How do we handle divorced Catholics who remarry?

[Catholicwoman11]

I was in a situation where I was talking to someone who was Catholic, but divorced and remarried outside the church. I had just met him really, but we had gotten into a bit of discussion about religion. I don’t know what I should have said, if anything. It seems a bit rude for me to say anything about his marriage, but then again we are supposed to correct in charity. I figure this is a situation that many people run into. Let me know what the right response might have been.

 

[Anniejoe]

I’m just curious: how do you know that this person didn’t seek and obtain a decree of nullity before his remarriage?

 

[Adelphine]

Could you clarify your question? What did he say that you wanted to respond to?

 

[Peggy_in_Burien]

I would hope that since you indicate that you hardly know the man, that you kept your charitable correction to yourself. I think that correction should only come from his closest friends or family. More than likely, if he is in a situation that is not in accordance with the Catholic Church, he already knows what is wrong.

 

[TraditonRules]

It’s still 100% fine to worship Catholic as long as no communion or confession…don’t be so judgmental

 

[jpjd]

There is nothing to discuss. Charitable correction does not mean butting into people’s personal affairs. His marital status and his standing in the Church is a matter for his pastor to deal with.

 

[Debora123]

To “admonish the sinner” means to inform someone who is ignorant in their sin.

I’m pretty sure a Catholic man knows that divorcing his wife and marrying another outside the Church it against Church teaching. No need to do anything except mind your own affairs.

 

[Ender]

I was in a situation where I was talking to someone who was Catholic, but divorced and remarried outside the church. I had just met him really, but we had gotten into a bit of discussion about religion. I don’t know what I should have said, if anything. It seems a bit rude for me to say anything about his marriage, but then again we are supposed to correct in charity. I figure this is a situation that many people run into. Let me know what the right response might have been.

It is always much easier to give advice than to have to implement it, nonetheless here is what Augustine had to say on this subject.

• But what is blame-worthy is, that they who themselves revolt from the conduct of the wicked, and live in quite another fashion, yet spare those faults in other men which they ought to reprehend and wean them from; and spare them because they fear to give offense…

Nor is that man guiltless of the sin we speak of, who, though he be not a watchman, yet sees in the conduct of those with whom the relationships of this life bring him into contact, many things that should be blamed, and yet overlooks them, fearing to give offense…*

City of God, Bk I, Chap 9 ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.iv.ii.x.html

Ender

 

[Corpus_Cristi]

sigh

I’ll probably start a maelstrom of controversy with this, but who cares? It’s what makes this forum run.

If you met two men or two women who presumed to express publicly that they were “married”, how would you handle that?

I haven’t bothered to say anything on this topic in a while because school this year has been a bit griller and that stress coupled with the frustration caused by the constant cognitive dissonance on this forum with respect to the issue of marriage in particular is just not good for me. This, though, was a trigger.

As I’ve said before, I’m a faithful, orthodox Catholic who adheres to the Church’s official teachings (and not necessarily the culturally based theorizing of American conservatives within the Church, much to the disdain of some here). What I don’t understand is why one sin that wreaks more havoc on society and has for much longer than another, of which we haven’t even begun to see long-term effects is more “acceptable” than another. In my opinion, while sin is sin, we should extend a certain amount of courtesy and responsibility for one’s own actions to those with whom we find practical disagreement. If the question I asked above were the OP, I think I would get a unanimous response, and I think we all know what that would be. For some reason, though, this one gets the opposite. My only question is “why”. Why is it somehow more acceptable to see, in a hypothetical sense, a man and a woman who are Catholic and married, and for measure, let’s throw in some kids, who get divorced and then one of them gets married again outside the Church and would therefore be fornicating while possibly even making children outside of the bond of a true marriage, making marriage mean significantly less than it did before, than to see two people of the same sex presume to call themselves “married” and not have any of their own kids to bastardize? It’s a practical double-standard to extend sensitivity to one and not the other that I think is just wrong and happens far too often here. Can it be solved?

 

[Arizona_Mike]

What would you suggest he do? Leave his current wife, and any children that may have issued from his current message? Should you inquire into the canonical status of his marriage, which is a very private matter? Are you his confessor? Has he asked your advice or theological opinion?

He remains a Catholic, nothing will change that. He is denied Communion and Confession, but still has the other obligations of a Catholic. He presumably knows that (certainly his pastor does, who would be the proper person to discuss this with him).