Cardinal Kasper and the dangers of misunderstanding

EWTN broadcast the first part of Raymond Arroyo's interview with Cardinal Kasper last week.  It confirmed something that I'd suspected for some time and by the end of the interview I actually felt bad for Cardinal Kasper (a little, he still makes me nervous).  He's been a victim is something I don't even know the word for: miss-association, or miss-application but certainly a misunderstanding.

Cardinal Kasper has for decades proposed that Catholics who have been divorced and remarried without an annulment should be allowed to receive the sacraments.  He talks about criteria, but I've never actually heard what they are.  He talks about limited circumstances, but I don't know what they are.  I guess I could read his book.  Regardless, that's what he's known for. He was making the case twenty years ago and he's still making the case now.

So here comes the new Pope who's talking out loud about how he's going to shake things up: reform the Curia, re-vitalize the mission activity of the Church, and reclaim the fallen-away through mercy and evangelism.  He comes to Cardinal Kasper and says "Why don't you give a four hour talk on your ideas so we can discuss them in the upcoming synods?"  Then afterwards the Pope publicly praises Cardinal Kasper's talk.  What should he think of that?  What would you think in that situation? You'd think that the Pope favored your proposals.  You'd have no reason not to think that.  But what if the Pope simply wanted you to play devil's advocate: to articulate the secularist opinion in a clear way so the assembled bishops could better understand them.  What if the Pope never intended to implement Kasper's proposals, he just wanted to address them while upholding the current discipline?

The rhetorical practice of disputation, most commonly seen in Aquinas' Summa Theologia, requires that the speaker first address the objections before he refutes them.  And the speaker must understand the objections correctly. In today's pundit lingo, the speaker is not permitted to set up a "straw man" and knock it down.  Before a debate, both sides have to be able to state the other side's position in a way that the other side would agree with.

It's likely that Francis is doing that here: he's educating himself and the rest of the bishops on the opposition's argument so they can more effectively refute it.  But what about poor Cardinal Kasper?  He assumed that the Pope loved his ideas, but the Pope only loved the way he expressed them.  That's the miss-application part.  Kasper identified himself with his proposal, so when the Pope expressed his appreciation of Kasper, he assumed the Pope was in favor of his proposal.  He's got to feel a bit let down.  And given the number of people attacking his proposal, he may even feel a bit set-up.  That was pretty clear to me in the interview.  Now he's merely "raising a question", like he and the Pope were in cahoots from the beginning.  Like the plan all along was for him to raise this issue, right a book about it, go on a speaking tour, get verbally attacked from conservative Catholics simply for the sake of raising a question. But as Raymond Arroyo points out in the interview, that's not how the Cardinal was talking last year.

It would help if Francis would say what he's up to, but after two years watching him work, it's clear that's not going to happen.