Cardinal Pell: ‘Synod report does not create opening to Communion for divorced and remarried’

[_Abyssinia]

Excerpt from interview with Cardinal Pell:

Paragraphs 84-86 on divorce and remarriage only just got enough votes and have drawn criticism for being ambiguous. Is this a problem?
No it’s not ambiguous, it’s insufficient. There’s really no ambiguity in the text. If you closely examine the text in 85, it’s very clear. The basis for all the discernment must be the “insegnamento complessivo” – complete teaching – of John Paul II. Then it goes on to repeat that the basis of discernment is the teaching of the Church.
A lot of the fathers would have liked it spelled out a bit more explicitly but there is no mention anywhere of Communion for the divorced and remarried. It’s not one of the possibilities that was floated. The document is cleverly written to get consensus. Some people would say it’s insufficient. It’s not ambiguous.
The headlines in some Italian newspapers, and an Irish website, implied the Church was now allowing all remarried divorcees to receive Holy Communion on a case-by-case basis. What’s your view of this?
That is completely unjustified. There is nothing in the document to justify that, and the Polish bishops came out today I believe to say very explicitly that such an understanding is not justified by the text. Now you might like the text or dislike it. You might think it’s good, bad or indifferent, but at least let us read it accurately and justly, and judge it on its own terms. So those headlines are inaccurate and misleading. They’ve probably been fed a line. I’m not sure there was or is an official English text so there’s some excuse for them misunderstanding it, but such headlines are not justified. People should go to those paragraphs and judge for themselves.
Some were critical that Familiaris consortio was cherry picked, and its clear position on not admitting remarried divorcees omitted, thereby diminishing the integrity of the apostolic letter. How do you respond to that?
Well the full text is not quoted, but they did add the word “complessivo” – it’s the entire teaching of John Paul II which is the basis, not the incomplete citation that was given.

Read more: ncregister.com/blog/edward-pentin/cardinal-pell-on-the-synod-the-final-report-and-decentralization/#ixzz3pieGaj6Q

 

[_Abyssinia]

Check out this from Cardinal Dolan:

Much attention in the coverage of the synod was given to whether those in a valid sacramental marriage, having civilly divorced and remarried, can then receive Holy Communion. (Actually, this hot topic hardly dominated the Synod as it did the press coverage.) The Church’s longstanding practice—recently confirmed clearly by St. John Paul II after the synod on the family in 1980, and renewed by Pope Benedict XVI after the synod on the Eucharist in 2005—is that they cannot as long the second conjugal union continues. It is the necessary consequence of what Jesus taught about divorce and re-marriage and of what St. Paul the Apostle taught about being in a state of grace to receive Holy Communion. The final proposals of the Synod bishops did nothing to alter that teaching.

Catholics in such situations are often carrying a heavy cross; they may well feel like the forlorn disciples on the road to Emmaus. Yet the Church cannot admit them to Holy Communion if she is to remain faithful to the teaching of Christ. The synod did not change any of this, despite what you may have read in misinformed reports. At the same time, the synod certainly did not leave them to wander off into the night alone, cut off from the community of disciples. To the contrary, we need to offer them what Jesus offered them—the full Emmaus, confident that they too are capable of conversion, of hearts burning with renewed hope, eager to return to the Church gathered in the Upper Room in Jerusalem. And we welcome them!

cny.org/stories/Report-on-the-Synod,13240

 

[JimG]

Cardinal Dolan’s quote in the previous post is pretty clear that nothing has changed.

 

[styrgwillidar]

Cardinal Dolan’s quote in the previous post is pretty clear that nothing has changed.

Well… hopefully it changes the hearts of all in the Church to welcome all sinners, to keep them from feeling like outcasts or beyond the love and hope of Christ. Even if they can’t participate in communion through the Eucharist, they can be in the Church. Like all of us, to hear those things we need to improve ourselves in our journey.

I know many divorced (not even remarried) who feel a separation, who feel less welcome and less of a sense of belonging. I think this is what Pope Francis is trying to address.

