Well, PopeWatch guesses things were just too quiet. The Pope has given yet another interview:
“Matrimony is between a man and a woman,” the pope said, but moves to “regulate diverse situations of cohabitation (are) driven by the need to regulate economic aspects among persons, as for instance to assure medical care.” Asked to what extent the church could understand this trend, he replied: “It is necessary to look at the diverse cases and evaluate them in their variety.”
Bishops around the world have differed in their responses to civil recognition of nonmarital unions. The president of the Pontifical Council for the Family said in February 2013 that some legal arrangements are justifiable to protect the inheritance rights of nonmarried couples. But until now, no pope has indicated even tentative acceptance of civil unions.
In the interview, Pope Francis praised Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical “Humanae Vitae,” which prohibited the use of contraception.
In contradicting contemporary pressures for population control, Pope Paul’s “genius was prophetic, he had the courage to side against the majority, defend moral discipline, put a brake on the culture, oppose neo-Malthusianism, present and future,” Pope Francis said.
But he also noted that Pope Paul had instructed confessors to interpret his encyclical with “much mercy, attention to concrete situations.”
“The question is not whether to change the doctrine, but to go deeper and make sure that pastoral care takes account of situations and of what each person is able to do,” Pope Francis said.
The pope said birth control, like the predicament of divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, would be a topic of discussion at the Vatican in October at an extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family. He said the synod would approach all such problems “in the light of profound reflection,” rather than casuistry, which he described as a superficial, pharisaical theology focused exclusively on particular cases.
The pope said he had welcomed the “intense discussion” at a February gathering of cardinals, where German Cardinal Walter Kasper gave a talk suggesting divorced and civilly remarried Catholics might sometimes be allowed to receive Communion even without an annulment of their first, sacramental marriages.
“Fraternal and open confrontations foster the growth of theological and pastoral thought,” he said. “I’m not afraid of this; on the contrary, I seek it.”
Asked if the church’s teachings on sexual and medical ethics represented “non-negotiable values,” a formulation used by Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis said he had “never understood the expression ‘non-negotiable values.'”
“Values are values, period,” he said. “I cannot say that, among the fingers of a hand, there is one less useful than another. That is why I cannot understand in what sense there could be negotiable values.”
Go here to read the rest. PopeWatch would comment, but why bother? PopeWatch assumes that soon the hapless Vatican press flack Father Lombardi will be trotted out to say that the Pope was misinterpreted, and bloggers around Saint Blogs will explain how anyone who thinks that the Pope said what he seems to have said is an obvious dunce and, that buzz word so beloved these days on certain Catholic blogs, a reactionary. Who are you going to believe, your lying eyes or them?
Update: Well, that didn’t take long:
Asked specifically about “unioni civili,” (civil unions), Pope Francis responded:
So what?
Are Catholics going to get disappointed because the Pope didnt re-iterate the comfortable statements of “The Pill is a sin” and “divorce is a sin”.
We know they are sinful. Pope after Pope have reminded us. And reminded and reminded, and reminded….and reminded some more.
But still millions get divorced and use the Pill. Doesn’t look like the message got through. And that’s a whole population of people cut away from the Church. Permanently, if you beleive the hard-nuts in the Church.
So how do you get them back? Remind them its a sin? Well, didnt work first time, won’t work second, third or fourth. It just won’t work. Basically, its asking yourself, how do you get your stubborn, know-it-all teenager to “get” what you’re saying?
I think the Pope wants to unplug their ears, and defrost their hearts with open arms, and work backwards from there.
And bugger the fools who misinterpret him. It’ll be the left side of the media and the right side of the blogosphere; not you Don…;) (I hope)
“Remind them its a sin?”
