Addressing absurdity of divorced & remarried couples receiving communion

[Ammi]

In a large developed country like the United States, sure there are facilities to help such women

So the developed countries can be reduced from this situation.

(if they in fact want/need to be helped). Where this couple are from is pretty much the polar opposite of somewhere like the United States. It’s a small country with minimal social support.

Because the Church is failing at standing against contraception. And establishing support for members in trouble (like it had done in the beginning)

Well I’m sure he provides for her and the family, and does other things a husband should do but he just happens to have a very different mindset when it comes to conjugal relations - one which, sad to say, isn’t all that uncommon.

I agree it’s common, and very hard to swim against such a current. Us Catholics have allowed this to happen, because we havent suffered against contraception like we should. Compromise after compromise, lack of trust in Jesus. 80% of Catholics contracepting, and many not even aware its harmful.

that doesn’t of course make what he’s doing right but it does go some way towards showing just how complicated situations like this (and other pastoral situations involving similar issues) can be. If there were easy answers to these problems (like priests telling them not to do it) then they wouldn’t be problems! Sadly, human relationships are messy at the best of times and it’s just about trying to figuring out best to deal with each problem.

The best way is to suffer against it. It is only getting worse, all the time.

 

[Ammi]

Ammi, how long have you been married? You have an unrealistic view of how easy a sexless marriage ought to be in my opinion.

First I didnt say it’s easy, and I didnt say I’m strong. We make mistakes. What’s a terrible mistake, is to give up, not confess after mistakes, and just resign ourselves to our own weakness. We are weak. Accept it, and then accept His strength. That’s when we can overcome. The Church should be a sanctuary of help. Help for those turning from sinfulness. All one has to do is confess the sin of contraception and intend to sin no more. Strive to overcome. Eucharist is for those who strive against sin.

I married a good man, Catholic and who was willing to do pretty much anything for me and yet when it came to periodic abstinence, it was a difficult thing to navigate. We were both abstinent before marriage and you could say we’d had practice at abstinence. It’s a different kettle of fish within marriage where proximity and intimacy have to be managed. We are well into our marriage now (32 years) and it has taken lots of work to have a chaste holy marriage. That experience gives me an understanding of what it would be like to have an enforced sexless marriage. I don’t know what experience of marriage you have that makes you think it is so black and white?

I think you mistake me. I am saying we are called to strive to turn from sin with steadfast confession (even people like me who have sinned so many times). I’m not saying we are all able to achieve this without failures which we bring to confession and grow in humility and contempt for our sinfulness. It might take many falls sometimes, but with just as many recoveries, it will come.

 

[OddBird]

you were rejecting the faith.

Saying that is insulting his Protestant faith. Not the best way to proceed in an already tense context.

Again, if he loves you, how can he leave you because you want to convalidate the marriage in accordance with your faith?

Because he feels that I am the one whom he trapped unfairly in an invalid marriage, and that he should give me my freedom back.

I’m not judging, but just saying that it has consequences.

Of course it has. And believe me, the consequences are hard enough as it is, to the point I was bluntly told to go on sick leave because I was on the verge of burnout, besides myself with pain and fear and worry.

Again, I am not here for advice. I have a good spiritual director (a priest) whose advice I trust far more than, with all due respect, the advice of strangers in on the internet.

I tried to show you how this works. I intervened because you and another poster were getting worked up about people having sex and receiving communion when their marriage is invalid in the eyes of the church, and accusing a priest who explained why and how this could happen of not doing his job.

I told you little by little about my situation, and now you are, in fact, trying to help me come up with a workable solution.

The thing is, you are doing that, I presume, because you feel sympathy for what I am going through – wanting to come back to the Church when I married in another, in which I became a pastor. You want to help because you were touched by my particular story.

But each and every story is particular. It is fine to make a blanket statement like “couples in invalid marriages shouldn’t receive communion”, but when you start listening to individual stories, you will find that most of them has its particular conundrum which makes it hard and calls for understanding and sympathy.

