(Photo: Reuters/Alessandro Bianchi)Pope Francis of the Roman Catholic Church addresses the faithful at the St. Peter's Square in Rome.
Posted on 06/26/2017 1:47:57 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Four theologically conservative cardinals have sent a new letter to Pope Francis asking for the head of the 1 billion-strong Roman Catholic Church to clarify his stance on divorce and remarriage.
(Photo: Reuters/Alessandro Bianchi)Pope Francis of the Roman Catholic Church addresses the faithful at the St. Peter's Square in Rome.
Posted by Vatican journalist Sandro Magister to his blog earlier this week, the letter was signed by Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, emeritus archbishop of Bologna, on behalf of himself and the other three cardinals and was sent in late April amid confusion in the church body.
At issue was the release in April of last year of the 255-page papal exhortation "Amoris Laetitia" (The Joy of Love), which appeared to take a more lenient approach to those who had divorced and then remarried.
(Photo: Reuters/Max Rossi)A view shows faithful gathering in St. Peter's Square as Pope Francis leads the Palm Sunday mass at the Vatican March 29, 2015.
"A year has now gone by since the publication of 'Amoris Laetitia.' During this time, interpretations of some objectively ambiguous passages of the post-synodal Exhortation have publicly been given that are not divergent from but contrary to the permanent Magisterium of the Church," wrote Cardinal Caffarra.
"Despite the fact that the Prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith has repeatedly declared that the doctrine of the Church has not changed, numerous statements have appeared from individual Bishops, Cardinals, and even Episcopal Conferences, approving what the Magisterium of the Church has never approved. Not only access to the Holy Eucharist for those who objectively and publicly live in a situation of grave sin, and intend to remain in it, but also a conception of moral conscience contrary to the Tradition of the Church."
In his blog entry from Tuesday, Magister reported that the pope has not responded to the letter, or earlier letters regarding this matter, including the request to have an audience over their questions.
"The letter was in Francis' hands back on May 6. But the prolonged absence of a response has expanded its nature," stated Magister.
"... in the meantime it is also useful to point out that, during the 45 days that have passed between the delivery of the letter to the pope and its publication, the Babel of interpretations of 'Amoris Laetitia' ... has continued to grow."
In the "Joy of Love" document, the Catholic Church suggested that those who divorced and remarried couuld receive the Sacrament of Communion.
"It is important that the divorced who have entered a new union should be made to feel part of the Church," noted page 184 of the exhortation.
"The Christian community's care of such persons is not to be considered a weakening of its faith and testimony to the indissolubility of marriage; rather, such care is a particular expression of its charity."
The exhortation stated later on page 229, quoting an earlier church document, that baptized members "who are divorced and civilly remarried need to be more fully integrated into Christian communities in the variety of ways possible, while avoiding any occasion of scandal."
"The logic of integration is the key to their pastoral care, a care which would allow them not only to realize that they belong to the Church as the body of Christ, but also to know that they can have a joyful and fruitful experience in it," continued the exhortation.
"Such persons need to feel not as excommunicated members of the Church, but instead as living members, able to live and grow in the Church and experience her as a mother who welcomes them always, who takes care of them with affection and encourages them along the path of life and the Gospel."
The Associated Press noted that since the release of the "Joy of Love," church leaders "around the world have issued different interpretations of what Francis wrote."
"More conservative bishops have reaffirmed traditional church teaching on the indissolubility of marriage; others have taken Francis' opening and gone further," reported the AP.
"The bishops of Malta, for example, said sometimes it might be 'humanly impossible' for the new couple to abstain from sex."
On the one hand, remarried Christians should be allowed to take Holy Communion, should they repent of any sins committed.
And Scripture DOES warn against divorced and remarried couples divorcing AGAIN and remarrying each other. In fact, remarrying your original partner after divorcing and remarrying was considered worse than the divorce was in the first place.
On the other hand, I am VERY suspicious of everything coming from Frankie. If he told me that the sun is yellow I’d look out the window and check.
The Impopester will ignore them.
This is not the pope and he is acting more every day like the false prophet. He is less and less subtle and more directly acting like a politician and mouthpiece for all that is wrong with the world. Today he called for one world government to save mankind! From what, the lie of global warming? Jesus already saved mankind on the cross from sin, separation from God, and defeated death itself and did not come to save the planet.