Well yes, actually. Church teaching on sex has never been popular. When Christ promulgated the teaching on no divorce the reaction of the Apostles was that then it was better to never marry at all. The duty of the Church is to proclaim the Truth. That people reject the Truth and doubtless go to Hell as a result is a sad fact of life. A much sadder fact would be if the Church were to abandon the Truth, or water it down sufficiently to be in de facto abandonment of the Truth. People come historically to embrace the Church not because she gives an easy path through this Vale of Tears, but because she presents the Gospels in all their unvarnished splendor. Many of the fans of Pope Francis among the enemies of Truth hope that he is the Pope they have not prayed for: a Pope who will abandon the Truth. I think they are mistaken, but the Pope’s misbegotten and ill thought out interviews give them hope.
The state has laws regulating “common law marriage”. If a couple has co-habitated for more than seven years their living arrangement is called common law marriage. It is like squatters’ rights. A person moves onto land and after seven years, that person may claim the land as his own. In the Homestead Act it is only five years.
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Civil unions are marriages outside the church, legal marriage as opposed to Sacramental Marriage, Holy Matrimony. Civil unions are regulated by state laws. Holy Matrimony is regulated by Church law.
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Unnatural marriage or so called gay marriage is being demanded by the militant gay agenda to force the church and the state to legalize sodomy because of sexual orientation. Sexual orientation is an act of God. Homosexual behavior is a free will act of the homosexual and neither God, nor the church, nor the state may be held to blame for the free will act of another person. (The devil made me do it…maybe)
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Common law marriage and the laws that govern common law marriage is all that the state may permit for unnatural gay marriage. That the militant gay agenda is demanding Holy Matrimony goes hand in hand with blaming God for their own personal denial of the human soul and to retain their moral innocence (of sodomy).
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Civil unions are governed by the state and may be blessed by the Church. Holy Matrimony is a Sacrament impossible to be efficacious upon individuals who cannot complete the marital act, either through the fault of nature or through the fault of improper consent or through irreconcilable actions.
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If Pope Francis continues this thread, He will be making the Sacraments conditional, contingent upon the individual: If you are not baptized…if you can be married, if you can be forgiven, if you can be ordained. Perhaps this is why in the Greek rite all three Sacraments are given at once to a child, Baptism, Holy Eucharist and Confirmation. Marriage is not one of these Sacraments.
A traditionalist priest of my acquaintance told me about a dozen years ago, “The Pope’s not supposed to say too much”. This Pope illustrates the point.
Ez,
Pacem. I think “They” do not return (repent, confess, do penance, amend their lives, do good works to glorify God) because of insufficient concern for the salvation of their souls.
Apparently, being happy in the here-and-now is more important than being happy in the here-after. In confess. I’ve been there; done that.
Who/what is responsible for that widespread attitude? Who is trying to convert us?
St. John the Baptist preached repentence and amendment of life. Jesus descended from Heaven to convert us. I read the Gospels. I don’t see much “There, there it’s all right.”
We must deny the World (Jesus to the rich man: sell everything); take up our crosses; and follow Christ. But (the Apostles ask), who can be saved? Jesus teaches that with God all things are possible.
Pope Francis is making people look at their own souls and take responsibility for their soul.
Sir Thomas Mores defence of Marriage from “A Man for all Seasons”:
Sir Thomas More: [More has been condemned to death, and now for the first time breaks his years-long adamant silence on Henry VIII’s divorce of Queen Catherine to marry Ann Boleyn] Since the Court has determined to condemn me, God knoweth how, I will now discharge my mind concerning the indictment and the King’s title. The indictment is grounded in an act of Parliament which is directly repugnant to the law of God, and his Holy Church, the Supreme Government of which no temporal person may by any law presume to take upon him. This was granted by the mouth of our Savior, Christ himself, to Saint Peter and the Bishops of Rome whilst He lived and was personally present here on earth. It is, therefore, insufficient in law to charge any Christian to obey it. And more to this, the immunity of the Church is promised both in Magna Carta and in the king’s own coronation oath
[Cromwell calls More ‘malicious’]
Sir Thomas More: … Not so. I am the king’s true subject, and I pray for him and all the realm. I do none harm. I say none harm. I think none harm. And if this be not enough to keep a man alive, then in good faith, I long not to live. Nevertheless, it is not for the Supremacy that you have sought my blood, but because I would not bend to the marriage!
