How does anyone really know if someone getting communion is divorced or not? I’m not a Catholic but my husband is so I go to mass with him sometimes. So many people get up and get the communion wafer and I have no idea what their marital status is.
It is a matter of conscience, so unless the person is known personally, the issue does not arise. Myself, It does not seem right to deny such persons the right to communicate when major political figures who openly oppose the teachings of the Church go to communion do so freely, but in the end the responsibility rests with the individual.
The Priest assumes that people coming up for communion know what they're doing, and are acting in good faith. If they have committed a mortal sin, for instance, but refuse to go to confession, that is their problem--and a very serious one--unless the priest has reason to know about it.
So, this really arises when it is public knowledge that a couple is divorced, or if another parishioner informs him of it. The same with gay marriages.
Thus, it is wrong for a priest to give communion to someone like Nancy Pelosi, because she is a known supporter of abortion, who is deliberately complicit in the murder of millions of babies. And Pelosi is well enough known so a priest or bishop can hardly plead ignorance.
Pope Francis seems to be supporting those who would give communion to those who are guilty of mortal sins, even though they are aware of the situation. Some of this may be misrepresented by the press, but I must say that the situation is looking worse and worse.
When we speak of divorced, of course, that is the brief way of speaking of those who are divorced and remarry.
If people want to take communion unworthily (which St Paul talks about, by the way), that is on their own conscience. It is quite another thing for someone living in an irregular “divorced and remarried” situation to be told by the Church “no problem, take communion whenever you feel like it”.
Divorced people, any unworthy people who take “communion” in such a state receive the bread and wine but not the sacrament, and commit an additional sin by seeking the Body and Blood unworthily. Prominent is the sin of Pride in thinking that they know better than the Church.