Francis may end ban on remarried divorcees receiving communion

CathNews ^ | 10/22/13 | CathNews

[BlatherNaut]

At present, the many thousands of divorced Roman Catholics who remarry cannot receive the sacrament that is central to the practice of the faith.

However, Pope Francis has convened an "extraordinary synod" in October next year on the subject of the family, and on his flight back from World Youth Day in Brazil the Pope told journalists that it would explore a "somewhat deeper pastoral care of marriage", which would include the question of allowing Catholics who were divorced and remarried to receive Communion.

[Biggirl]

God Bless her memory.

[Rocky Mountain Wild Turkey]

Just read The Catechism ... however, notice the used of the word 'innocent" .. The Church is merciful already...

CCC 2386: It can happen that one of the spouses is the innocent victim of a divorce decreed by civil law; this spouse therefore has not contravened the moral law. There is a considerable difference between a spouse who has sincerely tried to be faithful to the sacrament of marriage and is unjustly abandoned, and one who through his own grave fault destroys a canonically valid marriage.

Therefore, an "innocent spouse in a marital break-up has the same possibility to receive Communion as other Catholics, with the usual conditions (being free from mortal sin in other areas of life, going to Confession if not, Eucharistic fast and so on)."

[IbJensen]

We’ve been down this road before, Big Girl, and I believe you are an honorable and caring person. However, the Novus Ordo is a NEW religion designed by modernists to destroy or remold the Church and all it stood for into a shape that will be anathema to those Catholics who understood the value of the catechism and the Church proclaimed by Pope Pius V to exist in its then present form in perpetuity.

Does that mean that all those popes succeeding Pius XII are liars and did not mean to continue Christ’s Church on earth? I believe the answer is yes and further believe that Lucifer has moved in and taken over the papacy.

This reminds me of the legions of Congressmen who took an oath to defend the Constitution as written and promulgated by America’s founding fathers, only to renege on that oath and follow the dictates of that percentage of the population who worships the wrong god.

[pgyanke]

Exactly. So what is the purpose of the synod?

What is the purpose of any synod... or a Vatican Council... or any of a number of gatherings? The Magisterium of the Church is enriched through these discussions and debates. In the end, we are not following men who are done thinking--we are following The Spirit Who is not done teaching.

[markomalley]

” Maybe Pope Francis was simply was asking to look at how the Orthodox Christians do it.”

You’ll note that he explicitly put the discussion of how the Orthodox do it in verbal parentheses.

[Venturer]

I have never believed that people should stay in an unhappy marriage just to stay in the Church.

I also do not believe that God meant man or woman to live alone the rest of their lives because they could not live in an unhappy marriage.

Many, Many, Catholics are living with women or men and going to communion now. Many are making up their own rules and attending Church anyway.

If a person married again after divorce and goes to confession and states he is living in what the Church calls an adulterous relationship, is he not blessed by the priest and his sin forgiven? Can he not then have communion the next morning and go right back to what he was doing?

Many will argue that at confession we promise to sin no more. I consider that a bad argument.
If it was a good argument we wouldn’t have to go to confession at all because we would sin no more..
No. Most people go to confession whenever they go and know in their mind that they will do the same things they went for the first time again as soon as the opportunity arises.

To me it is the greatest hyprocrisy to go to confession and say I will do it no more. We all know this and yet those pious will argue that I am wrong.

I see nothing wrong in people marrying again after a divorce. I have been married 50 years and will stay that way until death, but mine was a good marriage, if it had not been I would have moved on, and done what I thought right in my conscience.

[Biggirl]

That is why there is an allowed rite for those Catholics that want the TLM. It is one of the many rites in the Catholic Church. As long as the NO is done in a reverant and proper manner, it is still a legit rite.

You have your opinion, I have mine.

[heartwood]

Your aunt was in communion with the Church as she lived a celibate life. It is the remarriage without an annulment that is seen to be adultery, a mortal sin.

Since Jesus seems to have allowed for divorce and remarriage in the case of adultery - by the spouse not at fault - or by the husband if not at fault if one does not expand on His words - one might think that the Church would permit it as well.

Unfortunately that would lead to consensual adultery for the purpose of divorce as was often done in England when the divorce laws were liberalized in the 19th c. The husband would go to a hotel with a woman not his wife, making a public record of his “adultery” and the couple could divorce.

[Salvation]

BTTT for the truth!

[Albion Wilde]

You posed some excellent questions. After all, if there can be exceptions to marriage that result in annulment, there should be allowances for communion. That said, anything the churches can do to strengthen marriage is all to the good of society.