I have worked long enough in church circles, albeit Reformed ones, to know that people who, for whatever reason, are in invalid marriages and want to receive communion, or play a role in the community which asks for certain moral standards, rarely are the serial adulterers on their 4th union. Those I know are mostly people who, for example, had a whirlwind romance, married and got divorced within six months in their late teens, found love and stability and a lasting marriage later, discover or rediscover faith in their late forties, and are told that their spouse of 20 years, with whom they have their only kids, is actually not their spouse.

 

[poche]

According to the Code of Canon Law;

Can. 1404 The First See is judged by no one.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P5A.HTM

 

[OddBird]

Replying to myself because I typed this in a hurry before leaving this morning, and left out the last bit I wanted to say

I am not at all advocating a blanket “yes” to all these situations, for obvious moral reasons. But what do you do for such couples, particularly in the case where only one of the spouses wants to set things right with the Church, and the other feels that just agreeing to an annulment/convalidation process is acknowledging that decades of your married life were actually an illusion or a simulacre, and refuses so strongly to engage in it that the whole canonical process becomes a threat to the marriage ? You cannot say a blanket “no” either, because this would be driving a soul away.

 

[Ammi]

Nobody judged him. They proposed questions, and he ignored them.

 

[Ammi]

Saying that is insulting his Protestant faith. Not the best way to proceed in an already tense context.

Well that is unavoidable. Catholic and Protestant beliefs are at odds. You cant avoid this reality. It foesnt mean you are insulting him.

Because he feels that I am the one whom he trapped unfairly in an invalid marriage, and that he should give me my freedom back.

Actually it’s you who were not free to marry outside the Church. And you still have your freedom to marry him. He did nothing wrong (though he may have approved you left the Church). This can easily be remedied. But you both need to reconcile the issue, and through counseling perhaps.

Of course it has. And believe me, the consequences are hard enough as it is, to the point I was bluntly told to go on sick leave because I was on the verge of burnout, besides myself with pain and fear and worry.

I’m sorry! Find a good counselor. Dont worry, but pray and show your husband you love him.

Again, I am not here for advice. I have a good spiritual director (a priest) whose advice I trust far more than, with all due respect, the advice of strangers in on the internet.

Fair enough. I am nobody important. I have my own marriage to fight for. I am no authority whatsoever.

I tried to show you how this works. I intervened because you and another poster were getting worked up about people having sex and receiving communion when their marriage is invalid in the eyes of the church, and accusing a priest who explained why and how this could happen of not doing his job.

Yes, I am convinced there is always a better alternative, of which has the merit of faith and appeal to faith.

I told you little by little about my situation, and now you are, in fact, trying to help me come up with a workable solution. The thing is, you are doing that, I presume, because you feel sympathy for what I am going through – wanting to come back to the Church when I married in another, in which I became a pastor. You want to help because you were touched by my particular story.

Thank you for considering my position as sympathetic and in brotherly encouragement.

But each and every story is particular. It is fine to make a blanket statement like “couples in invalid marriages shouldn’t receive communion”, but when you start listening to individual stories, you will find that most of them has its particular conundrum which makes it hard and calls for understanding and sympathy. I have worked long enough in church circles, albeit Reformed ones, to know that people who, for whatever reason, are in invalid marriages and want to receive communion.

I will say this. I wont tell you that you are in mortal sin if you receive in your situation. Only that I (personally, with no authority other than sincere encouragement) am compelled to encourage an approach which does not involve receiving Eucharist while practicing the marital act with anyone who is not a valid spouse.

I will leave it at that, and with a prayer for your relationship to overcome this trial. Peace.

 

[Ammi]

Now you are asking what can be done?

Counselling, and appeal to faith! The love was and is real. The issue is the Catholic’s rebellion of their faith. Make that distinction to him.