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Why not Communion for polygamists if we give it to divorced and remarried?: So Af Cardinal
Life Site News ^ | October 10, 2014 | Hilary White

Posted on 10/10/2014 4:07:21 PM PDT by NYer

If someone in Germany who is divorced and civilly remarried can receive Communion without being expected to change his lifestyle, why can’t someone in Africa who is “married” to two women do so as well?

That’s the question that Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, the archbishop of Durban, South Africa, asked in a recent interview with Catholic News Service. Napier added that a better way forward for the Church than the recommendation made by the German Cardinal Walter Kasper is to recommend the traditional Christian practice of fortitude in the face of suffering; the carrying of the cross. 

“Jesus didn’t say ‘I want the easiest cross to carry.’ He took what was coming. And I think that in many instances married people who find themselves in impossible situations – second-married people – are maybe just called to do that, to carry the cross with Christ.”

Cardinal Napier, who earlier joined those bishops denying any possibility of a change in Catholic teaching, said the logic should be applied to the question of polygamy, a practice that is common throughout Africa.

Speaking to an interviewer with the US bishops’ Catholic News Service, Cardinal Napier said, “What happens to a man who not a Catholic, but is married to a Catholic and then he takes another wife in a polygamous type of set-up, and he wants to, on occasion come and receive Communion?”

If Communion is to be offered to those who are divorced and civilly remarried, “on what basis are you going to refuse him?”

The cardinal described those who have remarried outside the Church as being “engaged in successive polygamy,” and asked if these people can receive Communion without changing their lifestyles, “why can’t a simultaneous polygamist have the same advantages?”

“After all, in his culture, it’s quite acceptable. For him, it’s natural, and the natural law theory [says] that if something is natural, there’s going to be some goodness in it.

“So there’s no conflict of conscience about accepting Christ and living polygamy at the same time. How are we going to deal with those? I think that’s what I meant by [saying] we are going to have to make some hard choices, I think.”

“Do we say that you don’t have to carry the cross because the world says, ‘No no, the soft option is always the easier one’?” Cardinal Napier said.

“And ultimately, is it the easier one? How do you get your children to marry, then, if you don’t get married … [How do you] get your children to make a life-long commitment if you have failed to do it yourself?”

In another interview, Cardinal Napier commended the intervention of the couple from the Philippines who asked the bishops for a stronger defence of the Church’s teaching on contraception and marriage.

With regards to the problems of conveying the Church’s teaching that have arisen since the start of the Sexual Revolution, the right way forward is more recourse to faith.

“Where there is strong faith,” he said, “those problems can be met and can be overcome.”

Their intervention set the tone, he said, for the rest of the interventions. “Whatever topics were then spoken about, I was measuring them against the context of an actual life testimony of a couple.”


TOPICS: Catholic; Ministry/Outreach; Moral Issues; Religion & Culture
KEYWORDS: cardinalkasper; catholic; communion; divorce; eucharist; familysynod; kasper; polygamy; rcc; remarriage; sacraments; synod; synodonthefamily; walterkasper
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To: Secret Agent Man

Polygamy is Biblical.


21 posted on 10/10/2014 6:06:37 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (Seriously.)
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To: NYer

And how about group marriages of multiple men and women? And of course the man/beast love association will want sanctification next.

(said partly in jest, but I figure that that will be the next “human rights” movement.)


22 posted on 10/10/2014 6:25:49 PM PDT by GreyFriar (Spearhead - 3rd Armored Division 75-78 & 83-87)
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To: NYer

bumpus ad summum


23 posted on 10/10/2014 6:30:15 PM PDT by Dajjal (Justice Robert Jackson was wrong -- the Constitution IS a suicide pact.)
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To: Mrs. Don-o

show me in the NT anywhere it says that, where it discusses what marriage is.


24 posted on 10/10/2014 6:42:46 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man ( Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Bayard

It seems to me that sinners would most benefit from the Body and Blood of Christ. Jesus did, after all, hang out with sinners on occasion...


25 posted on 10/10/2014 6:59:36 PM PDT by babygene
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To: babygene

This would be interesting, since the last supper was not celebrated with sinners.

I’m sure that if Jesus intended the sacrament to be distributed to those who were in a state of practical separation, he would have invited many sinners.

Further, in John’s Gospel for example, Satan entered into Judas the moment he ate with Jesus in the Gospel of John, since he had already planned his betrayal. (John 13:21-29)


26 posted on 10/10/2014 8:43:40 PM PDT by Bayard
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To: Bayard
Are you saying that the Eucharist is rightly meant to be distributed to those who have separated themselves from Christ by their practice?

Who does not set themselves apart from Christ by their practice? if any can go through a day without doing so, He needn't have died on the Cross. Then again, it is always nice to be able to compare oneself to another and decide that the other is really so much less worthy than oneself - gives one a smug sense of spiritual superiority.

27 posted on 10/11/2014 3:03:25 AM PDT by trebb (Where in the the hell has my country gone?)
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To: babygene
OF COURSE sinners benefit from the Body and Blood of Christ, Who came for this purpose: to save sinners.

That's why we have Confession --- the Sacrament of Penance --- so they/we can prepare them/ourselves properly for Holy Communion. Repent, seek the mercy of Jesus, confess,with a firm intention of not continuing in sin -- - that's the touch one, for me as for anyone --- and then you can properly approach the Blessed Sacrament.

