A caution from Archbishop Chaput: dishonest mercy helps no one

[ProVobis]

Was there a penalty of excommunion for two Catholics who entered a civil marriage that was a first marriage? I’m thinking there might have been prior to around 1970.

If there was, excommunication was probably a moot point since it was seen as leaving the church by each anyway. Mixed marriages were also frowned upon btw.

 

[ProdigalSun]

If there was, excommunication was probably a moot point since it was seen as leaving the church by each anyway. Mixed marriages were also frowned upon btw.

Maybe by certain individual but not by the church in general. No doubt a byproduct of the times but not frowned upon be the church and never forbidden.

 

[ProdigalSun]

It’s possible that it just wasn’t carefully worded, but it seems that the only reason for the divorce was the intention to get remarried back then whereas today more are probably getting divorced either to live as single people or to cohabitate without civil marriage. Legal separations are quite rare today. But we still keep talking divorce and remarriage as though it is one word.

Who keeps talking like that? Divorce is a complete separate issue from remarriage. More generalizations.

 

[ProdigalSun]

Was there a penalty of excommunion for two Catholics who entered a civil marriage that was a first marriage? I’m thinking there might have been prior to around 1970.

Penalties? The penalty is that this marriage is not recognized by the church. Awesome grounds for annulment.

 

[ProdigalSun]

“Finally, there are those who have entered in a second union for the sake of the children’s upbringing and who are sometimes subjectively certain in conscience that their previous and irreparably broken marriage had never been valid. Therefore, it is the duty of priests to accompany those concerned along the path of discernment…” --Section 85, Final Synod Report (emphasis added)

“The process of accompaniment and discernment guides these faithful to an examination of conscience about their situation before God. Speaking with a priest in the internal forum contributes to the formation of a correct judgment about that which blocks the possibility of a fuller life in the Church…” --Section 86, Final Synod Report

The meaning is unmistakable. What is recommended in the final synod document is an examination of conscience (a discernment in the internal forum), with the accompaniment of a priest to determine a "judgment about that which blocks the possibility of a fuller life life in the Church **(which obviously is the question of the validity of a first marriage)./**QUOTE]

Exactly no matter how the pastoral care of individuals is accomplished (should always be with Love and care for the couple) the validity of the first marriage has to be ascertained. with the help of a priest (great) and approved by the tribunal (Bishop). Everything else flows from this information. The validity of the first marriage is valid until it can proven otherwise. It makes no sense for this to be reversed and the proof needs to reversed. The first marriage is at the very least legal if not both legal and sacramental. How can we look at the first marriage in any other light than one of validity… makes no sense!

 

[ProVobis]

Who keeps talking like that? Divorce is a complete separate issue from remarriage.

I agree but that’s not what I hear from most posters.

 

[ProVobis]

Penalties? The penalty is that this marriage is not recognized by the church.

Yeh, but did they care? That was my point.

 

[Thomas_White]

"Finally, there are those who have entered in a second union for the sake of the children’s upbringing and who are sometimes subjectively certain in conscience

that their previous and irreparably broken marriage had never been valid. Therefore, it is the duty of priests to accompany those concerned along the path of discernment…" --Section 85, Final Synod Report (emphasis added)

“The process of accompaniment and discernment guides these faithful to an examination of conscience about their situation before God. Speaking with a priest in the internal forum contributes to the formation of a correct judgment about that which blocks the possibility of a fuller life in the Church…” --Section 86, Final Synod Report

The meaning is unmistakable. What is recommended in the final synod document is an examination of conscience (a discernment in the internal forum), with the accompaniment of a priest to determine a "judgment about that which blocks the possibility of a fuller life life in the Church **(which obviously is the question of the validity of a first marriage)./**QUOTE]

Exactly no matter how the pastoral care of individuals is accomplished (should always be with Love and care for the couple) the validity of the first marriage has to be ascertained. with the help of a priest (great) and approved by the tribunal (Bishop).

It doesn’t say anything about approval by a bishop or tribunal. It speaks of a correct judgment in the internal forum.
ProdigalSon=13461604:

Everything else flows from this information. The validity of the first marriage is valid until it can proven otherwise. It makes no sense for this to be reversed and the proof needs to reversed. The first marriage is at the very least legal if not both legal and sacramental. How can we look at the first marriage in any other light than one of validity… makes no sense!

