“a couple who are divorced and remarried to each other twice might not have the belief that marriage is a permanent condition”
Hahahaha you do realize the insane circular logic you just put forth? Hey, I divorced, but you know what the Church might not grant us an annulment, so you know what, lets get hitched again, and divorced again so we can claim we didn’t think it was permanent. Please, the church’s stand on annulment is pretty much, if you write a big enough check, you are golden. Its basically a bureaucratic tax to the church... might as well be the selling of indulgences.
I do believe that divorce happens yes, and I do believe that just as God allowed for divorce in Mosaic Law, he still does today, because he knows the humans hearts can be hard... Are you suggesting that suddenly God forgot that fact when Christ walked the earth? That suddenly, what he had known about the nature of man, and accounted for, was now no longer true? That doesn’t sound like a very wise God to me. No doubt God hates divorce, but got hates all sins... but that doesn’t mean God writes of mankind because he knows we all will fail and sin.
The Church is free to teach its cannon, and have whatever processes it deems fit to put into place, but this stupid divorce/remarried no communion thing is just laughable, as any mortal sin should keep those from the Eucharist, and yes honestly most folks, unless they are hitting the confessional no less than once a month are probably walking around with at least one if not a few on their souls, but are still taking and getting the Eucharist without anyone making stinks about it. So, either decide to enforce your dogma and doctrine as written, or stop trying to portray one mortal sin as different and special to others. If you want to talk about who shouldn’t receive the Eucharist and why, that’s fine, just talk about the whole package instead of always going to this one situation and trying to make it the case, while ignoring all the others.
I don’t think Adultery is silly or a joke, but I do think that the entire process and stand of the Church on these particular matters is absurdly comical. NO divorce is not something to take lightly, but to believe that if a relationship ends that hey, if you want to continue living your life, you must now go forward and live your life from that point forward as an emotionless soul is flat out insanity.
And as to your attempt to limit it to “catholic marriage” that’s a joke as well because the Catholic Church recognizes any marriage, civil, or in any other denomination as presumed a legitimate marriage... So even if you were to have a completely secular wedding, as a Catholic, if you were to divorce, you are still married.. even though the Church had nothing to do with the union... I understand their arguments for this stand, but its pretty tough to say, if you had a civil union, you can’t have a civil divorce because hey the Catholic Church still thinks you are married even though it had nothing to do with your original union to begin with.
So lets recap, a person marries, divorces, then remarries... but never goes and pays for an annulment, well guess what? In the Catholic Church you are now an adulterer... Even if the catholic church had no involvement in your marriage.. even if your spouse abandoned you... or even physically abused you... if you don’t go ask for an annulment you are an adulterer and living in mortal sin.
You see the Catholic Teaching puts themselves into a box, if a legitimate marriage occurs... NOTHING can break that marriage... so, if that’s the case, to somehow come up with an OUT, they have a tribunal to determine if the marriage was actually a marriage to begin with.. which of course is kind of laughable, because unless someone put a gun to your head and made you say I Do.. you pretty much willfully got married.... but the church knowing like any sane human being would know, that humans are flawed and failed creatures, that divorce will happen so, since you can’t break a marriage, we have to twist ourselves in knots to declare no marriage actually happened... This is just as ludicrous as the idea that certain jews have if you tie a string in a big enough loop and both ends touch your house, you are still inside your house when you are actually in your backyard... so you can go in your backyard on those days when the teachings say you must stay in your home.
We will all stand before our maker at one point or another, and if being divorced and remarried is the worst thing you got on the strikes against you after 80 years on this planet, not saying God will be happy about it and may not have to face some judgement for it, but if he can forgive the pedophile who raped while acting as the representative of God on earth... I think God’s grace will still be there for the divorced and remarried.
Yes, if you marry in the Catholic church, divorce and remarry without an annulment, (unless you marry the same person)you are committing adultery because you are still married in the eyes of God and the church. That is Catholic doctrine, it applies to Catholics.
The fact that others receive communion when they are not in a state of grace does not have any bearing on this. “Everybody does it” is not a valid excuse. In the Catholic Church, the Eucharist is where you are joined with Christ AFTER you are reconciled by the Sacrament of Reconciliation. “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.”
Catholics consider every Christian marriage valid until it is proven not valid. Nobody is going to come looking for you and question your marriage. If Catholics married outside of the Catholic Church obtain a civil divorce and later wish to be married in the Catholic Church, they will be granted an annulment with minimal effort as the first marriage lacked proper form and is thus non-sacramental.
It becomes more complicated when the first marriage was in the Catholic Church, however, it is not terribly expensive (only $500 in my archdiocese) and those who cannot pay are not turned away, so the myth of annulments being bought for “big dollars” is just that. It is the perpetuation of these myths that keeps divorced people from seeking annulments that might very well be properly granted, allowing them back into communion with the church.
The logic is not circular. If both spouses believed in the permanence of Catholic marriage at the time of the vows, at least on those grounds the marriage is valid and sacramental, and annulment will not be granted regardless of someone changing their mind later and obtaining a civil divorce.
The divorce itself is not sufficient evidence to show that the vows were spoken invalidly, however, especially if one spouse remarries after a divorce, it is obvious that they currently don’t believe the vows that they professed during their first wedding, so it is logical to investigate WHEN they stopped believing in the permanence of marriage, before or after the vows were taken.
As for ‘emotionless souls’, do you believe that every unmarried person fits that description? Because the Bible clearly shows that sexual relations outside of marriage are sinful, so every unmarried person is called to be celibate. Married people separated from their spouses for any reason are also called to be celibate. Do you believe that life without sexual relations is meaningless, impossible, abnormal, emotionless? Deployed military and their spouses, those whose partners are ill or disabled, widows and widowers, are these all emotionless souls? Have humans no capacity for self-control?
Love,
O2