Posted on 06/13/2008 6:38:38 AM PDT by camerakid400
George W Bush and Pope Benedict XVI have held an intimate meeting in Rome as rumours mounted in Italy that the president may follow in Tony Blair's footsteps and convert to Catholicism.
The two men spoke for half an hour in the 12th century Tower of St John, a private area in the Vatican gardens which is used by the pope for private reflection.
The usual protocol for heads-of-state is a meeting in the pope's library in the Apostolic Palace, but a spokesman for the Vatican said Benedict wanted to reward Mr Bush for the "warmth" of his reception at the White House earlier this year.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
You’ve confused the prudential statements and acts of some members of the episcopacy with the official teaching of the Church. Too bad you didn’t put forth the effort to learn the truth.
The level of ignorance displayed publicly by your ilk is what is bad.
You know he didn't take communion in Falls Church? The preacher called it to his attention one Sunday -- after which he stopped coming to church on Communion Sunday!
By the way do you have certifiable proof that Kennedy was granted an annulment or are you just making an assumption and repeating what you've heard or read? You do know that his second marriage to Victoria Reggie was a civil ceremony performed in front of the fireplace in the living room of his Virginia home and not a religious one, don't you?
Bravo! Excellent post.
Having a preference is ignorant?
Whatever you say, chief.
Thank you.
However, good luck to any Roman Catholics who can manage to get themselves a matrimonial mulligan.
I have enjoyed our conversation - thank you.
“You do site some plausible cases for getting out of a bad marriage,...”
Actually, the process of annulment is not made to permit people to escape from a “bad” marriage, but only to recognize marriages that were not sacramentally valid.
If you married someone who was a good and faithful spouse, a good, orthodox and devout Catholic, and that person later went astray, the proper application of the Catholic theology of marriage would not permit a declaration of nullity. In the intervening years, he may have turned into a drunk, an inveterate gambler, and a womanizer, but in that when he contracted marriage he did so with full consent of the will and free from any impediments to marriage in form or matter, with no mental reservations and without any fraud, you cannot divorce him and obtain a declaration of nullity. At most, the Church will accept that you might be required to civilly divorce him, but you will be absolutely unable to marry in the Church.
“...hoverer, the example of the man married for 20 years with three kids was Ted Kennedy - I doubt he was coerced into marrying Joan Bennett.”
In Mr. Kennedy's case, I doubt that the cause for a declaration of nullity would have been coercion. However, if Mr. Kennedy brought with him the same attitude toward marital chastity as his older brothers, a declaration of nullity based on lack of intention might have been appropriate.
I will however note, as AA Cunningham points out, that he did not remarry in the Catholic Church.
This suggests one of three things:
1. He did not actually obtain a declaration of nullity. If you have actual proof that this actually occurred, as to opposed to general non-specific reports, that would be helpful.
2. He obtained a declaration of nullity, was made free to marry in the Church, but just didn't care enough to do so.
3. He obtained a declaration of nullity, but did not obtain the freedom to remarry. You may not realize this, but sometimes a Catholic marriage tribunal will rule that a. There was no sacramental marriage because of the impediment of one or both parties and b. That because the impediment to marriage still exists on the part of one or both parties, one or both of them are not free to marry.
A friend of my wife's was married to a fellow from South Carolina. He divorced her, and his mother urged him to also obtain a declaration of nullity so that he could be free to marry in the Church. The tribunal heard the case, agreed that there was no sacramental marriage because at the time of the wedding, the two of them had been insufficiently psychologically mature to understand enough of the nature of sacramental marriage to make full consent of the will. In fact, their priest had discouraged them from marrying for just this reason, but he acquiesced when they persisted in their request.
The tribunal thus granted a declaration of nullity stating that no sacramental marriage took place. The tribunal also released the young woman, my wife's friend, so that she might marry, as the tribunal found her at that time to have reached maturity.
However, the young man was found to have a psychological deformity of persistent arrested development, and was told that he was unable to contract a Catholic marriage, and thus was barred more or less permanently from marrying in the Church.
Even with his declaration of nullity.
Thus, annulments are not “matrimonial mulligans,” but rather recognitions that not all attempted sacramental marriages obtain to that status.
sitetest
So, if a man has a good marriage and realizes many years later that - for which ever of the Roman Catholic church's reasons - he should not have married his wife, is he morally bound to cast her aside?
Perhaps, to a Roman Catholic, all that is very convenient, but what about the children of a so-called non existent marriage. Does that not make them bastards?
Good luck to wives of Roman Catholics!
As I said in my last post, I have enjoyed our conversation, but must leave FR now and go to work.
FRegards,
“So, if a man has a good marriage and realizes many years later that - for which ever of the Roman Catholic church's reasons - he should not have married his wife, is he morally bound to cast her aside?”
No, of course not. That's a real non sequitur, and again really misapprehends Catholic teaching. Are you saying that you believe that someone coerced into a marriage is validly marriage? Are you saying that someone who never intended marital fidelity from the very first day of marriage had a real marriage? Are you saying that someone still married to someone else can validly marry?
However, if one discovers an objective defect to one's marriage, one might need to remedy the situation. Let's say a Catholic and a non-Catholic Christian marry in front of a Protestant minister - no Catholic priest present, no dispensation to do so. From the Catholic perspective, the Catholic party was obligated to have a Catholic wedding. Having failed to do so, the marriage isn't valid.
Some years later, perhaps the non-Catholic spouse decides to be received into full communion of the Catholic Church. At this point, if one or the other spouse wishes to be a practicing Catholic, able to receive the sacraments, and at the same time for the couple to continue to live as married people, the couple must have the marriage validated in the Church. I'm aware of at least two ways to do that. But this is a case where an impediment - lack of proper form - prevented a valid marriage but where the impediment can be removed and the marriage validated.
The Catholic partner, upon the reception of the non-Catholic spouse into the Church, is not obligated to “cast [the spouse] aside.”
“...but what about the children of a so-called non existent marriage. Does that not make them bastards?”
No more than folks who get married in front of a justice of the peace. Legitimacy is a function of civil law. It has to do with things like inheritance. What makes children legitimate or not is whether their children were civilly married at the time of birth. Civil marriage is a thing apart from sacramental marriage. Thus, a declaration of nullity has no effect on legitimacy.
sitetest
Yes, I am, I was speaking to the point of why if the President has been planning to convert to RCC he was attening an Episcopal Church when a RCC church is nearby. Practice? Maybe!
Any bias here?
You might want to update Wikipedia on your correction.
So the President had sex with the Pope?
So let us do what my late mother often advised - agree to disagree.
Best wishes to you.
I'm not trying to persuade you one way or the other of anything.
But you've posted a number of things about the process of obtaining declarations of nullity for putative Catholic marriages, and much of the information in your posts has not accurately reflected Catholic theology on marriage. To the best of my limited abilities, I've tried to explain just what the process is, how it works, and for what purposes it exists. I've tried to explain what it is in Catholic theology on marriage that requires the process, and how that works with regard to the process.
If folks think it's hypocrisy not to call coerced marriages, marriages without full consent of the will, marriages by people too immature to have sufficient knowledge of the required commitment of sacramental marriage, marriage by persons who never really committed to sacramental marriage, non-sacramental marriages, then so be it.
But that's not the Catholic perspective, and I'm merely trying to provide you and others with that perspective.
sitetest
Correction:
“If folks think it’s hypocrisy not to call coerced marriages [etc.]... non-sacramental marriages, then so be it.”
SHOULD BE:
“If folks think it’s hypocrisy not to call coerced marriages [etc.]... sacramental marriages, then so be it.”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.