy, really, is. I am sure there are many examples of lousy bishops. But in this instance, most catholics believe that the tribunal system and the pastoral system that feeds into it are generally good.
THEY ARE WRONG.
It does not matter that nullity is found. If there are children involved it is the desire of the Catholic Church that the marriage be convalidated. If the marriage is long term, the wish is for convalidation. Even if it is short term, unless the reason for the invalidity is grotesque and evil, the Church wishes for convalidation.
I have yet to meet a person who has sought nullity, was granted it, paused and thought about it(especially after having been asked to consider it, seriously, by the clergy) then sought reconciliation with their "significant other". I am sure it has happened though, but not much.
I would like to know how many times anyone who has received an annulment has been pointedly advised to attempt to heal the relationship that was found invalid. I doubt it is many.
If, Mr. Archbold WAS wounded in the way I presented that assertion, he has my sincere apology. I never thought of that possibility when I wrote it but now I can see how it might be taken that way.
BTW, It is by far, not merely openly evil people who criticize me and the few like me who speak out on this issue. I have been brutally treated by many "good catholics", clergy and laity. That is why I firmly believe that most catholics, even among those who like and "follow" the Archbolds, The Blossers, Thomas Peters, Father Z, ……. are lost BECAUSE they do not listen to criticizm by people who have been in the trenches, especially when some of the icons of catholicism are shown in an unfavorable light. But what is worse is that a man like Archbishop Dolan can sign the Manhattan Declaration and do NOTHING to defend a valid marriage when asked directly to do so. What is worse is that the Pope, who knows this, does not seek and demand his change of heart or get his resignation. That is the scandalous. He is left to experiment on our lives with his inability to act in defense of our marriages. I know, Archbishop Chaput does not like those who strongly criticize nullities. I know personally, a catholic, who received notice to cease and desist from calling him to holiness on this issue.
These bishops are a malignancy upon marriage. They refuse to face the facts. They offer platitudes but no substance. When will other bishops who know what is going on start openly criticizing their fellow bishops who persecute those of us who seek help from the Church to act to call our spouses to holiness. When will they criticize the Pope for only talking rather than acting in support of marriage? He has done nothing to the criminals among the bishops, why do they think he would act against them?
Could it be that there are NO GOOD BISHOPS?
I lean that way but I am willing to listen, but only when I start seeking those who wrongfully divorce be formally excommunicated.
Thanks, Paladin!
The same anonymous.
February 14, 2010 at 2:35 am
The Tribune is clearly in a snit over the campaign. Columnist Mary Schmich also wrote about the commercials suggesting that commercials about religion were inappropriate. I've never seen the same comments about the commercials that the UCC or the LDS run.