28 posted on 10/11/2014 4:33:52 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (Seriously.)
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To: trebb
Good, Trebb. You may be interested in #28
29 posted on 10/11/2014 4:35:30 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (Seriously.)
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To: Mrs. Don-o
I appreciate the sentiment of post 28, but even with the best of intentions, one cannot help but continue in sinful ways. I, for one, get great comfort from the beattitude, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

While I understand the concept of repenting of ones sins and trying to do better, i also understand that, as a human, no matter how hard I try, or how good my intentions, i cannot go through a day without some sort of sinful behavior. Even those who were in direct contact with Jesus had their issues - Paul lamented that he kept doing the things he knew were wrong and could not do the things that he knew were right. I praise God daily for His Love and His Gift of Grace - I believe Him when, via Jeremiah in the Old Covenant, He told us, "They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them," declares the LORD, "for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."

Jesus hung out with those who needed Him and I doubt very much He would deny them the opportunity to commune with Him because of the sins that required His sacrifice - I have trouble with a religious tenet that makes distinctions/expectations conformity that He did not.

30 posted on 10/11/2014 4:52:50 AM PDT by trebb (Where in the the hell has my country gone?)
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To: trebb

Thanks for your thoughtful comment. Sin certainly is persistent, isn’t it? But one must seriously INTEND not to sin again, not to continue in habitual sin, and one must confess and repent with each fall, and keep on, aided by grace, struggling. Struggle is good.

We can surely with patience and humility, by gradual stages, reliant on the Lord’s strength, make progress. I see it in others. I hope someday to see it in myself.


31 posted on 10/11/2014 5:30:25 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (Seriously.)
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To: Mrs. Don-o

Not really. From the start, it was not God’s plan, sin and man’s lustful pride to dominate over women is what led to it, and while it did exist, wherever it did exist had terrible consequences within the Family and more importantly, among the People of Israel [Think of Samuel]. So while Polygamy existed during the periods accounted for during the OT, again it was not part of God’s plan as Christ himself revealed, Christ the Groom, and one Bride, the Church.


32 posted on 10/11/2014 6:10:48 AM PDT by CTrent1564
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To: Bayard

“This would be interesting, since the last supper was not celebrated with sinners.”

That’s an interesting point, though you may have drawn the wrong conclusion. Your assumption is that the apostles were not sinners... The only man we know that was “without sin” was Jesus himself. Which would imply all of the apostles were sinners, would it not?


33 posted on 10/11/2014 7:18:34 AM PDT by babygene
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To: Mrs. Don-o

“with a firm intention of not continuing in sin — - that’s the touch one, for me as for anyone”

I think it would be disingenuous, for me anyway, to state that I have a “firm intention” not to continue in sin when after going to confession weekly my whole life - my sins are always the same. I guess that depends on what one’s definition of “firm intention” is...

The best I can do is to try to let my life be guided by the Holy Spirit. It would be my firm wish not to continue in sin, but the only way I even have a chance is through Christ.


34 posted on 10/11/2014 7:35:39 AM PDT by babygene
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To: NYer

In some cultures that have polygamy, the wives after the first wife do all the menial stuff. My [first] wife has thought this could be a great system to adopt here! She’d be more than happy for me to have a second and third wife, so long as she gets to “manage” them.


35 posted on 10/11/2014 7:48:41 AM PDT by sitetest (If Roe is not overturned, no unborn child will ever be protected in law.)
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To: babygene

We’ll my broad statement might lead you to construing my statement of sin, in the broadest sense, I was not lumping the Apostles together with adulterers, and betrayers, which they were not.

Yes they were sinners, in a sense that all are not perfect, but there is clearly a difference between those who have repented and those who persist in sinful ways. Judas is an example, and a very clear example in John’s Gospel, of one who was clearly seeking to betray Jesus and at the last supper finally turned towards evil.


36 posted on 10/11/2014 9:48:59 AM PDT by Bayard
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To: NYer

I Could say i agreed with Napier if I agreed with the Catholic Church, but the only thing I have read on the subject is in 1 Corinthians ch 11:28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.

Let a man examine himself, even Paul did not think it was up to him to say who could or could not eat the bread or drink the wine.

The Bible clearly says that man and man and also man and beast is an abomination, though this is not mentioned in the commandments most likely because it is even against nature, a human being does not have to be told that.

This is explained in Leviticus 18 at a time when it is possible people were getting kind of inhuman.

It also says adultery is wrong but this is not quite so cut and dried, committing adultery is no different than stealing, you are taking something that does not belong to you.

Did Jacob take anything that did not belong to him? no, both of his wives were given to him by their father and his other two wives were given to him by his wives, he did not commit adultery as they belonged to him.

Would God have blessed Jacob if he was an adulterer? go figure.

Jesus said that if a man even looks after a woman with lust he has committed adultery.

Any one who has lusted after a woman who was not his is just as guilty as those who have bodily committed adultery.

Adultery is a sin which most men and women are susceptible to.

Jesus said if an eye offend thee to pluck it out, if Jesus had not have come to pay for our sins that is what we would have to do to be saved, we would have to pay a price to be saved.

But Jesus payed the price for us because I do not believed we would be willing to pay the price that would be required.

For those who love God and believe his son died for our sins have to die daily just as Paul said he did but once the body is turned back to the dust it came from it will no longer hold us back, our spirits will be free and be reconciled to God.


37 posted on 10/11/2014 9:59:22 AM PDT by ravenwolf (nd)
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To: NYer

We all knew this was coming. I think the Anglicans recently modified their stance on this, also because of Africa, but it’s going to reverberate in Utah, Arizona, etc.


38 posted on 10/11/2014 1:36:04 PM PDT by OldNewYork
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To: CTrent1564

I completely agree with you. I only said it was Biblical. There are a lot of marriage forms (and government forms, and judicial forms, and legal forms, and social forms) exhibited in the OT by our fathers in the Faith which are not moral norms for us. But they are Biblical.


39 posted on 10/11/2014 1:44:35 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (Seriously.)
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To: babygene

Amen.


40 posted on 10/11/2014 1:45:15 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (Seriously.)
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