Sir Thomas More: When a man takes an oath, he’s holding his own self in his own hands like water, and if he opens his fingers then, he needn’t hope to find himself again.
The Duke of Norfolk: Oh confound all this. I’m not a scholar, I don’t know whether the marriage was lawful or not but dammit, Thomas, look at these names! Why can’t you do as I did and come with us, for fellowship!
Sir Thomas More: And when we die, and you are sent to heaven for doing your conscience, and I am sent to hell for not doing mine, will you come with me, for fellowship?
“Common Law Marriage” a misnomer. The doctrine of irregular marriage, as we call it in Scotland is derived from the Civil and Canon laws and they have nothing to do with civil unions
As an eminent Scottish judge, Lord Curriehill put it, “A woman cannot grow insensibly from a concubine into a married wife by any natural process of accretion or of accession. Such a metamorphosis cannot be legally effected by such means. Marriage is a consensual contract; and although there are different ways of proving that such a contract is entered into, yet the thing to be proved, whatever be the nature of the evidence, is that the parties entered into a mutual contract accepting of each other as spouses.”
When a man and woman live together as man and wife, “cohabit at bed and board,” the man according to the woman the respect due to a wife and not a mistress and they are regarded in the society in which they move as married persons – what the lawyers call “cohabitation with habit and repute – it is a reasonable and right presumption that they meant marriage and not concubinage. Such a course of life is a continual declaration that they take each other as husband and wife.
Until the Tametsi decree of the Council of Trent, the Church applied exactly the same principles and treated them as valid sacramental marriages..
Thank you, Trebuchet, for Thomas More’s words. I find them very consoling.
Michael Paterson-Seymour: “Common Law Marriage” a misnomer. The doctrine of irregular marriage, as we call it in Scotland is derived from the Civil and Canon laws and they have nothing to do with civil unions ”
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I am aware of this fact, MichaeI, marriage makes a husband of a man and a wife of a woman and this does not happen in a same-sex union. Marriage is an office, a vocation to which a man and a woman aspire. Civil unions are rejected by those individuals demanding the recognition of their homosexual behavior as a marital act. It ought to be avoided. Thank you for the finger in the dike.
Mary De Voe
Many jurisdictions in Europe have civil unions for opposite-sex, as well as same-sex, couples.
In France, for example, in 2010, there were 250,000 marriages and 200,000 civil unions or PACSs [Le pacte civil de solidarité] almost all of them between opposite-sex couples. Compare this with 300,000 marriages in 2000, before the PACS was introduced.
The jurist Alain Bénabent has noted that the PACS “entails some mutual commitments copied from those of marriage – the duty of solidarity, the duty of cohabitation – but it entails neither a duty of fidelity (hence no presumption of paternity in a PACS) nor a scheme of inheritance.” Nor are there any mutual rights and obligations of financial support between one of the parties and the ascendants of the other; unlike marriage, it unites the couple, not their families.
Thank you Michael Paterson-Seymour. “Nor are there any mutual rights and obligations of financial support between one of the parties and the ascendants of the other; unlike marriage, it unites the couple, not their families.” Very well explained.
Maybe the Church should get out of the whole civil union matter altogether and recognize only Roman Catholic marriages. Heterosexual unions by Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, etc churches would be regarded as invalid and wrong as homosexual ones. Dispensation can be granted for Orthodox in schism.
I write that with a sense of sarcasm. How far do we want to go? I do not care what contracts gays in a civil union have. It is not marriage but it equally is not my business except when they force their views on the rest of society.
Paul W Primavera
But the vast majority of civil unions are between opposite-sex couples,
If you take the French figures 44% of such couples are opting for civil unions, rather than marriage. In other words, they are rejecting unregulated cohabitation, they are making a form of public commitment, but they are also rejecting the status of marriage and its incidents, as laid down in the Code Civil.
There might well be a fruitful field for evangelization here.