 

[JimG]

Well… hopefully it changes the hearts of all in the Church to welcome all sinners, to keep them from feeling like outcasts or beyond the love and hope of Christ. Even if they can’t participate in communion through the Eucharist, they can be in the Church. Like all of us, to hear those things we need to improve ourselves in our journey.

I know many divorced (not even remarried) who feel a separation, who feel less welcome and less of a sense of belonging. I think this is what Pope Francis is trying to address.

Yes, I understand that everyone must be and feel welcomed. I know people who have gone to Mass for decades but do not receive communion because they are not Catholic (usually non-Catholic spouses), or because they are in an invalid second marriage. I’ve told the story of my wife’s aunt before; she was one of the best known and well loved members of her parish, but she could not receive communion because of a second marriage. It just seems strange that it would take a synod to address situations which many if not most parishes have already successfully addressed.

 

[_Abyssinia]

Excerpt from interview with Cardinal Pell:

Following the release of the synod document, headlines in the European press included: “Divorced people to be allowed to receive Holy Communion on ‘case by case’ basis” while others in the media are referring to paragraphs 85 and 86 as “the paragraphs on communion for the divorced and remarried.”

Those headlines are inaccurate, unjustified and misleading. People should read the document, not what has been spun to them. I also think it is important for the press to actually read what was said and not just unthinkingly take the line which they’re being fed.

Paragraphs 85 and 86 are not on communion for the divorced and remarried. Communion for the divorced and remarried wasn’t mentioned in the document. It wasn’t mentioned even as a possibility. No endorsement has been given for it, and if priests or people are to use their conscience, they have to have an informed conscience based on the teachings of the Church.

The “discernment” spoken of in paragraph 85 must be effected in light of all of the teachings of John Paul II, especially Familiaris Consortio. In the middle of the paragraph, it says “according to the teaching of the Church.”

To be clear then, paragraphs 85 and 86 do not leave the door open to communion for the divorced and remarried, as some in the Church and the media are suggesting?

The final document certainly doesn’t, but people need to read it. It’s a consensus document and there is no consensus for Communion for the divorced and remarried. It wasn’t mentioned in that paragraph. Undoubtedly some people would like it to pave the way for change, and will try to use it for that.

I too would have appreciated a bit more clarity in these matters. But there is no heresy in the synodal document at all, as one senior official involved with the document has said.

What would you say, then, to those in the Church and the media who say things are not “black and white” on the issue of communion for the divorced and remarried?

Things aren’t always gray. Sometimes things are black and white. War, exploitation of women, exploitation of children, drug running, there is black and white on those issues. And there is clear teaching from Jesus on marriage, family and sexuality.

The Church in this document has spoken very mercifully and has shown that it understands the enormous of complexity and variety of situations, whether Catholics or others find themselves. So it’s not all gray. There are are number of condemnations quite explicitly in the document. Not everything is black and white, but life is a rich texture of many, many colors, and the Church has got to put forward pure and undiluted teaching of Jesus Christ on these matters.

Paragraph 85 is clear: You can exercise your conscience defined adequately in paragraph 63. On these matters, following the full teaching of John Paul II and the teachings of the Church. We’ve been given no right to turn Church teaching upside down in that paragraph. Read it carefully.

During one of the synod press briefings, we heard a synod participant from Germany say he thought subjects like communion for the divorced and remarried, and matters pertaining to homosexuality—including the Church’s acceptance of active homosexual relationships—should be devolved to the local level.

Doctrine is one. The parties that are involved in this aren’t so much those who want devolution. The parties are those, unfortunately, inside and outside the Church who want us to rewrite the Catholic Church’s teachings on sexuality, marriage and the family and go in the way of a radically liberal interpretation of Christianity that has already destroyed the Catholic Church in Belgium, Holland and Quebec, and has enormously damaged the radically liberal Protestant churches.

The lessons of history on this particular matter are absolutely clear. The synod does not endorse any such change, and for us to head in that direction would be an enormous mistake.

aleteia.org/2015/10/27/cardinal-pells-intervention-at-the-virtual-synod-dont-believe-the-spin/

 

[Lormar]

Who even knows if someone is divorced and remarried? Unless they attend Mass with a sign on their back indicating them as such, who would know? And it is no one’s business why someone doesn’t receive Holy Communion.

