family synod question

[OraLabora]

That is simply not correct. You don’t earn reduced culpability by having a family with and staying faithful to a mistress.

Some Catholics are abandoned or have to leave abusive spouses. While objectively, it’s a state of adultery if they remarry, I hardly think the situation is comparable to a boss having an affair with his secretary or someone trying to hookup in a bar, at the level of culpability. In one case one is seeking gratification. In the other it could simply be the prospect of long years of loneliness. I don’t think they are equally culpable. Whether or not they are mortally culpable, well I have no dog in this hunt. We’ll see what the synod comes up with. My opinion won’t matter a whit in their deliberations in any case.

 

[Sirach2]

Thistle:

That is simply not correct. You don’t earn reduced culpability by having a family with and staying faithful to a mistress.

“Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide” (#2282). This qualification does not make suicide a right action in any circumstance; however, it does make us realize that the person may not be totally culpable for the action because of various circumstances or personal conditions.
https://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/SUICIDE.HTM

Since this is the teaching in the CCC with regard to diminished culpability for THIS action, then we can certainly believe there are circumstances that mitigate culpability with regard to second marriages. Let’s not label people “staying faithful to a mistress” – they are spouses, even though it may be considered invalid in the external forum. There are pastoral considerations of the “internal” forum that I believe the Synod is preparing to address.

If is offensive and judgmental to subjectively label persons as mortal sinners when their full circumstances are unknown.

 

[Unam_Ecclesiam]

Even those who are the guilty party in a divorce can return to Communion after a sincere Confession. It’s not the divorce that keeps people from the Sacrament; it’s the subsequent “remarriage” outside of the Church.

Actually, both the divorce AND the remarriage are mortally sinful and under both circumstances you may not receive communion. You may separate under grave circumstances and with just cause but you my NOT divorce. This means that you are still married but are separated for a grave reason (ie. abuse, etc.)

If such couples are allowed to receive communion it would severely degrade the doctrine on the indissolubility of marriage, it would at least undermine it. Since it is already undermined in our society, I hope it will not come to that.

 

[Sirach2]

Actually, both the divorce AND the remarriage are mortally sinful and under both circumstances you may not receive communion. You may separate under grave circumstances and with just cause but you my NOT divorce. This means that you are still married but are separated for a grave reason (ie. abuse, etc.)

I think you may have omitted the fact that a divorced person may certainly receive the sacraments of Penance and Eucharist, if they are living celibately and have confessed any sin on their part that may have contributed to the divorce. Fr. Serpa confirms this for CAF readers here.

 

[johnmann]

CCC 2383: “If civil divorce remains the only possible way of ensuring certain legal rights, the care of the children, or the protection of inheritance, it can be tolerated and does not constitute a moral offense.”

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Under what possible scenario that ever happens in the real world would it be morally permissible to be married but sleep with someone else? Even if an extreme situation reduces culpability, I can’t imagine any way for culpability to be removed completely.

Live-long commitment to another human even after they’ve abandoned you is hard and the victims deserve to be treated with pastoral care but what God has joined, let no man separate. It’s not within the authority of mortals to dissolve marriages.