Paul: You have spoken well. The militant gay agenda is using the force of law and the power of the courts to indoctrinate our constitutional posterity to normalize the vice of lust and the sin of sodomy. The gay agenda has succeeded to some degree with removing the social sanctions from sodomy and demanding “equality” Many people have fallen for their swindle and fraud and are afraid of being bullied by them.
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We could tolerate the sodomist but not sodomy. We could tolerate the atheist, but not atheism. The devil is using the atheist and the sodomist to enter into the public square disguised as “JUSTICE”
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Ignoring God and disregarding the innocence and virginity of our constitutional posterity, homosexual practitioners have inflicted their perversions on the people. The atheist applauds their success.
“. This consists of different kinds of living arrangements which I wouldn’t know how to enumerate with precision. We must consider different cases and evaluate each particular case.”
And
” He said the synod would approach all such problems “in the light of profound reflection,” rather than casuistry, which he described as a superficial, pharisaical theology focused exclusively on particular cases.”
Zenit is marketing a book titled A Cyclone Named Francis. Seems apt.
So much of these quotes strike me as a product of the Jesuit tendencies toward debate and intellectual achievement. For the Pope these are skills that are years and decades in the making. In the end he may wish that he hadn’t said some things, but he will find that he probably cannot help himself. Promethean indeed.
So much of these quotes strike me as a product of the Jesuit tendencies toward debate and intellectual achievement.
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It has been remarked that his measurable achievement in the intellectual realm are outclassed by every one of his predecessors over the last century.
From Michael P-S
“…In France, for example, in 2010, there were 250,000 marriages and 200,000 civil unions or PACSs [Le pacte civil de solidarité] almost all of them between opposite-sex couples. Compare this with 300,000 marriages in 2000, before the PACS was introduced.
… the PACS “entails some mutual commitments copied from those of marriage – the duty of solidarity, the duty of cohabitation – but it entails neither a duty of fidelity (hence no presumption of paternity in a PACS) nor a scheme of inheritance.”
This then is the real War on Women and children . .. A diabolical war on society.
MPS,
What makes a marriage valid? Are Baptist, Methodist, and Pentecostal heterosexual marriages valid? Or does the Church consider them civil unions? Are Justice of the Peace heterosexual marriages valid? Are Islamic, Jewish, Hindu, and Buddhist heterosexual marriages valid? Are Eastern Orthodox and Orthodox Anglican heterosexual marriages valid?
The question is this: are only Roman Catholic marriages valid?
I oppose homosexual marriage. And cohabitating heterosexual couples should marry or live apart. But what is the real definition of a valid marriage? Is only Rome’s marriage the valid one?
Art, I was thinking of process rather than outcome. The Jesuits are known for education, and in education not everyone gets an ‘A’. I would imagine that a Jesuit who expects brilliance from every student would be a frustrated man indeed, and so the tendency in Jesuit culture would be to concentrate on the process. This might explain a lot about Pope Francis.
Maybe I’m misfiring, but my first thought when I read the quote from the Pope was the idea of forming a “household”– I think I first proposed it when I was a teenager, I think because a family friend had died and their housemate– who they’d had a household with since before I was born– was having issues with the children who couldn’t have cared less about their parent, but sure wanted the money from the house.
No sex involved, just a way of recognizing those situations that are coming up more and more these days.
Signs it is starting…
https://twitter.com/NOH8Campaign/status/441648070816579584
Pope Francis may welcome same sex practitioners into the Catholic Church but that will not make them Catholic. If Pope Francis recognizes Protestant marriages as Protestant marriages, that does not make them Catholic. Pope Francis does not have the power nor the authority to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. It is what it is.
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Not all the sinners Jesus dined with converted, some, as Judas, went their own way.
Donald, does the Pope to you, look like he is abandoning the Truth?
I was always taught, that you adapt your approach to achieve the best possible outcome. My husband always tells me when I get frustrated telling the children something, to change my approach. Stop talking AT them, to talk WITH them.
I get that its frustrating for Catholics with good formation, that other “bad” Catholics don’t get it.
