Addressing absurdity of divorced & remarried couples receiving communion

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I agree this theology is very problematic.

Its saying, you can divorce, remarry in the civil courts, go to the tribunal and be declined a decree of nullity, and yet receive Eucharist based on your internal forum, because you may have moral certitude your first marriage was null.
 
1ke said:
Step two: understand that the internal forum solution is not new.
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Do you know of any equivalent, historical examples of Church leaders affirming the internal forum in such a manner?
 
chasingcars said:
Not all remarried people are in mortal sin, even if they are sexually active with their new “spouses”. Grave matter, full consent and full knowledge are required for a sin to be mortal.
While there certainly is a grave matter (adultery) and I assume church-attending remarried Catholics also have full knowledge, there is still the full consent part that needs to be examined.
Some have children with their new “spouses” and there might be other reasons why leaving the new union would be very difficult or even impossible. So it’s safe to say that even if someone entered their new union with a full consent, they are not necessarily staying in it with full consent.
However, even if a remarried, sexually active person is not in a state of mortal sin, I personally believe that it’d be inappropriate for them to receive Communion, because it could be a source of scandal and also because being sexually active with someone whom you’re not married to is objectively against the Church teaching (even if the person is not fully consenting).
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I agree.

St. Pope John Paul II addressed the issue and recognized a distinct line which cannot be crossed in situations like this. Namely, abstaining from the marital act (sex).
 
Ammi said:
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Now, it’s going to be afforded to the divorced, themselves?
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Well, the first article also states no to that question:
The guidelines also state that the decision to permit a couple to the Sacraments should be taken by a confessor in the context of the “internal forum.”
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So now you can sit in judgement of that which you know next to nothing? Let me put it another way: let’s assume you know someone who has a problem with a serious sin (other than the marriage issue); the Church considers it a mortal sin, and you know this person goes to reconciliation regularly - weekly or more often.

How do you know they are not simply treating reconciliation as a “get out of jail card” and have no seriou purpose of amendment - obvious, apparently since they repeatedly commit the same sin?

tht is the essence of what you are commenting upon; in short, your question is a questioning of whether or not they have a clear conscience.

The ultimate bottom line is the conscience of each individual as they approach Communion. Unless and until you, I or anyone else has clear information from them that they do not, we are called to not judge them. Period.
 
When 5 Dubia are brought by the same 4 Cardinals, at least one of whom has shown strong “dislike” for the Bishop of Rome almost from the time he was elected, and not even a significant minority of the some 5,000 bishops of the world have joined in, then one just possibly could surmise that something was driving the issues of the Dubias other than doctrine or discipline.

But that is just surmising. Of course.

And the matter is not without historical precedent, but I choose not to sidetrack the discussion.
 
4 Cardinals deserve the respect of a formal answer. Their intentions should not be judged as not deserving a response.
 
Unfortunately church leaders at the moment are . . . not always reliable. When a person can easily search and find the actual and historical teachings of the faith, then hear nonsense like this from modern church leaders you know we have a problem. These leaders need our prayers that they might have the Strength to remain strong in consistent church teaching rather than to falter and cave in to every modernist agenda or idea.
 
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Lifesite news are accurate. They have a definite slant to the reporting, but they do not lie.
 
OP, of course it’s ridiculous that something like this would be approved by Church leadership. Even if their intentions are for this to apply in rare cases, it’s a very slippery slope that won’t end well. However, being so angry about it doesn’t accomplish anything. It’s sad, but this is what we mean when we say the Church is in crisis. All we can do as the faithful is pray and worry about our own holiness.
 
I have had, for a very long time, two suspicions: 1) that no answer was their answer, and 2) that there are internal politics within the Church (as much as many people either don’t want to admit it, or want to call it something else).

As I noted, the 4 did not see their brother bishops and cardinals joining in on the matter. That in turn impliedly leaves them in somewhat isolation on the merits of the questions.
 
The only real place that has a functional tribunal system to handle annulments is the United States. In the United States annulments are granted fairly. A good system is setup in the United States to handle annulments. In other countries this is not the case including Italy. Part of what Amoris Laetitia did was use the tribunal model from the US for other countries. In the meantime internal forums can be used when a tribunal is not reasonably available.

I see this as simply a compassionate response that is exactly following Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 5:32 to determine if a marriage is “unlawful”.

It has been discussed extensively here…
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The current and practical application of Amoris Laetitia for divorced and remarried couples Moral Theology
I understand this is a tough subject. I’m trying to understand how Amoris Laetitia is currently and practically being applied for divorced and remarried couples. FYI: I live somewhere in the US. I’m single and I’ve never been married. I don’t have a strong agenda on this one. However, I just don’t understand how these rule changes are practically being applied. I’m not interested in people’s opinions (personal or theological) on Amoris Laetitia in this thread. I don’t want this to digress into …
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One can fraudulently get a decree of nullity in some circumstances and one can be denied a decree of nullity for lack of appropriate documentation. Who is the one in sin?
 
There is a way for Pope Francis to explain this move, but he has not seen fit to explain it.

This is a much bigger issue than use of the 1962 Mass, and for that, Pope Benedict released a Motu Proprio with explanations. A far cry from a footnote that we are just to see what happens.
 
Why does the Pope need a majority of Cardinals to respect their serious question?

It’s about providing a formal account for something being proposed as good faith.

The Pope is a servant of the Bishops. He is to do what is in his capacity to bring his fellow Bishops to confidence in conscience, and one mind. Those Cardinals who addressed Dubia were not uneducated men of the Church. They held positions of the highest courts and their questions were not without substantial merit.
 
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Ammi said:
Rome has a more reliable tribunal.
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Strangely enough the tribunal system in Italy is deeply problematic, and sometimes a tribunal is not reasonably available. This pushes people in some cases to an internal forum. I’m attaching an article.

Don’t assume the worst. The internal forum is not being used as a fallback plan if the divorce does not go through…

From the article…
Pope Francis told the bishops of Italy that he was disappointed that so many of their dioceses had yet to implement the reforms he ordered to make the marriage annulment process quicker, more pastoral and less expensive.
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