I have a hard time believing that any parish in the USA during the last fifty or so years has ever made a divorced and remarried person/couple feel like an outcast or beyond the love and hope of Christ. Before Vatican II, yes, I can believe it. After, no.

I’ve committed some horrid major sins and been involved in sinful actions, but the only thing that caused me shame was my own conscience; not anyone in the pews, and not a priest.

 

[JimG]

Who even knows if someone is divorced and remarried? Unless they attend Mass with a sign on their back indicating them as such, who would know? And it is no one’s business why someone doesn’t receive Holy Communion.

I have a hard time believing that any parish in the USA during the last fifty or so years has ever made a divorced and remarried person/couple feel like an outcast or beyond the love and hope of Christ. Before Vatican II, yes, I can believe it. After, no.

I’ve committed some horrid major sins and been involved in sinful actions, but the only thing that caused me shame was my own conscience; not anyone in the pews, and not a priest.

I agree with you. I don’t know of any parish who checks for marital or divorce status before communion. It may be that the actual intent of the proposal to allow for giving communion to those in invalid marriages may be to provide justification for what may be the de facto practice in some places. But doing so would certainly put the doctrine of indissolubility of marriage into doubt.

 

[Justin_Swanton]

Reading through the controversial paragraphs slowly and carefully - several times - it became clear to me that they aren’t ambiguous at all. They start from a principle enunciated in paragraph 84 and then draw its conclusions from paragraph 84 and 86.

First, the principle: remarried divorcees are in a state of grace:The logic of integration is the key to their pastoral accompaniment, so that they know not only that they belong to the Body of Christ which is the Church, but that they may have a*** joyous and*** fruitful experience of this. They are baptized, they are brothers and sisters, the Holy Spirit pours into them gifts and charisms for the good of everyone.
A ‘joyous and fruitful experience’ means nothing if the individuals concerned are in mortal sin, supernaturally cut off from God and the graces offered by the Church. In this paragraph it is assumed, without any distinctions, that this is not the case. ***Nowhere ***is it stated that only those remarried divorcees who live as brother and sister or separate from their partners can receive the supernatural blessings of the Holy Spirit and the Church.

How can one affirm that remarried divorcees are in a state of grace? By affirming that remorse is the same thing as repentance. Someone with an uneasy conscience who would like to live a normal Catholic life again but lacks the moral strength to regularize his situation is assumed, in this optic, to have already shown enough repentance to be forgiven by God - without being obliged to put his house in order, at least not yet.

Then the consequences. If remarried divorcees are in a state of grace, what keeps them from participating fully in Church life, notably the sacraments? That is the question posed:

Their participation can be expressed in various ecclesial services: it is therefore necessary to discern what are the various forms of exclusion currently practiced in the liturgical, pastoral, educational and institutional areas may be overcome.

How are the ‘various forms of exclusion’ overcome? Several conditions are laid down, ***none ***of them requiring sexual abstinence. They all add up to ascertaining whether the individual’s remorse is sincere:

1. The failure of their first marriage is not their fault:

*There is in fact a difference between those who have sincerely tried to save their first marriage and have been unjustly abandoned, and those who through their own grave fault have destroyed a canonically valid marriage.

The divorced and remarried should ask themselves how they behaved toward their children when the conjugal union entered into crisis; if there were attempts at reconciliation;*

2. They remarried for a good intention and believe their first marriage was not valid in the first place:

Finally, there are those who have entered into a second union for the sake of the children’s upbringing, and who are sometimes subjectively certain in conscience that their previous and irreparably destroyed marriage had never been valid
**
3. Their second marriage will have no adverse effects on their entourage, i.e. their family and friends will not be scandalised by it (!):**

what consequences the new relationship has on the rest of the family and the community of the faithful; what example it offers to young people who must prepare for marriage

4. They are not morally culpable when they have sexual relations with their second partner (!!):

“imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments and other psychological or social factors” (CCC, 1735) for reasons of various conditions

5. They lack the moral strength to act according to God’s law, i.e. if you are morally too weak to keep a commandment then you are excused from it (!!!):

*In specific circumstances people find great difficulty in acting a different way. Therefore, while upholding a general norm, it is necessary to recognize that the responsibility regarding certain actions or decisions is not the same in all cases. *

6. They must show the intention of ultimately keeping the commandments even if they can’t keep them now:

the necessary conditions of humility, confidence, love for the Church and her teaching, in the sincere search for God’s will and the desire to achieve a more perfect response to it, must be secured

And that’s it.