But do you remember the parable of the Prodigal son? The wayward son was welcomed back with celebration. The Father didnt even ask him of he had changed his ways.
So what some have a problem with is the Popes approach. No different than the prodigal son parable.
And really, who cares how the media is twisting it.
On one hand Catholics poopoo the media and its liberal views, and on the hand, they put so much importance on what this one-dimensional liberal media think.
Why would anyone in their right mind care how and why the media is portraying the Pope.
Do you not forget the horrid things they said about PJPII, and PB? We know they were twisted lies.
I’m still having a problem with the criticism by Catholics, of our Pope. I have a real problem with it, because he upholds the truth, and its still not good enough, because he’s a dreaded Jesuit.
@ Art Deco, I’d rather get bitten by an Inland Northern Taipan than be at the receiving end of your criticism
“It has been remarked that his measurable achievement in the intellectual realm are outclassed by every one of his predecessors over the last century.”
Ouch.
And accotding to you an acid-tongue Catholic has a better Christain heart (and tongue) than a divorcee…
“Donald, does the Pope to you, look like he is abandoning the Truth?”
He does a very poor job EZ in articulating the Truth in his off the cuff interviews and he does not seem to be bothered by the use the enemies of the Truth taught by the Church make of these interviews. I believe that the Pope is a loyal son of the Church as he has asserted, but merely being a loyal son of the Church is insufficient for a Pope who must be a champion of what the Church teaches.
“If Pope Francis recognizes Protestant marriages as Protestant marriages, that does not make them Catholic.”
Absolutely true. However, are Protestant marriages even marriages? or are the only valid marriages Roman Catholic ones? And then what about Eastern Orthodox marriages? What marriage rite ensure the transfer / dispensation of the Sacrament of Marriage? Is it only the Roman one? Or Eastern too? And are Protestants excluded, which means that Protestant marriages are really civil unions in an ecclesial structure? And thus all Protestants living in a Protestant marriage are really living in a civil union and hence are in fornication?
My deceased Pentecostal father and my yet living mother would object strenuously.
Paul-
Marriage is something the Church recognizes; that doesn’t mean that the gov’t can pretend something that is not marriage really is, and then demand we all play along.
If you’re interested in the background, this is a really good writeup:
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/the-permanence-of-matrimony
Thanks, Foxfire! That’s a good article from the Catholic Answers web site. It is correct. But it does not answer the question of whether or not only Roman Catholic marriages are valid. What about Protestant ones? Or Hindu, or Buddhist, or Jewish or Islamic? Is Matrimony a Sacrament – does it become a Sacrament – only in the Roman Catholic context? What about Eastern Orthodoxy? Or are all non-Roman Catholic unions simply civil ones?
This is why the question I ask is important. If the Church says that a marriage is valid only for two baptized couples in a Roman Catholic rite (or even broaden that to a Christian rite), then the Church is saying that all other unions – civil or religious – are not and have never been marriages. That may be the case. And it would mean that the Church essentially condemns the vast majority of human unions, and the overwhelming majority of human children are born illegitimate. There is a word for that not printable at a public forum.
Mr. McClarey and Ar Deco’s traditionalist priest friend put it better than I can. Pope Francis talks and talks and talks and the enemies of the Church take things he says and twist them around. After a year, Pope Francis is oblivious to what goes on in the Western World – except when some “rad trad” has a hissy fit about the Second Vatican Council. Anyone who is accused of criticizing the greatest, most wonderful, bestest thing EVAH will get busted by the Committee for the Defense of Vatican II. This is why the LCWR, Rembert Weakland and Roger Mahony never get ripped to shreds like Fisher More and the FFI.
Paul,
I’ll take a guess. Protestant marriages are valid because even in the Catholic Church, the spouses are the ministers of the sacrament and the priest is the official witness of the Church. So if the baptism of that Protestant group is valid per the wording, the marriage would be also because the spouses are the essential ministers of the marriage. Thus to marry a divorced Protestant from a two Protestant marriage, I believe they must get an annullment whereas if you marry a Protestant who was married to a Hindu, they need only a Petrine privilege as it used to be called and it involved Rome but required no intimate examination but only the permission of the eg Hindu spous which is presumed if he or she married after the civil divorce.
