Alumnus Priest Reflects on Marital “Accompaniment”

A robust debate among clergy has opened following the publication of His Holiness Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetita, in particular the question of how priests should minister to divorced-and-remarried Catholics. An alumnus priest, Rev. Joseph Levine (’89), is the latest to enter the discussion, offering in the pages of Crisis a response to an earlier essay published by Rev. Paul Keller in Crux.

In his article, Fr. Levine, pastor of St. Peter Catholic Church in The Dalles, Oregon, draws heavily from his ministerial experience.  “I have been a pastor now for a little more than four years and have found myself immersed in the trial-by-fire experience of pastoral work in the area of marriage,” he writes. “I regard marriage preparation as so important that I attend personally to the preparation of every couple who gets married in my parish; I have also attended to the other end of the matter, the nullity process, shepherding individuals in their application to the marriage tribunal” — a real-life example of the kind of “accompaniment” to which the Holy Father has called the clergy

“Ultimately,” Fr. Levine writes, in tending to the needs of his flock, the priest must not lose sight of one overriding question: “Is the marriage bond something real and, if it is real, is it indissoluble?