Oh boy…

 

[Brendan]

And it is no one’s business why someone doesn’t receive Holy Communion. .

I would disagree with you there. It is a matter of Charity to counsel those who are receiving Holy Communion in a state of sin to cease.

Imagine if we found out that someone was abusing prescription drugs. They were illicitly taking something that normally brings health, but they were doing so against the clear instruction of the Physician, and in a way that was actually poisonous to themselves. It was literally killing them.

Would it not be a good, Catholic, thing to counsel them to cease? If we ignored it, would doing so be a sign of Love for them?

Such is the case with Holy Communion. Under normal circumstances, it brings about healing. But for a person in a state of grave sin, such as adultery ( but not limited to adultery), it actually brings about grave spiritual harm to their souls.

So you are correct, we might not know if a couple is in an irregular marital state. But if we do have that knowledge, it is an act of Charity and Mercy to ask them to cease.

So yes, it IS our business.

 

[graciew]

Reading through the controversial paragraphs slowly and carefully - several times - it became clear to me that they aren’t ambiguous at all. They start from a principle enunciated in paragraph 84 and then draw its conclusions from paragraph 84 and 86.

First, the principle: remarried divorcees are in a state of grace:The logic of integration is the key to their pastoral accompaniment, so that they know not only that they belong to the Body of Christ which is the Church, but that they may have a*** joyous and*** fruitful experience of this. They are baptized, they are brothers and sisters, the Holy Spirit pours into them gifts and charisms for the good of everyone.
A ‘joyous and fruitful experience’ means nothing if the individuals concerned are in mortal sin, supernaturally cut off from God and the graces offered by the Church. In this paragraph it is assumed, without any distinctions, that this is not the case. ***Nowhere ***is it stated that only those remarried divorcees who live as brother and sister or separate from their partners can receive the supernatural blessings of the Holy Spirit and the Church.

How can one affirm that remarried divorcees are in a state of grace? By affirming that remorse is the same thing as repentance. Someone with an uneasy conscience who would like to live a normal Catholic life again but lacks the moral strength to regularize his situation is assumed, in this optic, to have already shown enough repentance to be forgiven by God - without being obliged to put his house in order, at least not yet.

Then the consequences. If remarried divorcees are in a state of grace, what keeps them from participating fully in Church life, notably the sacraments? That is the question posed:

Their participation can be expressed in various ecclesial services: it is therefore necessary to discern what are the various forms of exclusion currently practiced in the liturgical, pastoral, educational and institutional areas may be overcome.

How are the ‘various forms of exclusion’ overcome? Several conditions are laid down, ***none ***of them requiring sexual abstinence. They all add up to ascertaining whether the individual’s remorse is sincere:

1. The failure of their first marriage is not their fault:

*There is in fact a difference between those who have sincerely tried to save their first marriage and have been unjustly abandoned, and those who through their own grave fault have destroyed a canonically valid marriage.

The divorced and remarried should ask themselves how they behaved toward their children when the conjugal union entered into crisis; if there were attempts at reconciliation;*

2. They remarried for a good intention and believe their first marriage was not valid in the first place:

Finally, there are those who have entered into a second union for the sake of the children’s upbringing, and who are sometimes subjectively certain in conscience that their previous and irreparably destroyed marriage had never been valid
**
3. Their second marriage will have no adverse effects on their entourage, i.e. their family and friends will not be scandalised by it (!):**

what consequences the new relationship has on the rest of the family and the community of the faithful; what example it offers to young people who must prepare for marriage

