Gradualness: A Solution for the Synod?

According to an official Vatican press briefing on Tuesday, Oct. 7, the discussion at the Synod over proposals for communion for divorced and remarried persons has shifted to “gradualness.”  It seems that some are now arguing from the principle of gradualness that those who are not yet able to live according to the Church’s teachings could still receive Holy Communion as a step on the way towards a more perfect conversion.

For moral theologians, this is a case of déjà vu: the 1980 Synod on the Family already had this debate, and it was resolved by Pope John Paul II in his post-synodal exhortation, Familiaris Consortio. 

In 1980, some voices had claimed that, in difficult cases, one could commit to “gradually” relinquishing a gravely sinful practice (like contracepting) and return immediately to the sacraments, even while intending to continue committing individual sinful acts in some (diminishing) measure.  John Paul II clearly rejected this argument.  Married couples, he wrote, “cannot . . . look on the law as merely an ideal to be achieved in the future: they must consider it as a command of Christ the Lord to overcome difficulties with constancy. ‘And so what is known as ‘the law of gradualness’ or step-by-step advance cannot be identified with ‘gradualness of the law,’ as if there were different degrees or forms of precept in God's law for different individuals and situations.”  (Familiaris Consortio no. 34.)

What John Paul called “the law of gradualness” does not refer to a “gradual” turning away from sin, but to the perennial Christian doctrine that we are not yet perfect in the first moment of our conversion.  When we receive a grace of conversion, we break definitively from evil and then gradually advance in holiness.  We may even fall back into grave sin, but, helped by grace, we repent and start anew.  Here, the sacrament of Penance has an important role to play: it calls us to renounce our sins definitively with a firm purpose of amendment.  In effect, he who will not yet repent, will not yet accept God’s mercy, and so is not forgiven.  (CCC no. 1451; DH 1676.) 

As St. John Paul says, the “law of gradualness” presupposes this turning-away from evil, so that one can begin to walk “step-by-step” on the upward – that is, gradually ascending – path of good.  “What is needed is a continuous, permanent conversion which, while requiring an interior detachment from every evil and an adherence to good in its fullness, is brought about concretely in steps which lead us ever forward.”  (Familiaris Consortio no. 9.)  The ascent is gradual, but the renunciation of sin cannot be.

The Eucharist is living bread for those on the way.  One need not yet be perfect to receive it – indeed, among Christians, who is?  (Answer: Our Lady.)  But one does need to break from evil in order to have communion with Christ: “If we say we have communion with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth.” (1 Jn 1:6.)  We can expect the Synod to affirm nothing less.

Father Dominic Legge, OP, is a professor of theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.