There would be no trial and no proof and so on as there currently is in a tribunal. The judgment would take place in the internal forum, the forum of conscience. The validity of the first marriage would not be “reversed”. The judgment would find it null and void, the same as occurs by the judgment of a tribunal.

I do not think this is the modified tribunal process which has already been approved.

 

[Ender]

There would be no trial and no proof and so on as there currently is in a tribunal. The judgment would take place in the internal forum, the forum of conscience. The validity of the first marriage would not be “reversed”. The judgment would find it null and void, the same as occurs by the judgment of a tribunal.

An internal forum approach has already been investigated by the church - and rejected. This is not a new proposal; it is another way of ignoring what has already been resolved.*“The decision as to which forum is applicable in a given case should be guided by the following criteria: what is legally or factually known, or possibly going to be known, is to be decided in the external forum; what is secret and likely to remain secret may be decided in the internal forum.” Wijlens, in CLSA New Comm (2000) 186. *(Edward Peters, JD, JCD)
Ender

 

[clem456]

Good to remember that marriage is not a purely private matter in the Church. Marriage has elements of privacy in it, elements that are reverenced as unique and sacred to the couple, but the sacrament is not a private matter.
In our culture, we are tempted to have an individualistic view of marriage that separates our view from the context of the community, or Church, and wants to imprison it in individual privacy and individual conscience, separate from communion with all the Church.

Marriage is not instituted by God for the satisfaction of the individuals, it is a sign of …well I don’t have time to go on.
The catechism uses language indicating this essential context in marriage:
vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c3a7.htm

briefly,

"The well-being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life."89

So it seems the debate about internal/external is problematic in this regard.

 

[Thomas_White]

An internal forum approach has already been investigated by the church - and rejected. This is not a new proposal; it is another way of ignoring what has already been resolved.*“The decision as to which forum is applicable in a given case should be guided by the following criteria: what is legally or factually known, or possibly going to be known, is to be decided in the external forum; what is secret and likely to remain secret may be decided in the internal forum.” Wijlens, in CLSA New Comm* (2000) 186. (Edward Peters, JD, JCD)
Ender

What was quoted verbatim in comment #272 is a recommendation from the final synod document, and it was approved by at least two-thirds of the bishops.

 

[Brendan]

What was quoted verbatim in comment #272 is a recommendation from the final synod document.

The Synod report stated that the internal forum “contributes”. This has been true in the tribunals, since they too examine intent and disposition, which are matters of the internal forum.

So there is nothing new here.

And incidentally, the very term ‘contribute’ would seem to indicate that the internal forum itself is not the judge of validity, but a presenter of information to the judge.

 

[Thomas_White]

The Synod report stated that the internal forum “may contribute”. This has been true in the tribunals, since they too examine intent and disposition, which are matters of the internal forum.

So there is nothing new here.

And incidentally, the very term ‘may contribute’ would seem to indicate that the internal forum itself is not the judge of validity, but a presenter of information to the judge.

“The process of accompaniment and discernment guides these faithful to an examination of conscience about their situation before God. Speaking with a priest in the internal forum contributes to the formation of a correct judgment about that which blocks the possibility of a fuller life in the Church…” --Section 86, Final Synod Report

 

[Brendan]

“The process of accompaniment and discernment guides these faithful to an examination of conscience about their situation before God. Speaking with a priest in the internal forum contributes to the formation of a correct judgment about that which blocks the possibility of a fuller life in the Church…” --Section 86, Final Synod Report

Yes it contributes. There has never been any doubt of that. That is what happens in tribunals.

Nothing new.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

I didn’t know that there was a final report on the Synod which has been reviewed and released via Pope Francis.

People are posting quote’s, but aren’t these merely the various opinions of different Bishops who attended at the time ?

Jim

 

[Ender]

“Finally, there are those who have entered in a second union for the sake of the children’s upbringing and who are sometimes subjectively certain in conscience that their previous and irreparably broken marriage had never been valid. Therefore, it is the duty of priests to accompany those concerned along the path of discernment…” --Section 85, Final Synod Report (emphasis added)

“The process of accompaniment and discernment guides these faithful to an examination of conscience about their situation before God. Speaking with a priest in the internal forum contributes to the formation of a correct judgment about that which blocks the possibility of a fuller life in the Church…” --Section 86, Final Synod Report

The meaning is unmistakable. What is recommended in the final synod document is an examination of conscience (a discernment in the internal forum), with the accompaniment of a priest to determine a "judgment about that which blocks the possibility of a fuller life life in the Church (which obviously is the question of the validity of a first marriage).

