Communion/Annulment question on "living together

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This question is secondary to the question “Can a person in an invalid marriage receive communion?”.

The answer normally given is “Yes, provided they are not currently having sex (living together as ‘brother and sister’) and have gone to confession on the matter”. CCC 1650 is usually quoted.

My question - Does that really make sense?

It seems that the canonical status of people who are not validly married is exactly the same as those who are…not married.

The advice of the Church to ANY other people who are not married does not consist of “living together” in any sense.

If you turned the question around - “Father, my son is living with his girlfriend, what does he have to do to receive communion again?” Father would (in a sane world) say “He must move out” and go one to quote solid Catholic teaching on the near occasion of sin.

This has bothered me for a long time, because in the typical parish, you always have several people involved in irregular situations who are playing the “living as brother and sister” game. RCIA classes always have a few of these.

It seems that it’s a pretty poor witness to, on the one had, preach the absolute necessity of a valid marriage, then to actually counsel people who are not in a valid marriage to “live together”.

This was really made obvious to me in the context of couples in pre-Cana marriage preparation in our diocese. They were counseled not to live together before marriage, and the better priests in the diocese told them “move out until the wedding”. Same priest, same day, to a person seeking annulment in order to be able to regularize their current situation “live together as brother and sister”.

Canonically, it’s the same situation, right? Not a valid marriage = no sex.

Does anyone know anything about the “living together as brother and sister” thing? Where and when it got started? Any actual official teaching on the issue? Can anyone think of a good reason to recommend it, especially if children are not involved?

Thanks.
 
Howard_Roark said:
This question is secondary to the question “Can a person in an invalid marriage receive communion?”.

The answer normally given is “Yes, provided they are not currently having sex (living together as ‘brother and sister’) and have gone to confession on the matter”. CCC 1650 is usually quoted.

My question - Does that really make sense?

It seems that the canonical status of people who are not validly married is exactly the same as those who are…not married.

The advice of the Church to ANY other people who are not married does not consist of “living together” in any sense.

If you turned the question around - “Father, my son is living with his girlfriend, what does he have to do to receive communion again?” Father would (in a sane world) say “He must move out” and go one to quote solid Catholic teaching on the near occasion of sin.

This has bothered me for a long time, because in the typical parish, you always have several people involved in irregular situations who are playing the “living as brother and sister” game. RCIA classes always have a few of these.

It seems that it’s a pretty poor witness to, on the one had, preach the absolute necessity of a valid marriage, then to actually counsel people who are not in a valid marriage to “live together”.

This was really made obvious to me in the context of couples in pre-Cana marriage preparation in our diocese. They were counseled not to live together before marriage, and the better priests in the diocese told them “move out until the wedding”. Same priest, same day, to a person seeking annulment in order to be able to regularize their current situation “live together as brother and sister”.

Canonically, it’s the same situation, right? Not a valid marriage = no sex.

Does anyone know anything about the “living together as brother and sister” thing? Where and when it got started? Any actual official teaching on the issue? Can anyone think of a good reason to recommend it, especially if children are not involved?

Thanks.
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I imagine it arose from couples that had children in the invalid marriage. For them, it would not be nearly so easy to separate, as for a childless couple.

God Bless
 
Yeah, I imagine the same thing…I also think that it probably doesn’t make a lot of sense in that case, either.
 
What one has to understand is that some couples marry invalidly and live together for years, have children, sometimes even teen age children, when one fine day one or the other or both decide they either want to come into the Church or come back into the Church. The brother and sister approach prevents what is a family, invalid marriage or not, from being torn apart with all the trauma that involves.

I am a close friend of at least two couples who were in this situation. They applied for declarations of nullity and went into separate bedrooms. It took both couples over two years to get such a declaration and I can tell you, the wait was a struggle for them. I was not privy to the information on their previous marriages. What would have happened if the decisions had gone the other way, I do not know, but I do know all four are fervent Catholics both today and while they were waiting.

Now with a couple who have lived together for a while with no children, or grown children, you could have a point. However there may be something to do with the specific situation that the priest knows and you do not. Young folks that are just shacking up and have no children, I would see as needing to separate. I think we are stuck with having to trust the discretion of the priest. They always know things about a couple that is just none of our business including whether they are living as brother and sister 👍 .
 
