Is it ever okay to consummate a marriage one knows is invalid?

[NeelyAnn]

From the Archdiocese of Atlanta:

Does a Divorce affect my Status in the Catholic Church?

Please remember that a divorce alone would not affect, or hinder in any way, your participation in the Catholic Church. A divorced Catholic is free to receive the sacraments. However, if you are divorced and remarried without an Decree of Invalidity (and your former spouse is still living) a problem does arise. Similarly, if your spouse was previously married and has not received an Decree of Invalidity from a Tribunal, there is a problem. In such circumstances, you may not partake of the sacraments, including the reception of Holy Communion. We respect all marriages, even those which have ended in a civil divorce. Every prior marriage must be examined, since each is presumed to be valid with a lasting and lifelong commitment. Until it is shown otherwise through the ministry of the Tribunal, no person is free to enter into another marriage without the appearance or occasion of serious sin.

---

Joe, a batized Catholic, is already married to someone else in the eyes of the Church. He is not free to marry Jane, another baptized Catholic, until he remedies the situation. As far as teh Church is concerned, no man can put asunder that first marriage that he entered into. Joe will have to apply for an annulment to see if there was a defect in his first marriage. If there was, he is then free to marry Jane. The fact that he married Jane in a civil ceremony already does not matter. Unitl this is taken care of, they can live as ‘brother and sister’ in order to receive the sacraments. If they do not, they may not receive the sacraments - marriage or communion. Joe does not take his faith seriously and may not be bothered by this, but Jane does and she wants to receive the sacraments.

 

[NeelyAnn]

Thanks NeelyAnn. I like you. I appreciate your contributions here. You seem to really get it.

Thanks Eliza. I like you, too. I think your friend is really lucky to have a friend like you who cares so much about her (in all ways).

I just found something else that may help. Texas Roofer may even find some of the answers he was looking for in here.

Reception of Holy Communion by the Divorced and Remarried Members of the Faithful
By Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
…

1. …

With respect to the aforementioned new pastoral proposals, this Congregation deems itself obliged therefore to recall the doctrine and discipline of the Church in this matter. In fidelity to the words of Jesus Christ(5), the Church affirms that a new union cannot be recognised as valid if the preceding marriage was valid. If the divorced are remarried civilly, they find themselves in a situation that objectively contravenes God’s law. Consequently, they cannot receive Holy Communion as long as this situation persists(6).

This norm is not at all a punishment or a discrimination against the divorced and remarried, but rather expresses an objective situation that of itself renders impossible the reception of Holy Communion: “They are unable to be admitted thereto from the fact that their state and condition of life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and his Church which is signified and effected by the Eucharist. Besides this, there is another special pastoral reason: if these people were admitted to the Eucharist, the faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the Church’s teaching about the indissolubility of marriage”(7).

The faithful who persist in such a situation may receive Holy Communion only after obtaining sacramental absolution, which may be given only "to those who, repenting of having broken the sign of the Covenant and of fidelity to Christ, are sincerely ready to undertake a way of life that is no longer in contradiction to the indissolubility of marriage. This means, in practice, that when for serious reasons, for example, for the children’s upbringing, a man and a woman cannot satisfy the obligation to separate, they ‘take on themselves the duty to live in complete continence, that is, by abstinence from the acts proper to married couples’"(8). In such a case they may receive Holy Communion as long as they respect the obligation to avoid giving scandal.

1. The doctrine and discipline of the Church in this matter, are amply presented in the post-conciliar period in the Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio. The Exhortation, among other things, reminds pastors that out of luve for the truth they are obliged to discern carefully the different situations and exhorts them to encourage the participation of the divorced and remarried in the various events in the life of the Church. At the same time it confirms and indicates the reasons for the constant and universal practice, **“founded on Sacred Scripture, of not admitting the divorced and remarried to Holy Communion”(9). **The structure of the Exhortation and the tenor of its words give clearly to understand that this practice, which is presented as binding, cannot be modified because of different situations.

6. Members of the faithful who live together as husband and wife with persons other than their legitimate spouses may not receive Holy Communion. Should they judge it possible to do so, pastors and confessors, given the gravity of the matter and the spiritual good of these persons(10) as well as the common good of the Church, have the serious duty to admonish them that such a judgment of conscience openly contradicts the Church’s teaching(11). Pastors in their teaching must also remind the faithful entrusted to their care of this doctrine.
…

1. The mistaken conviction of a divorced and remarried person that he may receive Holy Communion normally presupposes that personal conscience is considered in the final analysis to be able, on the basis of one’s own convictions(15), to come to a decision about the existence or absence of a previous marriage and the value of the new union. **However, such a position is inadmissable(16). Marriage, in fact, because it is both the image of the spousal relationship between Christ and his Church as well as the fundamental core and an important factor in the life of civil society, is essentially a public reality. **
2. It is certainly true that a judgment about one’s own dispositions for the reception of Holy Communion must be made by a properly formed moral conscience. But it is equally true that the consent that is the foundation of marriage is not simply a private decision since it creates a specifically ecclesial and social situation for the spouses, both individually and as a couple. Thus the judgment of conscience of one’s own marital situation does not regard only the immediate relationship between man and God, as if one could prescind from the Church’s mediation, that also includes canonical laws binding in conscience. Not to recognise this essential aspect would mean in fact to deny that marriage is a reality of the Church, that is to say, a sacrament.
   …

