MUCH has been made of Pope Francis’s references to abortion and homosexuality in his “Big Heart” interview that appeared in America magazine and little about the disturbingly open-ended comment he made regarding divorce and remarriage. As with so much of the interview, it is the suggestion of approval that is alarming. The Pope does not come right out and say he believes certain mortal sins are sometimes acceptable; the likelihood that he would ever state such thing is almost non-existent. But, as has been clear by the way he has been interpreted by so many in the public (witness the head of religious order at my son’s Catholic college who told me that the college was perfectly justified in printing wedding notices for same-sex couples in its magazine because of what the Pope said in his interview), he does suggest through nuance that these sins are not to be viewed as they have always been viewed.

In the Pope’s words on a divorced woman who comes to a priest for advice, he leaves the suggestion that a second marriage is acceptable. From the interview:

… We must always consider the person. Here we enter into the mystery of the human being. In life, God accompanies persons, and we must accompany them, starting from their situation. It is necessary to accompany them with mercy. When that happens, the Holy Spirit inspires the priest to say the right thing.

This is also the great benefit of confession as a sacrament: evaluating case by case and discerning what is the best thing to do for a person who seeks God and grace. The confessional is not a torture chamber, but the place in which the Lord’s mercy motivates us to do better. I also consider the situation of a woman with a failed marriage in her past and who also had an abortion. Then this woman remarries, and she is now happy and has five children. That abortion in her past weighs heavily on her conscience and she sincerely regrets it. She would like to move forward in her Christian life. What is the confessor to do?

The Pope never answers this question. And the question is perplexing. Why would it even be asked? The woman is in a confessional. It is clear what the confessor should do in the matter of the abortion. He should hear her confession, give her penance and absolve her of sin. The problem is not what he is to do in the case of the abortion; the problem is what he should do in the case of her divorce and remarriage. He does not mention that the confessor should advise this woman that she is living in sin and should leave her “husband.” Instead, the Pope speaks of a “failed marriage” and of the woman’s happiness. There is no such thing as a “failed marriage” in the Catholic view. According to the Church, all second marriages in the case of divorce are adultery.

The Pope’s main point here is that, “We must always consider the person.” This case of the remarried woman is supposed to illustrate what appears to be his larger point: that universal moral laws simply don’t apply in all cases.

By the way, it is also astonishing that the Pope suggests that the confessional is sometimes a “torture chamber.” In saying, the confessional should not be a torture chamber, he implies that it sometimes is, confirming a widely-circulated myth. The overwhelmingly common experience in a Catholic confessional is one of love and compassion.

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