4. They are not morally culpable when they have sexual relations with their second partner (!!):

“imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments and other psychological or social factors” (CCC, 1735) for reasons of various conditions

5. They lack the moral strength to act according to God’s law, i.e. if you are morally too weak to keep a commandment then you are excused from it (!!!):

*In specific circumstances people find great difficulty in acting a different way. Therefore, while upholding a general norm, it is necessary to recognize that the responsibility regarding certain actions or decisions is not the same in all cases. *

6. They must show the intention of ultimately keeping the commandments even if they can’t keep them now:

the necessary conditions of humility, confidence, love for the Church and her teaching, in the sincere search for God’s will and the desire to achieve a more perfect response to it, must be secured

And that’s it.

Oh boy…

How else other than Communion which is a simplistic answer in the Pope’s own words ?
There are several things a person " in good standing " with the Church can be as godparents for ex. even if they are maffia ,corrupt ,while persons who will to come back to God cannot. Willing to be a good witness to a child and admit and correct their mistakes.
How else other than Communion ?
How else ?!
Concrete action ,not vapour. How else ?
The Pope asked this long ago.
And also said it was not the only topic. There are families all over the world with different concrete problems.
Whenever the Pope opens his mouth he " must be referring to Communion for the divorce and remarried" .
He also said our standards have to be prayed and thought about. I m trying to go through mine btw…
We have no control over what will be decided yet we can search into our hearts.
So what do you think from this perspective,Justin ?

 

[Thomas_White]

Reading through the controversial paragraphs slowly and carefully - several times - it became clear to me that they aren’t ambiguous at all. They start from a principle enunciated in paragraph 84 and then draw its conclusions from paragraph 84 and 86.

First, the principle: remarried divorcees are in a state of grace:The logic of integration is the key to their pastoral accompaniment, so that they know not only that they belong to the Body of Christ which is the Church, but that they may have a*** joyous and*** fruitful experience of this. They are baptized, they are brothers and sisters, the Holy Spirit pours into them gifts and charisms for the good of everyone.
A ‘joyous and fruitful experience’ means nothing if the individuals concerned are in mortal sin, supernaturally cut off from God and the graces offered by the Church. In this paragraph it is assumed, without any distinctions, that this is not the case. ***Nowhere ***is it stated that only those remarried divorcees who live as brother and sister or separate from their partners can receive the supernatural blessings of the Holy Spirit and the Church.

How can one affirm that remarried divorcees are in a state of grace? By affirming that remorse is the same thing as repentance. Someone with an uneasy conscience who would like to live a normal Catholic life again but lacks the moral strength to regularize his situation is assumed, in this optic, to have already shown enough repentance to be forgiven by God - without being obliged to put his house in order, at least not yet.

Then the consequences. If remarried divorcees are in a state of grace, what keeps them from participating fully in Church life, notably the sacraments? That is the question posed:

Their participation can be expressed in various ecclesial services: it is therefore necessary to discern what are the various forms of exclusion currently practiced in the liturgical, pastoral, educational and institutional areas may be overcome.

How are the ‘various forms of exclusion’ overcome? Several conditions are laid down, ***none ***of them requiring sexual abstinence. They all add up to ascertaining whether the individual’s remorse is sincere:

1. The failure of their first marriage is not their fault:

*There is in fact a difference between those who have sincerely tried to save their first marriage and have been unjustly abandoned, and those who through their own grave fault have destroyed a canonically valid marriage.

The divorced and remarried should ask themselves how they behaved toward their children when the conjugal union entered into crisis; if there were attempts at reconciliation;*

2. They remarried for a good intention and believe their first marriage was not valid in the first place:

Finally, there are those who have entered into a second union for the sake of the children’s upbringing, and who are sometimes subjectively certain in conscience that their previous and irreparably destroyed marriage had never been valid
**
3. Their second marriage will have no adverse effects on their entourage, i.e. their family and friends will not be scandalised by it (!):**

what consequences the new relationship has on the rest of the family and the community of the faithful; what example it offers to young people who must prepare for marriage

4. They are not morally culpable when they have sexual relations with their second partner (!!):

“imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments and other psychological or social factors” (CCC, 1735) for reasons of various conditions

5. They lack the moral strength to act according to God’s law, i.e. if you are morally too weak to keep a commandment then you are excused from it (!!!):

*In specific circumstances people find great difficulty in acting a different way. Therefore, while upholding a general norm, it is necessary to recognize that the responsibility regarding certain actions or decisions is not the same in all cases. *

6. They must show the intention of ultimately keeping the commandments even if they can’t keep them now:

the necessary conditions of humility, confidence, love for the Church and her teaching, in the sincere search for God’s will and the desire to achieve a more perfect response to it, must be secured

And that’s it.

