Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Jim Noble
They need to face an ecclesiastical punishment at least as grave as what the Church metes out to the divorced: refusal of the eucharist.

You are misrepresenting Catholicism rather seriously here.

Fact: "divorced" people are not refused the Eucharist.

Fact: someone who is divorced and remarried, without an ecclesiastical finding that their first marriage was not a real marriage (an "annulment") is refused the Eucharist. They are considered to be living in a state of adultery, and the presumption is that they cannot repent of that state because that would mean undertaking to live as brother and sister.

Fact: someone who has had sexual contact with a child is guilty of an objectively mortal sin and may not approach the Eucharist until he or she has repented and confessed the sin. A provisional exception is made for a priest who has to say Mass for the sake of his flock and cannot locate a confessor in time, but that's all.

You are gravely misrepresenting the Church to imply that she considers divorce and remarriage to be a more serious sin than molesting a child. However, a child molester is at least objectively able to repent of his act. (Psychological considerations aside.) Someone who is illicitly remarried is not, because the relationship necessarily continues.

101 posted on 03/04/2002 12:59:32 PM PST by Campion
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies ]


To: Campion
I apologize if anyone was misled in my post. I did refer in the second paragraph to divorce and remarriage, but I can see how a quick read could mislead.

That having been said, my criticism stands.

The Church cannot arrest or jail these child molesters in its midst. It can, and it should, declare their excommunication and forbid them to say Mass, again, publicly.

The Church uses the words of our Lord about divorce to deprive divorced and remarried people of the eucharist.

In so doing, they are making a point.

The hierarchy needs to make a point about what these priests have done. In my opinion, so far, they have not done so.

105 posted on 03/04/2002 3:17:45 PM PST by Jim Noble
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 101 | View Replies ]

To: Campion
Someone who is illicitly remarried is not, because the relationship necessarily continues.

Not unless you're Frank Sinatra or Ted Kennedy or Tommy Mottola, all divorced Catholics who were able to remarry in the church, thanks to getting annulments (I guess the common denominator in their marriages not being considered "real marriages," and thereby able to be annuled, was the fact that none of them could be faithful to their first wives! And being rich and famous might have contributed as well.)

122 posted on 03/04/2002 7:48:53 PM PST by NYCVirago
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 101 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson