Pope Francis: if you are in a state of mortal sin, you cannot receive Communion

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And the divorced and remarried who do not abstain from sexual relations may not receive Communion.
 
I am stating Catholic teaching. Nothing more, nothing less. Pope Francis is not God; he cannot change perennial teaching. Catholic teaching is not subject to the whim of whoever the current pope may be.
 
The fact you cannot receive Communion if having sex while not in a valid marriage is not mere “discipline.”
 
I am not mistaken. You can’t be having sex outside a valid marriage and somehow twist conscience and “discernment” into justifying receiving Communion. Consciences must be properly formed.
 
“Consciences must be properly formed.” This statement is absolutely correct. I believe what (name removed by moderator) and BlackFriar are trying to point out is that not all Catholic consciences are properly formed any more - indeed it is arguable that the majority are not. Pope Francis himself dealt with this lack of proper formation specifically in regards to marriage and what marriage is all about rather extensively in the early chapters of AL, and also bemoaned the Church’s failure in our own day to properly proclaim the true beauty of the Church’s teaching on marriage.
 
Cardinal Napier said it well too. I guess we need to tell the polygamists it’s ok to “discern” they can receive Communion.
 
No one is excluding them from sacramental life. It’s called PENANCE, then Communion.
 
And I agree with Cardinal Napier. Where’s the “accompaniment” for polygamists? I’d add, what about for pedophiles? Why are adulterers the only ones in line for this special “mercy” of our sophisticated contemporary Church?
 
Penance is great. But many people don’t even understand the concept/reality of sin any more. Plus, what do you do with people who genuinely repent, but fall repeatedly?
 
Not their spouse. Rather, the person they are cohabitating with “more uxorio.” Big difference.
 
They are not validly married. They are living “more uxorio” with someone.

Again, Cardinal Napier nailed it. I guess we now admit polygamists to Communion as well “under certain conditions.”
 
Polygamists. As the astute South African cardinal noted, we now must admit them. I eagerly await a tweet from one of the pope’s advisers to confirm.
 
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Like Deacon Jeff says KMG the Church is in a situation never encountered before in its history.
We now have many, many basically decent but poorly formed members who are in fact remarried and with children.

If we cast them off, which was the old policy before remarriage became endemic, then we are losing their children. This was recognised way back in 1972. The loosening of sacramental discipline (which is different from accepting mortal sin) we have seen since beginning with JPII and now Pope Francis is really but a playing out of the following “thesis” of 1972. Here is an excerpt that may or may not help:

"The Church is the Church of the New Covenant, but it lives in a world in which the
“hardness of heart” (Mat 19:8) of the Old Covenant remains unchanged. It cannot stop
preaching the faith of the New Covenant, but it must often enough begin its concrete life a bit
below the threshold of the scriptural word. Thus it can in clear emergency situations allow
limited exceptions in order to avoid worse things. Criteria of such action must be: an act
“against what is written,” is limited in that it may not call into question the fundamental
form, the form from which the Church lives. It is therefore bound to the character of
exemption and of help in urgent need - as the transitional missionary situation was, but also
the real emergency situation of the Church union.

Thereby arises, however, the practical question, whether we can name such an emergency
situation in the present-day church and describe an exception that satisfies these criteria. I
would like to try, with all necessary caution, to formulate a concrete proposal that seems to
me to lie within this scope. Where a first marriage broke up a long time ago and in a mutually
irreparable way, and where, conversely, a marriage consequently entered into has proven
itself over a longer period as a moral reality and has been filled with the spirit of the faith,
especially in the education of the children (so that the destruction of this second marriage
would destroy a moral greatness and cause moral harm), the possibility should be granted, in
a non-judicial way, based on the testimony of the pastor and church members, for the
admission to Communion of those in live in such a second marriage. Such an arrangement
seems to me to be…in accord with the tradition…"

Can you guess who wrote these prophetic words back in 1972 which Pope Francis has clearly taken up?
 
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Oh yes, things are so special now. The Church has never faced the problems of today before. Nonsense.
 
Of course so much of the current confusion could have been avoided if the pope had the courtesy to reply to the dubia posed by 4 of his cardinals. It is his privilege not to reply to anything of course. But he can also be legitimately criticized for refusing to answer the legitimate questions posed by his closest collaborators.
 
Such conjecture isn’t helpful to the discussion at hand.

I think you also forget that the point of discernment and accompaniment is to guide people into the Church’s full teaching of the Gospel of the Family, not to confirm them in their sinful situation. Pope Francis, again, made this abundantly clear in AL… again in one of the earlier chapters (which have largely been ignored because people prefer to read the more controversial stuff without their proper context).
 
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