Oh boy…

Why is it thought that in paragraphs 84 and 86 there is the principle that remarried divorcees are in a state of grace, as the words are commonly understood? Is the objection then the presumption that a person not in the state of grace is incapable of spirituality?

That is, why is it presumed that a “joyful and fruitful experience” means nothing if the person is in mortal sin? Why then does the Church strongly encourage divorced and remarried Catholics who have not obtained an annullment to attend Mass and otherwise practice the faith as permitted?

I would suggest there are spiritual truths that are not necessarily open to logic and analysis.

 

[philipl]

catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/10/26/cardinal-pell-synod-report-does-not-create-opening-to-communion-for-divorced-and-remarried/

The solution is simple, the Pope needs to tells everyone that divorced and remarried catholic if they havent gotten an annulment, can not go to communion. Problem solved

 

[graciew]

The solution is simple, the Pope needs to tells everyone that divorced and remarried catholic if they havent gotten an annulment, can not go to communion. Problem solved

 The problem is we have to.read what he says.
 He clearly stated that marriage is indissoluble. That some annulments take 10 to 15 years ,that either one s marriage is valid or not.

He has opened the door of Mercy for Confession.
Explained that marriage is a serious thing , the need for preparation …

What are the problems for you ,Philipl?

 

[Justin_Swanton]

How else other than Communion which is a simplistic answer in the Pope’s own words ?
There are several things a person " in good standing " with the Church can be as godparents for ex. even if they are maffia ,corrupt ,while persons who will to come back to God cannot. Willing to be a good witness to a child and admit and correct their mistakes.
How else other than Communion ?
How else ?!
Concrete action ,not vapour. How else ?
The Pope asked this long ago.
And also said it was not the only topic. There are families all over the world with different concrete problems.
Whenever the Pope opens his mouth he " must be referring to Communion for the divorce and remarried" .
He also said our standards have to be prayed and thought about. I m trying to go through mine btw…
We have no control over what will be decided yet we can search into our hearts.
So what do you think from this perspective,Justin ?

I think it impossible any longer to suppose that the Pope does not want to admit remarried divorcees who show some sort of good disposition - without going as far as to sort out their situation - access to the sacraments including Communion. One has to face this fact and deal with it. It won’t be the first time in the Church’s history that a pope has had rather peculiar personal notions.

The Chair of Peter does not come with the guarantee that its incumbent will not get the wrong end of the stick even on important issues. It just guarantees that the incumbent will not transcribe his personal notions into the Church’s official teaching.

Once the principle of paragraph 84 is accepted, namely that a remarried divorcee can be in a state of grace ***without ***regularising his situation, then obviously there is no longer a reason to deny him Communion nor any other way of participating in the life of the Church. The trouble with these paragraphs is that they are across-the-board - they lay down conditions for admitting remarried divorcees to any aspect of Church life including the sacraments. With this brief in hand, what reason would the Pope have for excluding Communion from the list?

 

[Justin_Swanton]

Why is it thought that in paragraphs 84 and 86 there is the principle that remarried divorcees are in a state of grace, as the words are commonly understood?

This part:They are baptized, they are brothers and sisters, the Holy Spirit pours into them gifts and charisms for the good of everyone.
Gifts and charisms of the Holy Spirit are graces and can be given only to those already in a state of grace. They cannot be given to someone in mortal sin.

Is the objection then the presumption that a person not in the state of grace is incapable of spirituality?

