Dilution of Doctrine (Excellent)

LAST weekend Tim Kaine, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee and a churchgoing Catholic, briefly escaped obscurity by telling an audience of L.G.B.T. activists that he expects his church to eventually bless and celebrate same-sex marriages.

In short order his bishop, Francis X. DiLorenzo of Richmond, Va., had a statement out declaring that the Catholic understanding of marriage would remain “unchanged and resolute.”

In a normal moment, it would be the task of this conservative Catholic scribbler to explain why the governor is wrong and the bishop is right, why scripture and tradition make it impossible for Catholicism to simply reinvent its sexual ethics.

But this is not a normal moment in the Catholic Church. As the governor was making his prediction, someone leaked a letter from Pope Francis to the Argentine bishops, praising their openness to allowing some divorced-and-remarried Catholics to receive communion.

The “private” letter was the latest move in a papal dance that’s been going on since Francis was elected. The pope clearly wants to admit remarried Catholics to communion, and he tried by hook and crook to get the world’s bishops to agree. But he faced intense resistance from conservatives, who pointed out that this reform risked evacuating the church’s teaching that sacramental marriages are indissoluble and second marriages adulterous.

The conservative resistance couldn’t be overcome directly without courting a true crisis. So Francis has proceeded indirectly, offering studied ambiguity in official publications combined with personal suggestions of where he really stands.

“Ross Douthat is one of the good guys. I really can't believe who signs his paychecks.”

I agree that Ross Douthat is “one of the good guys”, and it is surprising the NYTimes “signs his paychecks”. I think the latter is the case in part because Douthat is so measured that the Times probably didn't initially realize that he is orthodox. However, this Pope is pushing Douthat to be more direct, so the Times probably has figured out that Ross truly believes in (genuine) Catholicism. Makes me chuckle to think how that must tick-off some of the higher-ups at the Times!

"I see a distinct difference between a divorcee who repents after realizing the error of their ways (divorce IS a sin) and a practicing, non-repentant homosexual."

Two problems with this:

(1) Divorce in itself is not, per se, a sin. Sometimes a spouse who struggled mightily to save the marriage is made the victim of a divorce which he or she did not want. That spouse is divorced, but not guilty. And sometimes petitioning for a divorce is necessary to protect an innocent spouse and children from an abusive marriage partner.

(2)The sin we've been discussing, is re-marriage following a civil divorce. Civil divorce does not affect by one molecule, the ongoing validity of the sacramental marriage bond. A valid sacramental marriage is until the death of one of the spouses, even if the spouses are civilly divorced; and subsequent re-marriage would be adultery (bigamy.)

In short: marriage is indissoluble; remarriage is adultery.

A person in a second, civil marriage is a practicing, non-repentant bigamist.

Unless..

Unless the first "marriage" turns out not to have been binding at all, from the git-go, because of some defect (examples would be: one or both of the spouses were underage, mentally defective, drunk or on drugs, coerced, married on the basis of some ssrious deception or fraud, etc.)

This would require a Church investigation and a formal decree of nullity (so-called "annulment") or...

Unless the spouses in the second marriage live in sexual continence, i.e. as brother and sister, abstaining from the acts which would constitute adultery.

"'Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.' No one, I think, includes the Catholic Church."

Thank you for bringing up that point. I think I can clear that up. What you say is absolutely true: if God has joined the two together, then no one can separate them, that is, no one can break the bond.

That has always been the teaching of the Catholic Church, for 2,000 years, and is so today.

The difficulty comes in if God did not actually join them, because there was something fundamentally wrong which prevented it being a valid marriage from Day One.

A few "way out there" examples should make that obvious.

Bride is 9 years old.
Bridegroom already has another wife back in El Salvador.
Bride is actually a tranny, i.e. a biological male.
Both spouses were drunk as skunks at the time of the blessed nuptials.
Bridegroom was threatened by bride's dad with shotgun if he failed to tie the knot.
Bridegroom openly rejected the idea that the marriage wold involve exclusive sexual fidelity. Schtupped a bridesmaid at the reception.
Bride is a hallucinating schizophrenic who was out of touch with reality at the time of the marriage.
Newlyweds signed prenuptial agreement which showed that they both refused the idea of lifelong vows, but saw the marriage as a temporary arrangement.

I know these are extreme examples, but I just wanted to make a point that not every matrimonial ceremony is valid, because sometimes there is an invalidating condition not compatible with the making of a binding sacred vow.

That is not for either of the marriage partners to determine on their own. There has to be an objective investigation of the facts, and a judgment made by a Church tribunal. The initial assumption is always that the vows are binding. That can be overturned only of there is convincing evidence that the "vows" were fraudulent or defective from the beginning, and hence not really vows at all, i.e. not binding.

We believe this is the proper interpretation of what Our Lord said about "unlawful sexual unions" (Greek: porneia)

Matthew 5:32
"But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful - porneia) causes her to commit adultery (moicheia), and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery(moicheia)."

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