At Long Last, Many Divorced And Remarried Catholics Say They No Longer Feel Like Outcasts

Washington Post ^ | April 10, 2016 | Julie Zauzmer and and Michelle Boorstein

[Steelfish]

At Long Last, Many Divorced And Remarried Catholics Say They No Longer Feel Like Outcasts

Maria Olsen of Fairhaven, Md., in the chapel at Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart,, regrets that her divorced father, who left the Church over being denied Holy Communion, never received the kind of affirmation being offered by Pope Francis.

By Julie Zauzmer and and Michelle Boorstein April 9

Olsen recalled her divorced father dropping her and her brother, then ages 6 and 5, at the curb outside their Kensington, Md., parish on Sundays. Her father was so committed to the Catholic Church, she said, that he wanted his children to attend Mass despite the fact that he and his ex-wife were unable to receive the key rite of Communion and no longer felt welcome in the church.

“I felt like we were the only kids without parents,” said Olsen, a mother of two who lives in Fairhaven, Md.

As an adult, Olsen has been able to make peace with her faith, remaining heavily involved in her parish while confidently rejecting teachings she considers manmade flaws. But she regrets that her father, like so many other divorced Catholics who have left the church, never received the kind of affirmation offered by Francis in his dramatic call for tolerance toward families the church officially views as nontraditional.

Francis’s long-awaited document, “Amoris Laetitia” — Latin for “the Joy of Love” — didn’t lift the ban on Communion for Catholics who divorce and remarry without an annulment, but he seemingly has made room for priests and laypeople to make such decisions together on a case-by-case basis.

This measure of outreach, (snip) appears to have brought comfort to many among the millions affected by previous Catholic teachings on marriage that have drawn bright lines.

[armydoc]

Says the priest that declares the sitting Pope to be a heretic on a public forum. I don’t think you’re fooling anyone but yourself that you are Catholic, but that’s OK. You’ve already “jumped the Tiber”. Might as well embrace it.

[dfwgator]

[Arthur McGowan]

You are saying that a Catholic who believes that the Pope holds heretical opinions ceases instantly to be a Catholic.

That is to be found nowhere in the teaching of the Catholic Church.

Thank you for making your extravagant, preposterous claims so clear. It reduces my concern that you may be fooling anybody.

[terycarl]

But if they pay the "vig" to the Catholic church, they then obtain a paper that says the marriage was never valid and all is okay and forgiven. They can then remarry. Miraculously, then they're not living in an adulterous manner. It's all about giving the proper $$$ to the Catholic church.

Nope, annulments are done, in the vast majority of cases at no charge. It is not s simple matter at all, evidence is given on both sides and a tribunal of sorts makes a decision. It is NOT a cut and dried situation and proof must be presented to show a valid reason why the original marriage might not be valid.

[Ransomed]

When there were bad Popes in the past, what do you think the good Catholic Christians did? Good grief imagine some of those stiffs with the world wide 24 hour news cycle and social media.

Freegards

[af_vet_1981]

Fascinating. A Catholic Priest feels comfortable proclaiming the sitting Pope to be a heretic on a public forum but feels it improper to discuss the implications. But, he'll be dead soon so Catholics can just ignore him, until a Pope that you approve of is elected. This Protestant thinks the historical argument regarding the Papacy is pretty much irrelevant now. You have in practice adopted our position.

One could extend your argument and conclude that the Reformation was simply an earlier form of the same Modernism or Restorationism that keeps surfacing in each subsequent generation, ever changing, stumbling, haply feeling in the dark, searching to create or restore and authentic Christian faith and thereby declare itself a legitimate heir of the Jewish Apostles. Mormons, Pentecostals, Adventists, Fundamentalists, Evangelicals, NeoEvangelicals, PostEvangelicals, etc., etc. ...

Or one could simply believe, as a little child, that the Messiah is precisely who he said he is; that he built his church upon Peter, the other Jewish apostles and prophets, with himself as the chief cornerstone, and that the one holy catholic apostolic church has overcome against the gates of hell since the First Century. To imagine the church failed and was overcome for over a thousand years ... well there have to be some words from certain of your own poets for that position.

[Ransomed]

I don’t buy the part about the Reformation. They groups that went bad always had the good ones leave, and form some new thing with a different abbreviation that is good. Good as in not accepting some of the terrible stuff. I don’t see why that can’t just go on like it has been, it seems viable. It might get really really small, but then the Church might get really small too. But so far, the good ones are the ones that grow until they go bad, and then it splits with good ones leaving and the bad ones who stayed shrinking.

Freegards

[2nd amendment mama]

Nope, annulments are done, in the vast majority of cases at no charge.

That's certainly NOT how it used to be. It cost my Aunt thousands to get her annulment in the 60's. The only people who could get them were people of money.

[Arthur McGowan]

https://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/12/the-slow-decline-of-the-ordinary-magisterium/

Try responding to Dr. Edward Peters with your Sunday-funnies version of Catholicism.

[terycarl]

That's certainly NOT how it used to be. It cost my Aunt thousands to get her annulment in the 60's. The only people who could get them were people of money.

I'll do a little research but I doubt your story...first of all, in the 60's, Catholics didn't have thousands of dollars to do anything and I know people got annulments. While people were certainly expected to reimburse the parish for certified main, long distance calls, notary fees, attorney fees, etc...I don't believe that there were extraordinary expenses involved providing monies to the parish....I will check it out.