Well, I think that is a tough question to answer. I mean, how many couples are married invalidly and do not know it? I think that because they did not intentionally marry invalidly, the church gives them a break about living together until the problem is rectified. I mean, perhaps they have children and they want to remarry validly to one another. It would be odd for one parent to leave the home thus leaving their kids until the ceremony. But, abstaining from sex is something that is healthy (not to mention right in this case) and won’t hurt the kids or raise questions among people who don’t have any business knowing what is going on.
 
On this logic, then, I think I could make the case for any kind of co-habitation imaginable.

This is why I’m not impressed.
 
Howard_Roark said:
On this logic, then, I think I could make the case for any kind of co-habitation imaginable.
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But isn’t the simple sharing of domiciles wrong *only *because of temptation and scandal? It isn’t intrinsically wrong. There is nothing contrary to the moral law in two persons of the opposite sex being under the same roof. So yes, depending on circumstances of course we could justify the cohabitation of two single persons of the opposite sex. It just takes a limited amount of imagination to come up with some scenarios in which this would obviously be OK. Suppose, for instance, that it was necessary to shelter a fugitive being persecuted unjustly (a Jew under the Nazis, say). Or suppose that two people were shipwrecked on an island where the only shelter was a single cave. Suppose further that for purposes of warmth they had to sleep together (in the literal, not the idiomatic sense).

All of this would be legitimate. But having sex with someone to whom you are not married would never be legitimate, no matter what the circumstances, because it’s intrinsically wrong. I don’t understand why this is such a difficult point.

Edwin
 
Off-Topic - Edwin is still Episcopalian and still hanging around Catholic message boards? I remember this from before I converted…almost a decade ago now, I guess.

Some things really never do change.

On-topic - The issue is, of course, the near occasion of sin and whether anyone really takes that seriously.
 
Howard_Roark said:
This question is secondary to the question “Can a person in an invalid marriage receive communion?”.

The answer normally given is “Yes, provided they are not currently having sex (living together as ‘brother and sister’) and have gone to confession on the matter”. CCC 1650 is usually quoted.

My question - Does that really make sense?
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yes
It seems that the canonical status of people who are not validly married is exactly the same as those who are…not married.
Click to expand...
I am not sure the Church teaches that
The advice of the Church to ANY other people who are not married does not consist of “living together” in any sense.
Click to expand...
If you turned the question around - “Father, my son is living with his girlfriend, what does he have to do to receive communion again?” Father would (in a sane world) say “He must move out” and go one to quote solid Catholic teaching on the near occasion of sin.
Click to expand...
This has bothered me for a long time, because in the typical parish, you always have several people involved in irregular situations who are playing the “living as brother and sister” game. RCIA classes always have a few of these.
Click to expand...
It seems that it’s a pretty poor witness to, on the one had, preach the absolute necessity of a valid marriage, then to actually counsel people who are not in a valid marriage to “live together”.
Click to expand...
I do not recall the Church teaching that either
This was really made obvious to me in the context of couples in pre-Cana marriage preparation in our diocese. They were counseled not to live together before marriage, and the better priests in the diocese told them “move out until the wedding”. Same priest, same day, to a person seeking annulment in order to be able to regularize their current situation “live together as brother and sister”.
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so what is the problem?
Canonically, it’s the same situation, right?
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It would not appear to be the same why would you conclude the conditions are equal?
Not a valid marriage = no sex.
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Does anyone know anything about the “living together as brother and sister” thing?
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Yes quite a bit what do you want to know?
Where and when it got started?
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It started when Eve was made, actual the sacrament of marriage would not exist for thousands of years!!!
Any actual official teaching on the issue?
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I think it is reverse, what commandment are they breaking?
Can anyone think of a good reason to recommend it, especially if children are not involved?
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It turns out there is a lot more to marriage than sex.
Thanks.
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you are welcome
 
It started when Eve was made, actual the sacrament of marriage would not exist for thousands of years!!!

