Posted on 10/06/2007 5:20:34 PM PDT by CedarDave
Every Sunday, Christie Servantez and her boyfriend, Timothy Chavez, go to Mass at Sacred Heart Church in Albuquerque. But when it comes time to receive the Eucharist ..., the couple is shut out.
That's because Servantez and Chavez live together but aren't married.
In the eyes of the Catholic church, they have "broken their communion with their church" and aren't allowed to receive the Eucharist and participate in Holy Communion.
Servantez and Chavez say it makes them sad to be unable to experience the most important sacrament of their faith.
It's a big part of the reason the couple signed up to be married in a group wedding ceremony on Feb. 2, 2008, planned by the Archdiocese of Santa Fe to legitimize couples who are living together or who are in civil marriages that aren't recognized by the church.
"We've been together for two years, living together," said Servantez. ...
The group wedding ceremony is the brainchild of Deacon Juan Barajas, director of Hispanic ministry for the archdiocese. Barajas said he conceived the idea to help the many couples who are devout in their faith and attend church regularly but who have never married in the church.
"If they are Catholic, the most important sacrament in the church is the Eucharist. But by living in a marital relationship without sacramental blessing, they are excluded from the Eucharist. ... This is a way to bring them back to the table."
~~snip~~
With Archbishop Michael Sheehan's blessing, Barajas planned a group wedding ceremony in 2004 ... The event attracted 151 couples— so many the ceremony had to be divided among several churches in Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Sheehan presided over the largest group wedding— the union of 38 couples at St. Francis Cathedral in Santa Fe, said Barajas.
(Excerpt) Read more at abqjournal.com ...
Also in today's Journal, birth, ethnic statistics from 2005:
Single mothers accounted for half the state's births in 2005.
The state's ethnic composition in 2005 was: Anglo, 43.1 percent; Hispanic, 41.4 percent; and American Indian, 11.2 percent.
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/600425nm10-06-07.htm
OK, here’s a question. The last two Sat evenings, I have gone to Mass in two different parishes and had latinos behind me chatting all the way through the service. Is this a cultural thing or what? I was able to stair down the people last weekend. This weekend I couldn’t catch their eye. They quieted down before the Consecration but started right back up when they got back from Communion so I left early. grrrrrr
They do this in the Philippines, where people can’t afford marriage cermonies but live in common law marriages. Even the fee for a license or to the priest may be too high for poor people. So they hold “group marriages”, usually with the mayor footing the bill and holding a mass ceremony and party for all involved...
In many parts of Latin America, there is only a visiting priest, so people live in common law marriages, and only get the papers later...under canon law, they are not living in sin if a priest is not available, since the “ministers” of marriage are the couple themselves, not the priest, who merely is there as a witness.
But when these folks move to the cities or the US, the custom from their villages continues, but they now are disobeying church law, since there are priests available for the marriage.
There is a difference. Most couples in the US living together don’t consider themselves married. When I ask the woman, who is this, she says “My fiance”, implying that she considers it marriage, but usually the man will say: It’s my girlfriend” meaning he can leave when ever he wishes. That’s why in the US usually if you live together, the priest will insist you move apart for a few months, so that issues of marriage can be discussed with less pressure. Indeed, this type of living together has a higher divorce rate, since many of the things that need to be discussed before marriage are kept in (especially by the woman) for fear the partner will leave them financially high and dry.
However, in the Philippine or in Latin America, common law marriage is accepted as marriage, not merely shacking up...everyone considers you married, and you consider yourself married, with a lifelong commitment.
I’v’e never heard of anything like this before. Hmmmm.
Pray for them.
Our Spanish community is learning and more and more of them are coming to the English Masses because they like the quiet!
I don’t see anything wrong with it, the article says that they are civilly married.
When my husband and I joined the Catholic Church our marriage automatically became sacramental because we joined together but my son and DIL had to have their marriage sacramentalized before they were confirmed because my DIL had been baptised a Catholic.
Oops, I reread the article and it says that some of them are just living together. How could you sacramentalize a non-existent marriage?
Get the waaaaahhhhhhmbulance. This is discrimination? They could just GET MARRIED. There, problem solved. If you don’t like the rules, go somewhere else.
Exactly my question -- When you have no commitment, how can you call it a marriage? On the other hand, if they are committed to coming to church and take this route to receive Communion, is it wrong? Definite moral issues and questions of Church doctrine here.
Sounds like a definite loosening of the church rules for who is eligible for receiving Communion. Similar to priests giving communion to political candidates who support abortion.
get used to it, the catholic church adores latinos.
that is why I left over 20+ years ago. my aunt, a devout catholic told me my husband and I were not married because the marriage wasn’t performed in a catholic church by a preist.
I joined a methodist church and was married by a minister in that church. guess God only is present in the catholic church and no where else.
One of the reasons that we Catholics hesitate to question or even comment on issues in our Church is that people start attacking the entire Church. Sometimes those attacks are grounded in generations of bigotry and sometimes they arise from pain. Many people attack institutions which they believed harmed them in the past. My husband and I have been able to separate the culture of the Catholic Church from the theology. I’m still a Catholic because of the Eucharist and because of the theology and because of the 2000 year tradition. I am definitely not opposed to Latino culture having lived and traveled extensively in Latin America but as a flawed individual, I treasure having my spiritual moments MY WAY! It is likely that my Lord is calling me in those distractions at Mass and I just don’t quite know yet what he is asking me to do.
That’s very interesting information.
I am a bit curious about why you and your husband decided to retire in the Philippines.
My husband is a Philippino by birth, an American by choice. But after he had a stroke we decided to retire here. He has recovered, but if we stayed in the US, if he was crippled he’d end up in a nursing home. So I took early retirement and we moved here, where if he gets sick extended family will care for him at home.
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