[Albion Wilde]

why did he mention the practice of the Orthodox in regard to divorce and remarriage during a recent interview?

What is the practice of the Orthodox concerning divorce/remarriage, briefly?

[BlatherNaut]

“Here he’s talking about looking to see if the first marriage was, in fact, valid. And, if not, willingly granting a decree of nullity so that it isn’t an impediment.”

---

I hope you’re right that this is just BS.

The premise he cites (that half of all marriages are invalid) seems extreme. A sacrament with a 50% failure rate is rectified by declaring it never happened to begin with? With the clergy saying such things, how can the laity be blamed for not taking the sacraments seriously?

[Albion Wilde]

I had a great aunt who had to leave her husband back in the 1950’s when he became an abusive, deadbeat drunk. She lived alone and raised her children, remaining alone and celibate until passing away in her 80’s. Remaining faithful to Church teaching.

God bless her and the many cuckolded, abandoned or widowed spouses who remain faithful. They are an example to the homosexuals who just can't imagine that a human being can survive without a sexual partner.

[BlatherNaut]

"The Orthodox have a different practice,” he told reporters July 28 during his flight back to Rome from Rio de Janeiro. The Orthodox “follow the theology of ‘oikonomia’ (economy or stewardship), as they call it, and give a second possibility; they permit” a second marriage. While the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain both use the English term “ecclesiastical divorce” when referring to the use of “oikonomia” to permit a second marriage, Orthodox scholars and the websites of both archdiocese make clear that the Orthodox practice differs from both a Catholic annulment and a civil divorce. Unlike an annulment, which declares that a union was invalid from the beginning, the Orthodox decree does not question the initial validity of a sacramental marriage and unlike a civil divorce it does not dissolve a marriage. Rather, the Orthodox describe it as a recognition that a marriage has ended because of the failure or sin of one or both spouses. As quoted on the British church’s website, Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia, an Orthodox scholar and retired professor at Britain’s Oxford University, wrote in his book, “The Orthodox Church,” that the Orthodox permit divorce and remarriage under certain circumstances because Jesus himself, in upholding the indissolubility of marriage in Matthew 19:9, makes room for an exception. In the translation he quoted, Jesus says: “If a man divorces his wife, for any cause other than unchastity, and marries another, he commits adultery.”

http://www.catholicfreepress.org/vatican/2013/08/06/speaking-of-divorce-pope-refers-to-practice-of-orthodox-churches/

[markomalley]

” The premise he cites (that half of all marriages are invalid) seems extreme. A sacrament with a 50% failure rate is rectified by declaring it never happened to begin with? With the clergy saying such things, how can the laity be blamed for not taking the sacraments seriously?”

I, personally, just see this as yet another example of the appalling lack of catechesis that has pervaded the post VCII Church.

It’s not the sacrament that failed. It is the ministers of the sacrament (the couple) who failed to either understand or appreciate the sacrament itself and what they were committing to...and a failure of the witnesses (the clergy) to make sure that the happy couple really had comprehension.

And, of course, we don’t even want to start talking about the open rebellion to Christ in the Church (reference Paul VI’s famous, but oft-misunderstood “smoke of Satan” comments)

[Albion Wilde]

The premise he cites (that half of all marriages are invalid) seems extreme. A sacrament with a 50% failure rate is rectified by declaring it never happened to begin with? With the clergy saying such things, how can the laity be blamed for not taking the sacraments seriously?

I think you have leapt to a conclusion that he didn't indicate. In post 16 he says the Church should recognize this particular form of spiritual brokenness and find ways to minister. He did not define those ways, or say that the Church would redefine sin or excuse the thoughtlessness of marrying stupidly.

[BlatherNaut]

I, personally, just see this as yet another example of the appalling lack of catechesis that has pervaded the post VCII Church.

Completely agree.

[BlatherNaut]

I think you have leapt to a conclusion that he didn't indicate.

Hope you're right. Only time will tell.

[TennTuxedo]

Francis is slapping the entire Catholic faith right in the mouth.

[redgolum]

That is the issue.

When my bride and I did our pre Cana, we were living in the Lincoln Diocese. We had eight weeks of classes, a test, and many visits with the priest.

However, there were a lot of people who complained, and either left to get married by the Anglicans, or jumped into Kansas for a more “modern” diocese.

The issue is how people approach marriage. Not just what the church is doing. Tighting up the pre Cana process would only compound the problem by having people move outside the church.