United with you in dedication to the collegial task of making the truth of Jesus Christ shine in the life and activity of the Church, I remain Yours devotedly in the Lord

Joseph Card. Ratzinger
Prefect

• Alberto Bovone
  Titular Archbishop of Caesarea in Numidia
  Secretary

During an audience granted to the Cardinal Prefect, the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II gave his approval to this letter, drawn up in the ordinary session of this Congregation, and ordered its publication.

 

[Texas_Roofer]

:clapping::clapping::clapping: :extrahappy: :clapping::clapping:
you did well you have got it

"the fact that they may not receive Communion "is not disputed or disputable,"

This game (story) is of no value they should do the right thing. They should stop focusing on their personal desires and do the right thing, and the only right thing is to fix it! The rest is and was BS

Cardinal: For remarried, Communion without annulment not possible

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

ROME (CNS) – While the Catholic Church seeks better ways to reach out to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, **the fact that they may not receive Communion “is not disputed or disputable,”**said Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo.

"They are in an objective situation that goes against the will of God and does not permit them to receive Communion," said the cardinal, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family.

In an Oct. 27 interview with the Rome newspaper La Repubblica, Cardinal Lopez Trujillo said that while the Oct. 2-23 Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist recognized the “painful and dramatic situations” of Catholics barred from the Eucharist "no modification of this doctrine is possible."

The church’s teaching that the marriage bond is unbreakable is based on the words of Christ, and the church has no authority to overturn that teaching, the cardinal said.

Catholics who remarry without having obtained an annulment of their original union – a declaration that the marriage was invalid from the beginning – can receive Communion only “if they promise to live as brother and sister without sexual relations,” the cardinal said.

Cardinal Lopez Trujillo criticized the media for giving the impression that “this was an open question, as if doors were open for the future, creating expectations for a possible change.”

German Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, told reporters in Rome Oct. 24 that the synod discussions made it clear that “the problem of the divorced and remarried is very much a burning question.”

While the synod did not advocate any specific changes in church policy, Cardinal Kasper said, “Every bishop in the Western countries knows this is a serious problem, so I cannot imagine the discussion is closed.”

Cardinal Kasper also pointed to questions raised by Pope Benedict XVI in July during a meeting with priests in northern Italy. The pope insisted compassion was not a good enough reason to give Communion to someone in an irregular marriage, but “given these people’s situation of suffering it must be studied.”

The pope told the priests “a particularly painful situation is that of those who were married in the church, but were not really believers and did so just for tradition, and then finding themselves in a new, nonvalid marriage, convert, find the faith and feel excluded from the sacrament.”

Pope Benedict said that when he was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith he asked several bishops’ conferences and experts to study the problem, which in effect was “a sacrament celebrated without faith.”

He said he had thought that the church marriage could be considered invalid because the faith of the couple celebrating the sacrament was lacking.

“But from the discussions we had, I understood that the problem was very difficult” and that further study was necessary, the pope had said.

Cardinal Lopez Trujillo told La Repubblica that at the July meeting "the pope declared quite clearly that there was no possibility for them (the divorced and civilly remarried) to receive the Eucharist. He did say that they should be treated with mercy."

As for Cardinal Kasper’s remarks, Cardinal Lopez Trujillo said, “I think he wanted to restate the pastoral aspect of the matter and what he was saying was not understood.”

"This is not an open question. When the Lord commands, the bishops and the faithful must obey," Cardinal Lopez Trujillo said.

END

 

[Spirithound]

The impediments prevent sacraments. The term Natural is not restricted to the context of use it the records of catholic offices

Again that same crazy concept, these people married civil the civil marriage is valid. Their civil marriage is not under catholic authority. Similarly they may or may not be married under god’s guide for marriage ( I will not judge such). They are not sacramentally married we have all agreed on that.

What part of Canon 1108 don’t you understand? If Catholics do not marry before their bishop, pastor, priest, or deacon, the marriage is not valid. There is no talk of the sacramentality of marriage in this canon. It specifically says marriages before the bishop, pastor, priest, or deacon are valid, and nothing else is (for Catholics).

Can. 1108 §1.Only those marriages are valid which are contracted before the local ordinary, pastor, or a priest or deacon

 

[EvelynEVF]

Eliza, from all of us who have to be abstinent for less-than-happy reasons, please thank Jane for her courage to live in heroic virtue thus far. It’s hard to do what she’s doing, and to keep it up even when she has people in authority who would excuse her, is even harder.

When I have it tough and struggle to do what God calls me to, nothing helps more than to think about the people who fight the same fight in even harder circumstances. I am encouraged not to wimp out, because if they can do it, so can I!

So God bless her, and I thank her, because she is even helping people who only know her by a pseudonym