Paul-
I think you missed the part:
Thus, any valid marriage between two baptized people is a sacramental marriage and, once consummated, cannot be dissolved.
There’s sacramental and natural marriage.
http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/are-non-catholic-marriages-valid-in-the-eyes-of-the-catholic-church-what-if-a-catholi
In general, marriages between non-Catholics, of whatever religion, are considered valid, but the situation is not as simple as it sounds because there are two kinds of marriage: natural (ordinary) marriage and supernatural (sacramental) marriage. Supernatural marriages exist only between baptized people, so marriages between two Jews or two Muslims are only natural marriages. Assuming no impediments, marriages between Jews or Muslims would be valid natural marriages. Marriages between two Protestants or two Eastern Orthodox also would be valid, presuming no impediments, but these would be supernatural (sacramental) marriages and thus indissoluble.
When one spouse is a Catholic and the other is a non-Catholic–this is commonly termed a “mixed marriage”–the situation changes. Just as the state has the power to regulate marriages of its citizens by requiring them to get a blood test or to marry in front of a competent authority, so the Church has the right to regulate the marriages of its “citizens.”
If one participant is a Catholic who has not left the Church by a formal act, such as by officially joining another church, he must obtain a dispensation for the marriage, which would otherwise be blocked by the mixed-marriage impediment or by the disparity of cult impediment. A Catholic who has not left the Church by a formal act also must obtain a dispensation to be married in front of a non-Catholic minister. If either of these dispensations is not obtained, the marriage will be invalid.
It’s not a matter of the Church having some sort of rubber stamp– it’s a matter of the Church having described what is there.
It’s like talking about getting Westminster out of the pet business, so a gov’t can count iguanas as a breed of dog.
EZ I think we all want to be supportive of our pope and we all want him to be a wonderful Holy Father to us all. His approach does not bother me.
But the content of what I have understood him to say does bother me. Not the approach- the content. I always have to wonder about the content of what he said.
Its funny, wasnt the Church being dubbed “out-dated” and “irrelevant” a year ago? According to the same media, the same Church has a leader whose now in their eyes a poster boy.
In not sure anything is being watered down. I think there is an attempt at dialogue. Nothing has or will change in terms of teaching.
Ill agree to disagree with you on the approach.
I was educated at the Opus Dei’s, and although I beleive there is a tension between them and the Jesuits, I have no pre-conceived prejudices against the Pope, who some (evident in some of these comments), regard him as “unintelligent”. I really hope the same people aren’t receiving communion whilst they sprout this sort of snark.
I don’t understand Pope Francis’ position on civil unions,
since civil unions, which are two or more persons, gay or
straight, intimately living together, are a grave sin. Pope
Francis seems to have embraced the sin of civil unions,
which gives me the impression that, perhaps, Pope Francis
wishes to abolish the traditional or biblical concept of sin.
I don’t know how Pope Francis intends to bring the Church
into the modern era of pagan degenerates without comprising
the teachings of the Church. Consider certain prelates who,
after Vatican II, rushed to bring the Church out of the Dark Ages
and into the gleaming light of the gay liberation movement, which
cost certain dioceses their reputation and hundreds of millions of dollars
donated by faithful Catholics.
Paul W Primavera, Bill Bannon and Foxfier
There is a very interesting letter, written in 866 by Pope St Nicholas I (858–67), in response to a series of enquiries he had received from Boris I, Prince of Bulgaria, regarding Catholic practices..
