Posted on 03/13/2007 6:19:38 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
....Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday reiterated the Church's ban on Communion for divorced Catholics who remarry and left it up to bishops whether Catholic politicians should receive Communion if they support abortion rights or gay marriage.
....the pope also upheld the Vatican's requirement for celibacy for priests in the Latin rite Church. "Priestly celibacy lived with maturity, joy and dedication is an immense blessing for the Church and for society itself," the pope wrote.
The document embraced recommendations made by bishops....at a 2005 meeting at the Vatican that rejected any change in the celibacy requirement. Benedict acknowledged the shortage of clergy in some parts of the world, but said bishops should "on no account" lower admission standards to seminaries to compensate.
.......
Benedict also acknowledged "the painful situations" of divorced Catholics who can no longer receive Communion after they remarry. The Catholic Church does not permit divorce and views such faithful as living in sin if they remarry and consummate their new marriages.
If efforts to annul the first marriages fail, and the couple continues to live together in their new marriage, "the Church encourages these members of the faithful to commit themselves to living their relationship ... as friends, as brother and sister," Benedict said. He was reiterating a stance held by his predecessor, John Paul II, that divorced Catholics who remarry cannot have sex with their new partners if they want to receive the Eucharist.
The question of whether Catholic politicians who support stands that conflict with Church teaching should be denied Communion gained attention during the 2004 U.S. presidential election campaign, when St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke said he would deny the Eucharist to Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, a Catholic who was supporting abortion rights.
Benedict indicated that local bishops must deal with these cases.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Benny should have made denial of the sacraments to Catholic pols supporting practices against Church teaching an accross the board rule - so U.S bishops would have no wiggle room.
Media upholds tradition of missing the point.
Ban for Communion for Divorced Catholics Who Remarry ............OK, if I was a Catholic and I married a Protestant, divorced her, married a Catholic and had it annuled, and remarried a Catholic would that still allow me to have communion? If I married a Catholic adultress and divorced her, remarried a former nun, I end up being prohibited from communion? Mind boggling if you ask me.
You mean.... like..... Ummm... Normal ... persons?
They do create a lot of problems for themselves with the requirement of celibacy, but homosexual clergy sexually abusing post pubescent boys is a problem in all churches. Unfortunately, the mistrust of clergy in this country has hurt a lot of kids that need the church to play a greater role in their lives.
I think there are plenty of stories that show that there are plenty of abnormal "Reformed" ministers who have done heinous things.
Kinda.
I agree. The question really is how do you fix the problem.
IMHO, I believe the church structure of authority from the bottom up, rather than top down, is the solution. In the former the congregation, or elders, can terminate the pastor quickly. In a top down system all that happens is complaints are ignored, or the pastor is shuffled off to another church.
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