Posted on 11/29/2013 7:01:56 AM PST by marshmallow
Church officials in Germany have defended plans by the country’s bishops’ conference to allow some divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion, insisting they have the Pope’s endorsement.
Robert Eberle, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Freiburg: “We already have our own guidelines, and the Pope has now clearly signaled that certain things can be decided locally.
“We’re not the only archdiocese seeking helpful solutions to this problem, and we’ve had positive reactions from other dioceses in Germany and abroad, assuring us they already practice what’s written in our guidelines.”
Mr Eberle’s comments followed the disclosure by Bishop Gebhard Furst of Rottenburg-Stuttgart on November 23 that the bishops’ would adopt proposals on reinstating divorced and remarried parishioners as full members of the Church during their plenary in March.
In an interview with Catholic News Service, Mr Eberle said “many points” in the Pope’s apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (“The Joy of the Gospel”) suggested the German Church was “moving in the right way” in its attitude toward remarried Catholics.
Uwe Renz, spokesman in the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart, also defended the bishops’ stance. He said he believed the bishops were acting “in the spirit of the Pope’s teaching.”
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicherald.co.uk ...
That's an interesting use of ellipsis.
Can you supply the text you carefully omitted?
That's an interesting conviction.
It is my conviction that a large number of married Catholics in the US have apparently had zero intention of following Church teaching on contraception when they said their vows.
Are you arguing that this glaring defect of intent is not common?
Good people do not abandon their spouses and then take up with someone else in a make believe marriage. If you have a problem with "until death do us part" take it up with Jesus.
Also note Sacajaweau's implied view: that the sacrament of communion is something a person is just naturally entitled to, and daring to inconvenience someone on this point is clearly some kind of grave injustice.
No one should ever be troubled by the merest hint of personal sacrifice, apparently.
I’m sure you are right about that. I don’t think practicing birth control, or intending to do so, is grounds for an annulment - at least not if you have any children.
It’s an interesting angle, though, one I’ve never run across.
I know a woman who received an annulment because her husband sterilized himself.
Yes, I think that voluntary and permanent lack of consent to children (on the day of your wedding or before) is grounds for annulment.
When I wrote about defective intent, that was not what I was thinking of.
A couple of years after.
"Good people should not be denied communion. It's common sense."
Who would decide who's "good people"?. Andrew Cuomo living with his concubine is a "good" person in his own eyes. Nancy Pelosi ("Catholic Mother of Five!") is a "good" person in her own eyes.
You know darn well that the smiling "brides" Sherry Rose and Valerie Garden are "good," and getting better all the time as the Misses Rose-Garden get inseminated by the very same Mr. Mililiter at the Women's Clinic.
We live in an age where almost any personal failure can be covered up with a positive self-image.
"Vows....Priests take vows and leave and marry etc etc."
Aside from the fact that the sacramental issue is different (celibacy is not a constitutive element of Holy Orders, but lifelong fidelity is a constitutive element of Matrimony) how would vowbreaking in one instance justify vowbreaking in another?
Incidentally, marriage to clerics or religious not dispensed from their vows, is invalid.
"The church made a problem where there was no problem. They gave everyone a way out....pay....and you can get an annulment."
There is no "way out" of a valid marital bond, except the death of one of the spouses. If you don't think you had a valid marital bond from the git-go, you can take your case to a tribunal for judgment: but that doesn't mean they'll rule in your favor. The Tribunal may find that the bond was valid from the beginning.
"In the US, 6 percent of ordinary-process cases are renounced by those seeking an annulment, while an additional 6 percent are abated because the parties failed to follow through with the procedural acts necessary for a trial to take place. Of the remaining 88 percent of cases in which sentences are given, 96 percent of sentences are in favor of nullity."(LINK)
As for money? It doesn't depend on money. People who have the means, must pay their court costs. People who are not economically able, can have the court costs prorated, or even written of entirely. I've seen this numerous times with my RCIA students --- adults preparing to enter the Catholic Church.
Your Holiness, is there is a single vision of the Good? And who decides what it is?
"Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is Good."
Your Holiness, you wrote that in your letter to me. The conscience is autonomous, you said, and everyone must obey his conscience. I think that's one of the most courageous steps taken by a Pope.
"And I repeat it here. Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place."
The Pope: how the Church will change
This same interview had been posted on the Vatican's website, and defended by Lombardi as having been vetted by Pope Francis, for close to two months until somebody more orthodox than Lombardi or Francis made the wise decision to remove it.
Well, according to the actual rules, annulment turns on the moment of consent, not what happened afterwards.
This is quite clear, but, as with many aspects of US annulment practice, there is much variation. What I think about the status quo is that it is a process, meant to encourage reflection but also subject to abuse, that in the end is meant to accomplish the same thing as the EO practice.
So if the wife is already taking the pill on the day of the marriage she's not genuinely committed to the marriage at the moment of consent.
I'm glad we cleared that up so it's clear the annulment process isn't nearly as corrupted as some folks like to pretend it is.
Good thing you cleared up that carefully placed ellipsis.
/s
The matter at issue was that his attitude was: “Sure I did it. Why is this even a problem?” His attitude betrayed that he simply had no conception of what a Christian marriage was when he took his vows.
Your trite graphic was less so.
So your argument, then, is that the Pope should encourage people to engage in acts that they believe to be evil?
If this was correct, then protestant marriages in a church which professes that divorce is OK would be automatically null, which, I can tell you, is not the case.
Look, I respect what the Church is trying to accomplish with the annulment process. However, the enormous demand for annulments has created a new situation, which the Church in the US has tried to manage by making divorced and remarried persons go through the process, but with virtual certainty that the annulment will be granted, as long as the plaintiff professes defective intent and unless doing so would cause scandal.
If the only annulments that were granted were for judirically null marriages, tens of thousands of Catholic and would-be Catholic families would be denied the sacrament. If current practice keeps up, the cynicism and hypocrisy involved will corrupt the persons involved.
IF the pope and the bishops want to get rid of the status quo, can you blame them?
Jeremiah 3:8 and I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce: yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.
Wonder what would this church require of the Heavenly Father to be acceptable?
Strange few modern churches ever self-examin their doctrines to see if they have followed in Israel and Judah's footsteps.
Jeremiah 3:8 and I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce: yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.
Wonder what would this church require of the Heavenly Father to be acceptable?
Strange few modern churches ever self-examin their doctrines to see if they have followed in Israel and Judah's footsteps.
This is about the worst exegesis I have ever read.
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.