A
anthony022071
Guest
It seems there are many divorced and remarried Catholics who want the Church to accept their divorce and remarriage,or who give up on the Church,thinking they are not welcome,can’t practice their faith or can’t participate in the mass because they aren’t allowed to receive the eucharist. The intention of the article is to stoke up sympathy for them and to sway public opinion to pressure the bishops to change Church law.
nytimes.com/2015/01/25/us/as-vatican-revisits-divorce-many-catholics-long-for-acceptance.html?_r=1
< Mark Garren does not take communion when he goes to church. Sometimes he walks up to the priest, crosses his arms over his chest and touches his shoulders to signal that he is seeking a blessing. More often, mindful of his divorce years ago, Mr. Garren, a 64-year-old Illinoisan, remains in his pew, watching with slight embarrassment as the rest of the row moves to the front of the church.
Pamela Crawford, 46, of Virginia, is having none of that. Twice divorced, she, too, feels judged by her church, but when she does go to Mass, she walks up with the rest of the congregation. “If God has a problem with me taking communion, we’ll sort it out,” she said.
Facing millions of divorced Catholics around the world, many of whom express frustration over their status in the church, the Vatican has begun a remarkable re-examination of the church’s treatment of worshipers whose marriages have broken apart.
Pope Francis, who plans to make his first trip to the United States in September to attend a conference on families, has acknowledged the concerns of divorced Catholics. He has set in motion a high-level debate about whether and how the church could change its posture toward them without altering a doctrine that declares marriage to be permanent and indissoluble.
The battle lines are clear: Some high-level church officials, most notably the conference of German bishops, want the church to relax its rules so that divorced Catholics can more fully return to church life, particularly by receiving communion, even if they have remarried. Traditionalists are pushing back fiercely, arguing that the indissolubility of marriage is ordained by God and therefore nonnegotiable. >
< Beyond the issues of church doctrine and procedure are complaints about how divorced Catholics are treated at the parish level. Many divorced Catholics sensed isolation, saying they felt judged or ostracized by priests and parishioners.
Women in particular expressed unhappiness at feeling interrogated by church tribunals during the annulment process about failed marriages, especially when abusive or adulterous husbands precipitated the breakup.
“You’re dealing with an abusive husband who is male, and then you have to go to a male to get the annulment, and a bunch of males sit at a table and decide whether your decision was correct,” said Denise Stookesberry, 58, of St. Louis. “It certainly alienated me as a woman.”
She responded by giving up on the annulment process rather than filling out documents that asked about her marital sex life. She later lost her job at a Catholic high school when she remarried, and then left Catholicism — for a time thinking that she was putting her soul in danger by doing so. >
Stories of Catholic Marriage and Divorce
nytimes.com/interactive/2015/01/24/us/catholic-divorce-reader-stories.html
nytimes.com/2015/01/25/us/as-vatican-revisits-divorce-many-catholics-long-for-acceptance.html?_r=1
< Mark Garren does not take communion when he goes to church. Sometimes he walks up to the priest, crosses his arms over his chest and touches his shoulders to signal that he is seeking a blessing. More often, mindful of his divorce years ago, Mr. Garren, a 64-year-old Illinoisan, remains in his pew, watching with slight embarrassment as the rest of the row moves to the front of the church.
Pamela Crawford, 46, of Virginia, is having none of that. Twice divorced, she, too, feels judged by her church, but when she does go to Mass, she walks up with the rest of the congregation. “If God has a problem with me taking communion, we’ll sort it out,” she said.
Facing millions of divorced Catholics around the world, many of whom express frustration over their status in the church, the Vatican has begun a remarkable re-examination of the church’s treatment of worshipers whose marriages have broken apart.
Pope Francis, who plans to make his first trip to the United States in September to attend a conference on families, has acknowledged the concerns of divorced Catholics. He has set in motion a high-level debate about whether and how the church could change its posture toward them without altering a doctrine that declares marriage to be permanent and indissoluble.
The battle lines are clear: Some high-level church officials, most notably the conference of German bishops, want the church to relax its rules so that divorced Catholics can more fully return to church life, particularly by receiving communion, even if they have remarried. Traditionalists are pushing back fiercely, arguing that the indissolubility of marriage is ordained by God and therefore nonnegotiable. >
< Beyond the issues of church doctrine and procedure are complaints about how divorced Catholics are treated at the parish level. Many divorced Catholics sensed isolation, saying they felt judged or ostracized by priests and parishioners.
Women in particular expressed unhappiness at feeling interrogated by church tribunals during the annulment process about failed marriages, especially when abusive or adulterous husbands precipitated the breakup.
“You’re dealing with an abusive husband who is male, and then you have to go to a male to get the annulment, and a bunch of males sit at a table and decide whether your decision was correct,” said Denise Stookesberry, 58, of St. Louis. “It certainly alienated me as a woman.”
She responded by giving up on the annulment process rather than filling out documents that asked about her marital sex life. She later lost her job at a Catholic high school when she remarried, and then left Catholicism — for a time thinking that she was putting her soul in danger by doing so. >
Stories of Catholic Marriage and Divorce
nytimes.com/interactive/2015/01/24/us/catholic-divorce-reader-stories.html