BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY DEC. 28, 2016) — You may have missed it, but in his annual address to the Curia of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis excoriated the hidebound group of Church governors for their obstructionist resistance to reform. The Pope blamed his board of directors for tying his hands in the ongoing battle to bring the Catholic Church into the 21st century.

Francis realizes that relevance must take precedence over mere “religion” if the Church is to resume its rightful place not so much as a moral authority of zealotry but as a merciful beacon of hope.

In response, American Cardinal Raymond Burke warns of “a very serious division in the Church which has to be mended” or it “could develop into a formal schism.” Burke is former head of the Vatican’s highest court, and he spoke just before Christmas on the Pope’s letter on the family, Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love). Cardinal Burke claims the Pope’s ambiguous stand on divorce and remarriage must be clarified. He says the letter isn’t clear on whether it is okay for divorced or Catholics remarried in civil ceremonies, who according to Church law are living in adultery, to receive Holy Communion at Mass. Burke wants Pope Francis to answer this question, Yes or No. The Pope has kept his powder dry and has yet to respond.

THE PLANET places Cardinal Burke’s question in the category of ultra-righteous penny pinching, the type that sent The Church off the rails when it began debating such questions as “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin.” While the Church dawdles with such nonsense, it does so at the expense of its role as conduit to a higher, better, more spiritual way of life that meets people in their need where they are, as they are, who they are. That includes divorced Catholics and those who have been remarried in civil ceremonies.

Cardinal Burke and his kind of bloodless formalists remind THE PLANET of the angry mob that caught a woman in adultery, looking to stone her to death. As the New Testament relays it John 8:1-30:

“Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?’ This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.

“Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, ‘Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.’ And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground.

“But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.'”

Cardinal Burke would do well to look closely at this story. Jesus does not condemn the woman. He does not want her punished. He forgives. The Law would require the woman be put to death, but Jesus reminds us that The Law is made by men and therefore cannot be applied in absolute moral fashion to any tangential human situation, particularly one where someone has done the wrong thing. This should answer Cardinal Burke’s question: Some 3,145 angels can dance on the head of a pin, and Yes, it is okay with God that divorced or civilly remarried Catholics can receive Holy Communion.

The most tantalizing aspect of the story in John is the part, mentioned twice, where Jesus writes something on the ground. Why did the Gospel writer include this detail? And what did Jesus write? Allow a few observations:

• It shows that Jesus knew how to write and therefore likely had some formal education.
• It’s a catharsis to write on the ground with a finger or a stick. We’ve all done it. Maybe Jesus was relieving  frustration.
• Perhaps a clue comes from the Old Testament, in Jeremiah 17:13: “Those who depart from Me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters.” In the preceding chapter of John, Jesus speaks of Himself as living water. Was Jesus writing the names of the Scribes and Pharisees into the ground and in doing do fulfilling an Old Testament prophecy? Is that why they left, beginning with the oldest?

Whatever it was, we can be sure that Cardinal Burke would profit from it. Maybe Jesus simply wrote, Love One Another. That’s all we need do to bring peace to our lives and to the earth.

It is so simple.

It is so complicated.

“Therefore, love one another as I have loved you.” — Jesus bar Joseph

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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