After setting out the rituals customary in Rome, including the bestowal of a ring, the giving of dowry and dower by father and husband, and priestly blessing, he explained that he was not saying that it was sinful (peccatum esse) to omit any of these customs, especially since some people could not afford them. ‘On this account,” Nicholas concludes, “according to the laws (leges), the consent of those whose union is arranged should be sufficient. If that alone is absent, all the other solemnities, even including coition, are in vain, as the great teacher John Chrysostom attests, who says: ‘Not intercourse but will makes marriage’” (Homilies on Matthew 32) [PL 119, no. 97, pp. 978–1016 at 980]
St John Chrysostom (347-407) is here simply repeating the words of the great Roman jurist, Ulpian (170 – 228) “Nuptias non concubitus, sed consensus facit” – It is not sleeping together, but agreement that makes marriage. [Dig. 50.17.30 Ulpianus 36 ad sab]. On this subject, the law of the Church and of the Empire was the same.
That was the law of the Latin Church until 1563, although legislation forbidding (but not invalidating) clandestine marriages goes back to the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215.
Franco,
Maybe Francis sees permanent unions with health benefits between gays as a lesser mortal evil BUT MORTAL than their living promiscuously with a different partner every month with no thoughts of health insurance etc….much like Benedict seeing condom use between gays as a lesser mortal sin overall state than the mortal sin of endangering each other with disease plus the inchastity. If you can get a serial murderer to switch to simple assaults, you’ve made progress although it’s odd progress …nevertheless it’s an improvement.
Michael PS,
Yes and that letter by Nicholas I even addressed the women wearing pants issue that raged on the net once or twice…he said whether they wore them or not made no difference…which didn’t help Joan of Arc later on however.
1. What pastoral advice does a Preist meant to give to divorcees who have remarried and had children and decided to return back to the Faith, ie. start at the basics by going back to Church?
What is the correct pastoral advice to those baptised lapsed Catholics who are in stable second “marriages” with children?
2. What pastoral advice should be given to people co-habiting, but who have had children, but want to attend Church?
3. What pastoral advice should be given to a gay couple who have either adopted children or had them through a surrogate, but want to go back to going to Church? Their children know nothing but these same-sex “couple” as parents…?
I understand these are sinful “lifestyles”, so spare the sermons. I’m curious as to the correct instructions that should be given to significant sectors of the Catholic baptised population who have lapsed, and live in sin, where some have a desire to start going back to Church.
Has the ship sailed for them?
EZ,
The advice would be to live as brothers and sisters (or if gay, brothers or sisters) and thus not engage in sexual relations. There would be no problem if they live chastity while under the same roof and could then receive communion after confession for any sins of the past.
But if they are very immature in their faith, telling them that upfront may frighten them completely away.
Wouldn’t it be better gain the trust of the Church and Priests and over time learn this?
Also, you are saying that it would be ok for them to co-habit as long as they didn’t engage in sexual activity.
So how is the Church community, an outsider in their relationship, to know that they are either living as brother and sister, or engaging on sexual relations?
Would then it be ok if they still lived as a family, behaved as a family, but didnt engage in sex, for them to receive Holy Communion?
Isnt the Pope saying, it is better to deal with each situation case by case. After all, you essentially have a family unit involved, if children are present.
So why is the Pope being scrutinised when he is taking into consideration the practicalities of the situations?
If the criteria for marriage is heterosexuality and “Nuptias non concubitus, sed consensus facit,” then civil unions are valid, and so is mere cohabitation because of its consensuality.
“But if they are very immature in their faith, telling them that upfront may frighten them completely away.
Wouldn’t it be better gain the trust of the Church and Priests and over time learn this?”
Perhaps it would be prudent to bring them to this point over time. Nonetheless, that would be the truly pastoral thing to do – to bring them to the fullness of Christ. Remember, Christ said to the woman not “Go and find what is economically and socially beneficial” but rather, “Go and sin no more.”
I must also say that this approach was taught to me by priest of Opus Dei. It seems we have similar teachers.
“Also, you are saying that it would be ok for them to co-habit as long as they didn’t engage in sexual activity.”
Cohabiting in fact would be hard as there would be the constant temptation to engage in sexual activity. However, all things are possible in faith and grace. In fact, this would be a wonderful opportunity to teach their children that true love is not sex, but rather self-sacrifice.