The ‘one world government’ pope???
Has he ever read the Bible?
Just another self important poseur - should be run out of the Church. Take away his financial support and he would quickly find religion.
There have been bad Popes before and we’re still soldiering on.
But Frankie should serve as a warning to all Christians in the world to be ready for Jesus to return, as a thief in the night.
It may be tomorrow; it may be in ten thousand years. But it WILL happen.
Yes, he will ignore them. Their plea to meet with him was delivered in late April! Popester is much to busy bullying Nigeria, clogging family issue councils with opposition forces, destroying the lucrative Knights of Malta, buzzing Burke during his off hours, and insulting Traditional Catholic faithful.
Outrageous.
Enough with clarifying his words time and time and time and time and time again. Boot him and get a new pope who has actually opened the Bible.
Where are you getting that from?
More and more Catholics are waking up to this truth.
Deuteronomy 24: 1-4
and
Jeremiah 3: 1-5
Better that divorce never happens; it is a sin. You might be able to make exceptions for adultery and make it not a sin for the wronged party, but that’s neither here nor there right now.
The point seems to be that once divorce is done, it’s done. I’d need to do more research and reading about remarrying your original partner if you DON’T remarry, but it seems to me that the opinion of the Lord is pretty clear here about going back to your first partner after remarriage.
But again, even that is a sin that can be forgiven; if it happened in my congregation (or remarriage or divorce in general) I would probably insist on public confession and absolution before allowing participation in the Lord’s Supper, but I would allow it.
You said it!
I’m pretty sure I don’t fall into the definition of traditional Catholic faithful, but even I’m insulted by this guy pretty much every time he speaks.
I mean, even though, as I mentioned upthread, I believe that remarried people who have repented should be allowed Communion, I am STILL insulted because the argument—far as I can tell—doesn’t even stem from the Word of God, but from feel-good bleeding heart leftism.
That’s just an insult to the grace of God in general.
Using Old Testament passages against remarrying one’s spouse seems problematic in light of Christ’s later teaching.
As mentioned in post #15, the passages you cited describe natural marriages between Jews- not sacramental marriages of Christians. The Church has always taught that Jesus raised marriage back to the level of a sacrament. See Mark Chapter 10
Not really. Just because Jesus spoke about the Ten Commandments doesn’t mean that we don’t need to learn them, after all. And even if we don’t sacrifice animals in the Temple any more, it’s still worth studying because it gives us deeper understanding of what it means and the character of God.
Anyways.
Jesus said that divorce happens because of the hardness of our hearts.
And our hearts are still hard.
Jesus never said that there’s no such thing as divorce, just that God never meant intended it to happen, and that God hates it. But divorce DOES happen; you just need to look around to see that.
So it’s not any kind of stretch to look at God’s Law involving the behavior of a divorced couple in order to determine what to do when divorce does happen.
And God says that remarriage—except maybe in the case of adultery, but again that’s not relevant to the point at the moment—is sin. But also that re-re-marriage, even to your original partner, is ALSO sin.
But like all sin, divorce and remarriage is covered by the blood of Christ. Confess it; absolve it; don’t do it again. And you’re still part of the Body of Christ.
I’m not Catholic; I don’t believe that ‘church teaching’ is authoritative, only Scripture.
But to answer your objection, if Jesus was changing the institution of marriage, why did he say ‘From the BEGINNING it was not so’? Look at the original text in Greek, and you get that marriage is marriage no matter when it happens; there was never any change in God’s intentions for marriage when he gave the Law to Moses.
God made allowances for divorce because he knows that sin happens, and he did so in order to protect the wronged party. In the Christian life, we also must take marriage VERY seriously.
But if divorce DOES happen, and it will, and if remarriage does happen, and it will, then we can look at the other examples in Scripture to know what to do about it.
God says very clearly that remarrying your original partner after divorcing a second wife or husband is abominable. I see no reason to argue with that.
Hey for $500 you can get an annulment from your spouse of 20 years who you have 3 kids with and are divorced. Then you can both take communion again.
Now that’s just sad. I’m pretty sure that the Catholics on the board would object to that happening. But I’m also pretty sure that it does happen.
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