What the church should worry about is sodomite marriages and protecting Christians from the ravages of Islam. Like the Russian Orthodox Church and Putin are doing. Time for a Crusade Francis!
Posted on 10/10/2015 6:22:41 AM PDT by ebb tide
One of Germany’s representatives at the worldwide meeting of Catholic prelates on family has pointedly told the gathering that church teaching preventing divorced and remarried persons from receiving the Eucharist makes people “doubt God.”
Berlin Archbishop Heiner Koch has used his 3-minute address during the deliberations to directly address one of the issues known to be creating the most disagreement among the prelates, saying he is often asked why remarried couples are barred from the Eucharistic table.
The church’s theological arguments “do not silence the questions in the hearts of people,” Koch told the assembly.
“Is there no place at the Lord’s table for people who experienced and suffered an irreversible break in their lives?” he asked. “How perfect and holy must one be to be allowed to the supper of the Lord?”
“It becomes clear to me every time that the question of allowing divorced and remarried people to the Eucharist is not in the first place a question about the indissolubility of the sacrament of marriage,” said the archbishop.
“Many people question the Church and her mercy in this regard,” he said. “More than a few people concerned leave the Church with their children on the basis of what they see as rejection.”
“Ultimately and most profoundly it is much more about the Christian faith and God and His mercy,” he continued. “For many, the question of admittance to the Eucharist makes them doubt God.”
Each of the some 270 bishops participating in the Oct. 4-25 Synod is being given three minutes to address the entire assembly. While the meetings are not open, and the press is therefore not witnessing each of the statements, some of the bishops are making their remarks public.
Koch released his statement in German at the website of the country’s episcopal conference. Mark de Vries, a Dutch blogger, has released an English-language translation of the remarks.
The German archbishop’s text is notable for the way it directly confronts an issue known to be causing disagreement in the Synod.
While some bishops have expressed an openness to a proposal for some sort of “penitential path” to allow some divorced and remarried Catholics to receive communion, others have expressed concerns that such a proposal would put in doubt the church’s teaching on the indissolubility of marriage.
Divorced and remarried Catholics are currently prohibited from taking Communion unless they have received annulments of their first marriages.
In a sign of the disagreement on the issue, of the Synod’s organizers opened the event Monday by saying there could be no “graduality” on the matter.
“In the search for pastoral solutions for the difficulties of certain civilly divorced and remarried persons, it is presently held that the fidelity to the indissolubility of marriage cannot be joined to the practical recognizing of the goodness of concrete situations that stand opposed and are therefore incompatible,” said Hungarian Cardinal Peter Erdő, who is serving as the Synod’s general relator.
“Indeed, between true and false, between good and evil, there is not a graduality,” he continued. “Even if some forms of living together bring in themselves certain positive aspects, this does not mean that they can be presented as good things.”
Koch, who was appointed as the leader of the Berlin archdiocese by Francis in June, also focused his comments at the Synod on a range of other issues. He spoke in particular about the needs of interfaith marriages, struggles of single parents, of families with many children, of refugees, and a desire to protect the elderly and unborn children
“It is so important that the Holy Father, with us, sends out from this Synod the Gospel of the mystery of marriage, with a new hermeneutic, in a new language, a language of fullness, of blessing, of the richness of life, provocative and inviting for the people,” said the German archbishop.
“What grace is offered to the people, what participation in God’s order of creation and salvation, what depths of mutual love between God and people: Marriage is for us about a life in fullness and in the love of God, even in our brokenness,” said Koch.
“This must be our message in Church and society,” he said. “The Synod cannot give the impression that we mainly fought over divorce and conditions for admittance to the sacraments.”
When was the last time anyone was excommunicated?
What the church should worry about is sodomite marriages and protecting Christians from the ravages of Islam. Like the Russian Orthodox Church and Putin are doing. Time for a Crusade Francis!
I know way too many American Catholics who went into a marriage, cognizant of it as a holy sacrament, but their spouse at a later point decided they did not want to be married, and nothing on Earth can prevent it when the LAW allows it. When one person wants a divorce and other does not, what does the law do? It lets a court absolutely dissolve the marriage.
Despite every and anything the Bible says, which is that the two become one, only one can dissolve it completely under the secular law. What does the other half who does NOT want this to happen supposed to do? AND this is the half that takes their vows as HOLY?
It seems they get penalized far worse than the spouse who gladly uses the law to dissolve the marriage. For the God fearing spouse, it is either getting the Church to declare the marriage invalid from the beginning, which is not necessarily true, but made a “truth” for convenience sake, OR remain celibate and unloved until death.
Consummation is an issue in civil annulments. Or used to be anyway. You don't hear much about them nowadays, unless you're a fan of old movies or Jane Austen. A church annulment states that the marriage was not sacramental and has no effect on the legal/civil situation.
Church legalese. I have 2 friends. Both Catholic. Both divorced from their first sposes neither had kids. They wanted to get married (this was in the 80s. ). The church said sure.....give us X amount and it’s a done deal. It was too rich for their blood.....they got married in some Christian church or other and had 2 daughters whom they raised Roman Catholic.
You were actually in on the annulment discussions? I didn’t realize non-parties were allowed to participate.
Let us not conflate love and sex. Many unloving people have sex. Many celibate people are greatly loved by others and are themselves quite loving. Is eternal life worth sacrifice? Is our hope in this world or in the next?