Yes. That person can still be influenced by what are termed ‘actual graces’ - thoughts, desires, given by God, that move the person towards conversion and repentance. But this is not spirituality. The person does not have a supernatural relationship with God for as long as he is in mortal sin, and a supernatural relationship is the foundation of an authentic spirituality.

That is, why is it presumed that a “joyful and fruitful experience” means nothing if the person is in mortal sin? Why then does the Church strongly encourage divorced and remarried Catholics who have not obtained an annullment to attend Mass and otherwise practice the faith as permitted?

To keep their Faith alive. To keep open the channels through which actual graces can eventually lead the remarried divorcees to effective repentance and the reigniting of supernatural grace in their souls.

 

[Thomas_White]

This part:They are baptized, they are brothers and sisters, the Holy Spirit pours into them gifts and charisms for the good of everyone.
Gifts and charisms of the Holy Spirit are graces and can be given only to those already in a state of grace. They cannot be given to someone in mortal sin.

I see. So the grace of the Holy Spirit isn’t possible for a person not already in the state of grace? I didn’t know that.

 

[Justin_Swanton]

I see. So the grace of the Holy Spirit isn’t possible for a person not already in the state of grace? I didn’t know that.

It’s the classic distinction between actual and sanctifying grace. To share in God’s life (which is what sanctifying grace is) one cannot be opposed to His will in any serious way. But God can still lead a soul fundamentally opposed to him on a long path towards final conversion and repentance. St Augustine and Malcolm Muggeridge are good examples of this: ‘My heart is restless until it rests in thee’ - Augustine. ‘Lead me! save me! use me!’ - Muggeridge (before his conversion).

 

[_Abyssinia]

I think it impossible any longer to suppose that the Pope does not want to admit remarried divorcees who show some sort of good disposition - without going as far as to sort out their situation - access to the sacraments including Communion. One has to face this fact and deal with it. It won’t be the first time in the Church’s history that a pope has had rather peculiar personal notions.

The Chair of Peter does not come with the guarantee that its incumbent will not get the wrong end of the stick even on important issues. It just guarantees that the incumbent will not transcribe his personal notions into the Church’s official teaching.

Once the principle of paragraph 84 is accepted, namely that a remarried divorcee can be in a state of grace ***without ***regularising his situation, then obviously there is no longer a reason to deny him Communion nor any other way of participating in the life of the Church. The trouble with these paragraphs is that they are across-the-board - they lay down conditions for admitting remarried divorcees to any aspect of Church life including the sacraments. With this brief in hand, what reason would the Pope have for excluding Communion from the list?

Robert Royale on EWTN, “I heard when I was covering the Synod in Rome, and I was there the whole month of October as you know, um, I heard from several people that the Holy Father has said on several occasions that he des not support the Kasper proposal, this path with confessors, with the internal forum. But yet I think we have to say, everything that he did, as opposed to what he said tends in this direction.”

youtube.com/watch?v=cdZ895-BzWA

 

[Thomas_White]

This part:They are baptized, they are brothers and sisters, the Holy Spirit pours into them gifts and charisms for the good of everyone.
Gifts and charisms of the Holy Spirit are graces and can be given only to those already in a state of grace. They cannot be given to someone in mortal sin.

It’s the classic distinction between actual and sanctifying grace. To share in God’s life (which is what sanctifying grace is) one cannot be opposed to His will in any serious way. But God can still lead a soul fundamentally opposed to him on a long path towards final conversion and repentance. St Augustine and Malcolm Muggeridge are good examples of this: ‘My heart is restless until it rests in thee’ - Augustine. ‘Lead me! save me! use me!’ - Muggeridge (before his conversion).

I think it impossible any longer to suppose that the Pope does not want to admit remarried divorcees who show some sort of good disposition - without going as far as to sort out their situation - access to the sacraments including Communion. One has to face this fact and deal with it. It won’t be the first time in the Church’s history that a pope has had rather peculiar personal notions.

So you think not only that the two-thirds or more of the bishops at the synod misunderstood grace but that this error is therefore also Pope Francis’s error, and so it is impossible to suppose he does not want to admit remarried divorcees access to Communion?

And this is a logical argument, you think?