Posted on 06/16/2016 9:22:17 PM PDT by ebb tide
Pope Francis, spiritual leader of a billion people, has just informed them that ‘the great majority’ of sacramental marriages are invalid because couples don’t go into them with the right intentions. He was speaking at a press conference in Rome. Here’s the context, from the Catholic News Agency (my emphases):
‘I heard a bishop say some months ago that he met a boy that had finished his university studies, and said “I want to become a priest, but only for 10 years”. It’s the culture of the provisional. And this happens everywhere, also in priestly life, in religious life,’ he said.
‘It’s provisional, and because of this the great majority of our sacramental marriages are null. Because they say “yes, for the rest of my life!” but they don’t know what they are saying. Because they have a different culture. They say it, they have good will, but they don’t know.’
Uh? You can read the full report here but you won’t be much the wiser. The Pope, thinking aloud in the manner of some maverick parish priest after a couple of glasses of wine at dinner, has just told millions of his flock that they are not really married.
Did he mean to say that? What does he really think? What authority do his words carry?
And why should Catholics even have to ask these questions? Francis’s off-the-cuff ramblings on matters of extreme pastoral sensitivity are wreaking havoc in the Catholic Church, as I’ve written here.
Ross Douthat of the New York Times has just tweeted this response:
Screen Shot 2016-06-16 at 23.54.41
I suspect that even the Pope’s most liberal admirers will have difficulty extricating him from this mess.
Yes; as do all Protestants.
If only Catholic marriages are valid, then Mary and Joseph were living in sin also.
Tell me, what makes a valid marriage in GOD’S eyes?
Not the Catholic church’s but GOD’S.
“In marriage there is a contract whereby one is bound to pay the other the marital debt: wherefore just as in other contracts, the bond is unfitting if a person bind himself to what he cannot give or do, so the marriage contract is unfitting, if it be made by one who cannot pay the marital debt.”
I wonder if catholics comprehend exactly what they are saying here with the implications for their dogmatic position on the perpetual virginity of Mary?
Now you’re making stuff up.
Who has said only Catholic marriages are valid? No one.
Simply your opinion.
Perhaps you could point to Scripture that shows where God says that.
That would be true, though they are presumed innocent till Rome says otherwise.
God himself is obliged to abide by the judgment of his priests, and either not to pardon or to pardon..The sentence of the priest precedes, and God subscribes to it. .” – Dignity and Duties of the Priest, St. Alphonsus Ligouri, Vol. 12, p. 2 (whose writings were declared free from anything meriting censure by Pope Gregory XVL (1839) in the bull of his canonization)
[27] Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. 1 Corithians 11.
Apostates from the Catholic religion should all be very familiar with Scripture.
What does “unworthily” mean in catholicism?
For one thing; being non-Catholic.
There is a requirement to be a follower of Christ though.
Correction: There’s a requirement to be in Christ’s Church in order to follow Him.
Couple of loose ends to your ‘accusation’.
Feel free to quote “scripture” to prove me wrong. Go for it.
You have it backwards. When you follow Christ you are part of the ekklesia....the church which is the body of believers.
Scripture quote please.
All I need do is point to the false asserti8on that Jesus built His Ekklesia on a man who moments later Jesus rebuke as under the influence of satan. And then point to he blasphemous catholic Mass claiming to feed the real body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ to the arherents, violating GOD's laws against eating human flesh and drinking blood. The god of your religion is duplicitous, BUT THE God of The Universe, The Lord God Almighty is not double mind; in Him is no shadow of turning.
Those two are but several in a long list of non-Christian aspects of catholiciism which false your assertion that catholiciism is Christ's Church. So your specious claim of God requiring membership in the catholic church will be rejected. Want to try and salvage something from your foolishness?
Try reading John chapter three, all the way through. What did JESUS teach Nicodemus that you are missing?
Matthew 18:17
And if he will not hear them: tell the church. And if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican.
Quote it in context.
Is the word you use ‘church’ the body of believers, or is it your religion’s organizational hierarchy?
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