“So how is the Church community, an outsider in their relationship, to know that they are either living as brother and sister, or engaging on sexual relations?”
Who knows who approaches communion is in the state of grace. That is to the conscience (properly formed) of the individual.)
“Would then it be ok if they still lived as a family, behaved as a family, but didnt engage in sex, for them to receive Holy Communion?
Isnt the Pope saying, it is better to deal with each situation case by case. After all, you essentially have a family unit involved, if children are present.”
That in fact is what I said. It would be a family not of spouses but of brothers and/or sisters raising their children. Just as if there was a family where the parents died and the older siblings raised their younger one’s. It would be not the family properly understood as one of spouses and children, but of self-sacrificing persons giving themselves to those they have brought to life or adopted.
“So why is the Pope being scrutinised when he is taking into consideration the practicalities of the situations?”
Practical considerations must always take into account principles. If not, then one will choose to act based upon outcomes and not on the means used. I could do action X, even if it is wrong, in order to achieve end Y which is a good that I seek. This would be consequetialism – which has been clearly denounced by the Church.
Aquinas held that the OT death penalties for sin (not crimes) are no longer used but such penalties continue to teach us which sins are mortal sins. Premarital sex however wasn’t given a death penalty when the female was not engaged. Oddly the punishment was a better marriage than other Jews had ( the couple could not divorce)…her not crying out below means she was not raped but consented….Deuteronomy 22:28
28 “If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, who is not espoused, and taking her, lie with her, and the matter come to judgment : 29He that lay with her shall give to the father of the maid fifty sides of silver, and shall have her to wife, because he hath humbled her: he may not put her away all the days of his life.”
This was a partial hidden prediction of Catholic Matrimony wherein also there would be no divorce. Now if the young man didn’t have 50 sides of silver then Scripture is silent but….later on Proverbs 20:30 says,
” evil is driven out by bloody lashes and a scourging to the inmost being.” So it paid to have a silver stash.
Later David was to pay 200 Phillistine foreskins to Saul for Michal who dissed him when he danced before the Lord with all his might in a linen ephod 2 Sam.6:14. so when you young guys think a woman is worth extra Phillistine foreskins ( Saul only wanted one hundred), check your motives…is it her virtues or her silhouette only….just sayin’….just sayin’.
Paul W Primavera wrote, “Civil unions are valid, and so is mere cohabitation because of its consensuality.”
But consent to what? To marriage, or to mere concubinage? However, If what the parties intend is a faithful lifelong union, open to children, then, in the absence of impediment or requirements of form, I would agree that that is a marriage. The Canonists are not particularly helpful here, for what they are concerned with is not so much intention as proof of intention.
In his Literal Commentary on Genesis, St Augustine says that the good of marriage is threefold, “fidelity, offspring, “sacramentum.” Fidelity means that one avoids all sexual activity apart from one’s marriage. Offspring means that the child is accepted in love, is nurtured in affection, and is brought up in religion. The “sacramentum” means that the marriage is not severed nor the spouse abandoned…. This is a kind of rule set for marriage, by which nature’s fruitfulness is honoured and vicious sexual vagrancy is restrained.”
Clearly, both here and in similar remarks on marriage (De nupt. et conc. I, c. 17, n. 19; De pecc. orig., c. 37, n. 42), St Augustine is using “sacramentum” in its ordinary Latin sense, rather than its theological one, especially as he is discussing the institution of marriage before the Christian dispensation. The ordinary Roman meaning is the military oath of faithful service and it is sometimes used figuratively for other pledges of loyalty, so St Augustine’s use of it here is apt enough.
Ez: “But do you remember the parable of the Prodigal son? The wayward son was welcomed back with celebration. The Father didnt even ask him of he had changed his ways.”
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The parable of the Prodigal Son is a story of returning to the Father (in heaven) with sincere contrition. The parable is about contrition and embracing the contrite, not about ignoring and embracing the waywardness. Just sayin’.