This is the problem with such statements: they can mean whatever one wants them to mean. I don’t read anything in it to mean that the individual and the priest are to determine the validity of the first marriage, especially as this interpretation is directly contrary to documents that have not been merely proposed but adopted and put into practice.* “The consequences of this distinction [between the internal and external fora] are that, generally speaking, any decision for the internal forum* has effect in that forum alone.” McGrath, GB&I Comm (1985) 77, original emphasis. Participating in holy Communion is, of course, an external act governed, in that respect, by the norms of the external forum (esp. Canons 915-916).

The primary canonical discussion of the internal forum occurs in the context of Canon 130, which canon references, however, not decisions of conscience, but rather, certain exercises of the “power of governance,” itself being an almost exclusively clerical and administrative activity, not a lay and spiritual one. Consider: “If the forum of conscience is ‘man’s most secret core, his sanctuary, [where] he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths (GS 16)’, the canonical internal forum certainly cannot simply be identified with the forum of conscience, because it is subject not only to the human intellect as making judgments in close and exclusive relationship with God, but is also subject to the power of governance of the Church.” Urrutia, “Internal forum / external forum”, in Latourelle, ed., Vatican II: Assessment and Perspectives I (1988) 637, … Urrutia notes that the Code Revision Commission expressly rejected further treating of the ‘internal forum’ as tantamount to the ‘forum of conscience’, citing Communicationes 9: 235. (Peters)
Ender

 

[Thomas_White]

Yes it contributes. There has never been any doubt of that. That is what happens in tribunals.

Nothing new.

Yes it contributes. There has never been any doubt of that. That is what happens in tribunals.

Nothing new.

Nothing new other than that the judgment would be made in the internal forum and not by a tribunal.

 

[Thomas_White]

Yes it contributes. There has never been any doubt of that. That is what happens in tribunals.

Nothing new.

Nothing new other than that the judgment would be made in the internal forum and not by a tribunal.

 

[clem456]

I really hope and pray that all these come to full communion with the Church. Heck I pray that I come to full communion with the Church, cause I have my own issues.

I also pray that the sanctity of marriage is promoted and upheld as God has intended “from the beginning”.
And pray that true human dignity is upheld.
And free loving relationship with God is recognized and proclaimed.

All these things are under assault, and this struggle puts the individual struggles that we all endure in perspective. These are not merely private matters to be ameliorated for the satisfaction of individuals. We are all connected, and the Church must proclaim the Gospel truly. Truth involves and speaks to everyone, not just individuals in isolated cases.

If we promote a false sense of mercy and freedom, human beings will suffer. (already have)

 

[Thomas_White]

This is the problem with such statements: they can mean whatever one wants them to mean. I don’t read anything in it to mean that the individual and the priest are to determine the validity of the first marriage, especially as this interpretation is directly contrary to documents that have not been merely proposed but adopted and put into practice.* “The consequences of this distinction [between the internal and external fora] are that, generally speaking, any decision for the internal forum* has effect in that forum alone.” McGrath, GB&I Comm (1985) 77, original emphasis. Participating in holy Communion is, of course, an external act governed, in that respect, by the norms of the external forum (esp. Canons 915-916).

The primary canonical discussion of the internal forum occurs in the context of Canon 130, which canon references, however, not decisions of conscience, but rather, certain exercises of the “power of governance,” itself being an almost exclusively clerical and administrative activity, not a lay and spiritual one. Consider: “If the forum of conscience is ‘man’s most secret core, his sanctuary, [where] he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths (GS 16)’, the canonical internal forum certainly cannot simply be identified with the forum of conscience, because it is subject not only to the human intellect as making judgments in close and exclusive relationship with God, but is also subject to the power of governance of the Church.” Urrutia, “Internal forum / external forum”, in Latourelle, ed., Vatican II: Assessment and Perspectives I (1988) 637, … Urrutia notes that the Code Revision Commission expressly rejected further treating of the ‘internal forum’ as tantamount to the ‘forum of conscience’, citing Communicationes 9: 235. (Peters)
Ender

The plain and clear recommendation of the synod says what it says. What you provide concerns the legal interpretation of Canon 130 of the code of Canon Law. I do not believe it applies to the recommendation of the synod which does speak of the internal forum as the forum of conscience.