Question 9.149

9.149 Francis decided to entitle one chapter of his apostolic exhortation “Realities are more important than ideas.” How do you interpret this analysis?

The pope wishes to make it clear to us that the Church feels urgently obliged to perceive reality. This leads us to the truth, whereas an idea often proves to be proud and self-sufficient.

Thus, some people are very set in their ideas about the Church, the bishop, or the liturgy. I think that it is important to say that the reality of the faith seems more important to me than ideas about the faith. . .

The pope writes: “There. . . exists a constant tension between ideas and realities. Realities simply are, whereas ideas are worked out. There has to be continuous dialogue between the two, lest ideas become detached from realities. It is dangerous to dwell in the realm of words alone, of images and rhetoric. So a third principle comes into play: realities are greater than ideas. This calls for rejecting the various means of masking reality: angelic forms of purity, dictatorships of relativism, empty rhetoric, objectives more ideal than real, brands of ahistorical fundamentalism, ethical systems bereft of kindness, intellectual discourse bereft of wisdom” (EG 231).

I think that Francis ardently wishes to give the Church a taste for reality, inasmuch as some Christians and even some clerics can sometimes be tempted to hide behind ideas in order to forget the real situations of persons.

Conversely, some worry that this concept of the pope endangers the integrity of the Magisterium. The recent debate on the problem of the divorced and remarried has often been prompted by this sort of tension.

For my part, I do not believe that the pope means to endanger the integrity of the Magisterium. Indeed, no one, not even the pope, can destroy or change Christ’s teaching. No one, not even the pope, can set pastoral ministry in opposition to doctrine. That would be to rebel against Jesus Christ and his teaching.

The marriage covenant by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a lifelong partnership was raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament (Code of Canon Law, can. 1055). Moreover, in his preaching, Jesus taught unequivocally the original meaning of the union of man and woman, as the Creator willed it in the beginning.

In this way he abolished the concessions allowing the dismissal of one’s spouse that had crept into the Law of Moses. And so the marital union of the man and the woman is indissoluble; God himself decreed it: “What God has joined together let no man put asunder” (Mt 19:6).

This unequivocal insistence on the indissolubility of the matrimonial bond may have perplexed Jesus’ disciples, to whom it seemed like an unrealistic demand (Mt 19:10). Even so, Christ did not impose on married couples a burden that is impossible to carry. Since he came to reestablish the initial order of creation, which had been disrupted by sin, the Son of God gives the strength and the grace to live a married life in the new dimension of the kingdom of God.

By following Christ, by renouncing themselves and taking up their cross each day, married couples will be able to understand the original meaning of marriage and live it out with his help. The grace of Christian marriage is a fruit of the Cross of Christ.

The apostle Paul tries to help us understand this reality by writing: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her” (Eph 5:25-26). Then he adds: “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the Church” (Eph 5:31-32).