TM, I say this is all respect. I am a devout Catholic. Please check my replies on the Catholic threads.
My concern is that people who are NOT Catholic sometimes have the wrong impression of our beliefs. Has no one ever said to you that Confession is just an excuse to commit sin? Do you really want them to believe that?
I sought to explain, and I think that I did explain, that Pavarotti’s Confession had to include real repentence, in which case God would forgive him, and I hope that He did.
Again, I hoped to explain the Church’s belief that Confession requires repentence so that our non-Catholic friends would understand our belief.
As for sacramental theology, even your catechism makes it plain that repentence is necessary to make a good Confession. When one is at the point of death and unable to speak, we know that God is the only real judge.
Confession is a beautiful sacrament with many graces and forgiveness by God. Indeed, it is a most beautiful sacrament as ordained by the Son of God while He was here on earth.
May he rest in peace.
As Evelyn Waugh makes clear in “Brideshead Revisited,” divorce and remarriage is a far more serious sin than an occasional affair, because it is harder to repent. The sinner has assumed conflicting obligations that are impossible to resolve.
True repentence includes the determination not to repeat or continue the sin in question. The sinner may fall again, but at the time of confession he must be resolved to fight the temptation as best he may. So the tangled situation of someone who has accepted an obligation to a second wife that is, however, sinful, is very difficult.
This problem can be resolved if the improperly married couple resolve to refrain from any further sexual acts together and to live chastely. Presumably this is what Pavarotti and his second wife—not a true wife in the eyes of the Church—agreed to.
If so, then having his second wife attend the funeral would be legitimate, I believe. Christian charity does not demand that he should throw her off and never see her again, only that they should refrain from further consummating their non-marriage.
Requiescat in pace.