Ummm…I don’t think we’re even remotely talking about the same thing. But, thanks for stoppnig by and adding some inscrutible commentary! 👍
 
Howard_Roark said:
It started when Eve was made, actual the sacrament of marriage would not exist for thousands of years!!!

Ummm…I don’t think we’re even remotely talking about the same thing. But, thanks for stoppnig by and adding some inscrutible commentary! 👍
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Maybe you could list some catholic teaching how about one which shows marriage as a sacrament eariler? or one that shows a Catholic Priest marrying people before Adam & Eve or for that matter even show the first “Catholic Marriage”? The facts are the facts.
 
Yes, the facts are the facts…you are discussing “natural marriage” versus “sacramental marriage”…different topic entirely.

Seriously, you’re not on the same page.
 
Howard_Roark said:
Yes, the facts are the facts…you are discussing “natural marriage” versus “sacramental marriage”…different topic entirely.

Seriously, you’re not on the same page.
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Maybe, maybe not, man cannot make sacramental marriage. Marriage was not celebrated as a sacrament during Jesus time so was it? Did Jesus not walk the earth with multitudes of natural marriage, yet he did nothing to change that.
 
Yeah, and again that has absolutely nothing to do with the question I asked…and I guess you’ve killed the thread by not knowing what we were even talking about. We’re talking about people who are un-married, either naturally or sacramentally, and whether it makes sense to ever counsel people who are un-married, either naturally or sacramentally (becuase you can’t be even naturally married to more than one person at a time) to live together in the same house.
 
Howard_Roark said:
Yeah, and again that has absolutely nothing to do with the question I asked…and I guess you’ve killed the thread by not knowing what we were even talking about. We’re talking about people who are un-married, either naturally or sacramentally, and whether it makes sense to ever counsel people who are un-married, either naturally or sacramentally (becuase you can’t be even naturally married to more than one person at a time) to live together in the same house.
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Who is unmarried? Who is naturally married? Who is cohabitating, and does their bedroom met your standard? And thus your problem. Does their bedroom meet the scriptures? Does scripture record men of god with multiple knowledge of women? Does their bedroom meet the tradition? Does that matter, apparently not, at least to some judges.
 
You know, if you don’t even know what’s being asked, and you don’t have anything to add…why post? You might as well just post “blah blah blah - I’m another Catholic who is hyper-sensitive about judgementlaism - blah blah blah” - it would accomplish just as much.
 
Howard_Roark said:
You know, if you don’t even know what’s being asked, and you don’t have anything to add…why post? You might as well just post “blah blah blah - I’m another Catholic who is hyper-sensitive about judgementlaism - blah blah blah” - it would accomplish just as much.
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And what does that have to do with "living together, receiving communion, or invalid marriage?

Who is “I” in the above post?
 
I think one of the salient points was that this is common in the RCIA program. As I noted on another thread, converts are not subjectively in a state of mortal sin in most situations, as most Protestants do not consider re-marriage a state of sin. Therefore, many lack any knowledge that there is sin involved until they convert. The fact that a couple pursued a marriage shows a desire to do what they believe to be right, instead of just living together. On the other hand, I do not know of any Christian group that believes shacking up to be okay. Even non-Christians recognize that this type of arrangement runs counter to what churches teach.
 
I did a search to try and find a comment on my type of situation, but I can’t find something exactly like it so I figured I would ask within this thread. Boyfriend and I live together, want to get married, but I want to get married in the Church, and I’ve not yet converted, have to wait for RCIA to start next fall, so I can’t get married any sooner than next Easter, I don’t think. We were “living in sin” but now we’re trying to be chaste. It appears the typical advise is to have him move out, but he’s like a father to my daughter, and whenever he’s not around she misses him greatly. She’s 4 years old and I’m afraid that if he moves back to his moms place that it will have a negative effect on my child. The child is not biologically his, and the biological father is still in the picture but she only sees him like every other weekend for a few hours, versus my boyfriend cooks for her, reads her her bedtime stories, makes sure she gets to school on time and gets picked up as early as possible, plays with her, takes her to the library, takes her on play dates, helps her with her shower, makes sure she brushes her teeth, takes her out on her bike … I’d hate to take all that away from her.

Thoughts?
 
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