The question is when is a vow taken in God’s name excused? Who can relieve one of the obligation? Politicians swear to protect and defend the Constitution. When is performance excused? John Wayne said a man is only good for one oath at a time. Do we enter in to them too casually?
Under threat of mortal sin and eternal damnation for getting remarried.
I am a child of divorce, and I sought a Catholic to marry and converted to Catholicism because of the Church’s stance on divorce. I was 18 when I met my husband, and 20 when I married, and still regarded divorce from the perspective of a child. That perspective helped me over a rocky spot - you don’t do that to your children - and we are happily married 34 years now.
My parents could not have saved their marriage; my father was incurably mentally ill and a civil divorce was appropriate. If my mother had been a practicing Catholic, should she have been required to lead a celibate and single life? I don’t know. There were faint indications of my father’s illness at the time of their marriage, but it were not directed towards her, and for a little while, they were happy and it was a true marriage.
I agree with you, some of it is harder on someone that is trying to do right, and I have some experience at this. I was married before, then married a Catholic girl (not a church wedding due to the time involved) A bad marriage when I was 20, with a cheating spouse who left, could prevent me from joining her in the church.
After all this, the thing that will ultimately help my annulment go through.....is the fact that she adamantly refused to have children. I’ts kind of a complicated, slow motion affair. If it would have been easier, I would have done it long ago, but want to do it now to facilitate getting children and grandchildren to go to the church more. We’ve had a perfect 30 year marriage.
Saint Paul says this about marriage in 1 Corinthians 7: Now concerning the thing whereof you wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. 2 But for fear of fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. 3 Let the husband render the debt to his wife, and the wife also in like manner to the husband. 4 The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband. And in like manner the husband also hath not power of his own body, but the wife. 5 Defraud not one another, except, perhaps, by consent, for a time, that you may give yourselves to prayer; and return together again, lest Satan tempt you for your incontinency.
However--legally--in the United States, a woman owns her own body; the husband does not and can be arrested and jailed for violating that in any way. For example, just try to stop your wife from getting an abortion. you cannot, not even in a court of law.
Suppose a young man and woman participates in the sacrament of marriage, but a few years later she decides she doesn't want to be married, loves another man, commits adultery, files for divorce, takes her husband's fortune by successfully divorcing for "mental cruelty" and leaves, disappearing without a trace.
A few years later this young man is older, and wants children, and as Saint Paul told us in 1 Corinthians 7:9 But if they do not contain themselves, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to be burnt.
My next point would be, is a sacrament not a real sacrament if someone later breaks it, or is breaking a sacrament a sin? One can be forgiven for a sin if one is truly sorrowful and repents, but if they do not, the sin remains.
My point on Annulments is that the Church has contrived an idea that declares the sacrament to not really be a sacrament because it was entered in a falsehood by one or both parties. However, this interpretation is not applied against any of the other sacraments. Violation of any of them is just plain sin, and the wages of sin are death--the sin is blotted out ONLY by repentance and forgiveness, not that it wasn't "really" a sacrament.
Annulment is a legal proceeding, not a forgiveness of sin. Why, if a divorced person is unable to keep their spouse in the marriage, and then if that person remarries and keeps those vows, along with his spouse, is it a sin of that individual?
Further on in 1 Corinthians, St Paul says: But to them that are married, not I but the Lord commandeth, that the wife depart not from her husband. 11 And if she depart, that she remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband. And let not the husband put away his wife. 12 For to the rest I speak, not the Lord. If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she consent to dwell with him, let him not put her away. 13 And if any woman hath a husband that believeth not, and he consent to dwell with her, let her not put away her husband. 14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife; and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the believing husband: otherwise your children should be unclean; but now they are holy. 15 But if the unbeliever depart, let him depart. For a brother or sister is not under servitude in such cases. But God hath called us in peace.
So note that last verse, # 15. If someone took part in a sacrament, and then broke the sacrament, and didn't care, and didn't ask for any forgiveness, would not that make such a person an unbeliever? Has God not given peace to the faithful spouse? Doesn't this Peace of God let them marry a faithful person when the unbeliever leaves?
My believe is it actually does. An annulment should not be required in this this situation because the one who sins and seeks no repentance is still in sin unless they someday repent. An annulment states the sacrament never happened and that is just not so--you have one party who kept it, but another who didn't.
You can say, of course, that's just too bad, the Law is the Law. However, I would say that that is a very Pharisee-like interpretation of the law. Mary Magdelene was indeed a prostitute, and the Law did indeed say she should be stoned to death, but Jesus challenged this Pharisee-in interpretation of the law and forgave her, with only the injunction to sin no more.
But God truly knows what is in a person’s heart. You can deceive man; Priests, laypersons, relatives, even a spouse, but you cannot deceive God. Church Law at some point needs to take someone’s word that they are truthful, whether in any of the declaratory Sacraments—Confirmation, Marriage, Reconciliation,or Holy Orders.
Please don’t confuse the issue with facts.
This synod was a grave mistake on the part of the pope. He should never convened it. There was no need for it.
In convening it, he was yielding to pressure from the gays and the remarried catholics. That was wrong. Things don’t change with the times unless you are talking about jewelry or fashion. All else is static.
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