Bishop Charles Drennan, the New Zealand delegate at the Synod on Families, has been sent a letter from an expert on the Council of Trent expressing the view that the church cannot change its teaching on the dissolubility of marriage.
The moral theologian is responding to an argument put forward by Cardinal Walter Kaspar proposing that it is possible for the Roman Catholic Church to adopt a pastoral principle similar to “oikonomia”, as it is practised in the Eastern Church where in the “economy” of salvation the church permits spouses in consummated sacramental marriages to divorce and remarry as a way “to accompany people when they make their incremental approach to life’s goal.”
E Christain Brugger has the sent letter to 22 synod fathers of the United States, Canada, England, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand saying that such an view “both misunderstands the Catholic doctrine of indissolubility and badly misrepresents the intentions of the Council of Trent.” Full text of Brugger’s letter
Brugger is professor of moral theology at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver, United States, and a specialist on the Council of Trent.
He is writing book, expected to be published next year, dedicated to the teaching of the Council of Trent on matters of marriage.
The opposing argument is put forward by Giancarlo Pani S.J., professor of the history of Christianity at the University of Rome.
The nature this discussion is of a rather technical nature.
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