Sign of Contradiction

In a Crisis article, Bill Maguire lays out the problem for Bishops who would like to pass off a complete change in Church teaching with regard to marriage, divorce and remarriage as a legitimate doctrinal development. Excerpt:

The problem, then, for those bishops proposing Eucharistic communion for the divorced and remarried isn’t that there hasn’t been a development of Church teaching or that the subject hasn’t already been “thoroughly examined.” The vast body of Magisterial teachings—we could also cite John Paul II’s Apostolic Exhortation Reconciliatio et Paenitentia (n.34) and Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis (n. 29)—evidence 35 years of thorough examination and signal a significant development and deepening of the Church’s teaching regarding marriage.

On the contrary, then, the conundrum for the bishops is that the definitive examination of the subject and the development of the Church’s teaching on marriage have gone precisely the opposite direction they want it to go.

We will continue to see frustration and anger on the part of liberals who think along the lines "Man, there has simply got to be a way to let divorced and remarried people receive the sacraments! The sacraments are so important to Catholics!" Yes, the sacraments are important to Catholics, and that is why there is already a way for the remarried to receive them: practice complete continence, as the Catechism quoted in the article mentions. That sounds difficult, but since those people put themselves in a difficult situation to begin with, it is hardly unjust, though we are obliged to sympathize with them. Unfortunately this way of gaining access to the sacraments will often be ignored and left untried because it is difficult in fulfillment of Chesterton's timeless dictum.

Pope Paul VI has already given us the response for objections to unpopular beliefs in section 18 of Humanae Vitae.

It is to be anticipated that perhaps not everyone will easily accept this particular teaching. There is too much clamorous outcry against the voice of the Church, and this is intensified by modern means of communication. But it comes as no surprise to the Church that she, no less than her divine Founder, is destined to be a "sign of contradiction." She does not, because of this, evade the duty imposed on her of proclaiming humbly but firmly the entire moral law, both natural and evangelical.