Hello "Church Militant’
I don’t understand complicated Encyclical’s, so I would appreciate you explaining it. The reason why my wife and I were self-excommunicated was because we were both Roman Catholics who got married the first time outside the Church without dispensation from my wife’s Church in the Philippines. We were married while I was on a two week vacation over there. The Philippine Islands are a very romantic place similar to all the South Pacific and Hawaii. The last thing that we had in mind was something like Dispensation from an old Bishop.
Come to find out later that there is a very strong movement in the Philippines called, “Born Again”, and my new wife had been fellowshipping in those places looking for a husband. Anyway, I have always loved the Protestants, so I didn’t panic. Everything is okay now because the Diocese has softened towards the Born Again type Christians. Well, We have to wait and see what you have dug up in that Encycical?
There’s nothing hard to understand in my section from
Ecclesia de Eucharistia. His Holiness is quite clear about the position of the Church. I’ll post the relevant part again so you can focus on it.
These conditions, from which no dispensation can be given, must be carefully respected, even though they deal with specific individual cases, because the denial of one or more truths of the faith regarding these sacraments and, among these, the truth regarding the need of the ministerial priesthood for their validity, renders the person asking improperly disposed to legitimately receiving them. And the opposite is also true: Catholics may not receive communion in those communities which lack a valid sacrament of Orders.98
The faithful observance of the body of norms established in this area 99 is a manifestation and, at the same time, a guarantee of our love for Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, for our brothers and sisters of different Christian confessions – who have a right to our witness to the truth – and for the cause itself of the promotion of unity.
A Protestant, by the very nature of their Protestant affiliation, denies a number of Catholic doctrines. There is no such thing as a “Catholic Protestant” and has not been for the last 500 years or so. That term
might have been applied to Luther in his time prior to his leaving the Church, but none since would qualify.
The circumstances of your “romantic” encounter in the Philippines is irrelevant to the issue that you clearly chose to place your own desires ahead of your Catholic faith. Now, you try to tell us that your diocese (which you do not name) has dispensed you to do something that is not in line with the clear teachings of the Church and your wife maintains her non-Catholic beliefs and community attendance while (apparently) refusing to enter fully into the Catholic faith…and you, because you are married to her, have compromised both your own faith and given her a scandalously bad witness by condoning and even participating in this behavior.
I suspect that you have either misrepresented what the local diocese has said in this matter, misunderstood it, or have made up your own interpretation of it all in order to permit you and your wife to live in a disobedience to the Catholic faith.
I was a member and even a deacon in the Assembly of God (See
My Testimony), so I know what they believe and practice. Your wife’s employment by an n-C college is actually irrelevant unless as part of said employment she has had to sign some kind of statement of faith of theirs that would conflict with the fullness of truth of Catholic doctrines, (Such as acceptance of Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, and or other distinct n-C doctrines.) in which case, if she intends to be a faithful Catholic, she would need to reconsider carefully as being a bad witness to both Catholics and n-Cs.
If, as you say, your wife is a Protestant, then she should not, *repeat…should not *be presenting herself for reception of the Eucharist until she has been frank with the parish priest as to her actual beliefs which may (and would appear probably would) render her improperly disposed to receive. Furthermore, if you value both of your souls, then you should definitely
not be condoning or encouraging these practices as they may constitute serious sins and false witness of a compromised Catholic faith.
Absolutely NOT! Firstly, if she is not a Catholic, then she cannot take communion. His Holiness John Paul the Great was very clear on this in his encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia (note especially the following: