Will he ever be able to recieve Holy Communion with his past marry/divorces?
Wonder if Pelosi is ever going to put a cork in her drunk with Power trip and come back to her faith as the Church teaches like in Mr. Sperm meets Mrs. Egg and that is conception 100% not to be aborted for any inconveinance to the Parents to be.
We could sure use those in the Political position to speak out for the faith like Alan Keyes does that could turn around alot of those Catholics who do not undestand the Churches teaching on issues such as abortion.
My understanding is that past sin, if confessed and absolved, allows a Catholic to receive Holy Communion.
For example, past irregular marriages, divorces, adulteries, or what have you can be absolved in a sacramentaql confession and then the Holy Communion is available.
The issue is persistence in sin, which indicates absence of the purpose of amendment. Typically, that is manifested in continued cohabitation (whether with or without the benefit of a civil marriage) with an apparent wife. Another example, not applicable to Gingrich but applicable to Pelosi who you also mention, is continuing participation in the sin of abortion through political work (having impious opinions about origin of life in itself is probably not a sin). In those cases absolution is invalid even if granted, and it should not be granted.
So if someone is civilly married and the marriage is either regularly consummated or appears to be so — they live together like husband and wife, then in the eye of the Church that is fornication. If either of the civil spouses had been married before, that is also an adultery. Neither of these sins can be absolved unless they physically separate, or somehow make it known that the marriage is without sexual union, a so-called Josephine marriage, or, thirdly, they are able to obtain the necessary annulments and convalidate the union as a sacramental marriage.
Many Catholics feel hurt by the Church because they think the Church excommunicated them for being divorced. That is not so: civil divorce might be even recommended by the Church if there are issues of safety, and whatever past guilt is borne by the spouse wishing to return to Communion can be absolved in a confession. It is always the ongoing problem of lifestyle, such as a civil remarriage outside of the Church following the divorce that bars one from the Holy Communion till such time that the problem is cured.