Top Vatican Legal Expert: Pope Francis opens the door to Communion for Catholics in irregular marriages

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Tim_D said:
That example is ridiculous. If that is the type of situation they are considering, then we need not worry about it because it will never happen.
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Seriously? This situation happens thousands of times over and in endless permutations. Priests encounter these situations regularly and to think they don’t is to ignore the vast populace of divorced and remarried.
 
pnewton said:
Homespun syllogisms is one of the problems that have lead us to where we are. Moral theology is more than a list of rules. The Ten Commandments is only a start, and their application has undeniably been nuanced between the time they were given until the time Jesus was born of Mary, and between then and the end of the apostolic era. It is not just a matter of right, but of necessity that there can only be one final judge of each human being.
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Except Christ himself confirmed the indissolubility of marriage. And Christ made quite clear that following the teachings of the Bible are not beyond man’s ability.
 
Edward N. Peters:
I do not think that Francis changed any doctrines in Amoris (or even purported to change any doctrines—assuming a pope could have changed doctrines this way, which I would dispute) and thus I regard the kind of correctives routinely offered by Nichols, et al., as superfluous. But I’ll go a step further: I do not think that Francis changed any disciplines in Amoris (or even purported to change any disciplines—assuming a pope could have changed disciplines this way, which I would also dispute, though less vigorously than above). In short, I hold that the few who claim Francis changed doctrine via Amoris, and the many who claim that he changed disciplines therein, are wrong.
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Source
 
RCinMT said:
And Christ reaffirmed the tenets of the Old Testament and condemned adultery.
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Yes, just whether this should actually mean anything to our behaviour is the debate. A difference without meaning.🤷 If Christ forbade adultery, why should the church permit even ONE person to LIVE as if adultery isn’t adultery with her blessing? Why should the church tell even one person “You dont have to conform your life to Christ’s command if you determine for yourself that you are right and he wrong?” Is the church no longer a witness to the truth to all?

Can anyone honestly say that you can see Jesus saying to even one person “Truly I say to you, what you commit is adultery, but go and if you disbelieve me, be conformed to your will, then come and eat my body”??:eek: If the church is who she says she is, she has no business or authority saying to even one soul what Jesus would not. She is his bride, so she says, his kingdom. If his declaration is “Go and sin no more!” that is the only one she can make. The servant is never greater than his master.
 
Ginny89 said:
Yes, just whether this should actually mean anything to our behaviour is the debate. A difference without meaning.🤷 If Christ forbade adultery, why should the church permit even ONE person to LIVE as if adultery isn’t adultery with her blessing? Why should the church tell even one person “You dont have to conform your life to Christ’s command if you determine for yourself that you are right and he wrong?” Is the church no longer a witness to the truth to all?

Can anyone honestly say that you can see Jesus saying to even one person “Truly I say to you, what you commit is adultery, but go and if you disbelieve me, be conformed to your will, then come and eat my body”??:eek: If the church is who she says she is, she has no business or authority saying to even one soul what Jesus would not. She is his bride, so she says, his kingdom. If his declaration is “Go and sin no more!” that is the only one she can make. The servant is never greater than his master.
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Im sorry RCinMT, this was actually a response to PNEWTON in this post:
pnewton said:
Yes, he did. 🤷
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Ginny89 said:
. If his declaration is “Go and sin no more!” that is the only one she can make. The servant is never greater than his master.
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FYI - That declaration was made after the woman caught in adultery was told she she was not condemned. We are not told if she made any resolve to actually go and sin no more.

The Church blesses sinners after every Mass.
 
RCinMT said:
And engaging in a relationship with somebody other than a person to whom you’re validly married is adultery.
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Not always, as in the case of extra-marital sex. In any case, it is grave matter and may or may not be sin or mortal sin. Of course, the whole question of validity might be something explored outside of the tribunal, which only rules on validity. The ruling does not affect validity.
 
pnewton said:
Not always, as in the case of extra-marital sex.
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So marriage is indissoluble but somebody who is married can have sex and children with somebody else and it’s not adultery. Let me repeat this: a person in a valid marriage can have sex with somebody other than his/her spouse and it’s not an issue.
In any case, it is grave matter and may or may not be sin or mortal sin.
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Having sex with somebody other than your spouse may not be a sin? Really?
Of course, the whole question of validity might be something explored outside of the tribunal, which only rules on validity. The ruling does not affect validity.
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Tribunals rule on validity but validity might something explored outside of a tribunal? This absolutely affects validity because their are certain bishoprics that are completely leaving it to individuals to determine validity. So the argument is that there are people who are not intelligent enough to realize they are entering into a valid marriage but they are capable of determining that a marriage wasn’t valid? Do you see a problem with that? And do you see a problem with leaving this to parish priests?

Joe has three kids in a valid marriage. Joe enters into an affair, impregnates another woman and leaves his first family, moving to a new town. Joe joins a parish, serves as a lectern, teaches RE and seems like a great guy. He tells his priest that he was married before. Priest says “Gee, Joe is super involved and really nice. He’s serious about the faith. I think he’s fine to receive communion, he’s not living in sin.”. Now what message does that send to valid spouse and the three children?

And do you honestly expect already taxed parish priests to engage in due diligence in these situations?
So valid marriages remain valid.
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As long as both people involved agree that it is so. Which means that the Church should get out of the marriage business. Let’s drop to six sacraments and see what we can do to knock out the others, too. Too bad this pontificate will most likely not last as long as JPII’s pontificate…
 
pnewton said:
FYI - That declaration was made after the woman caught in adultery was told she she was not condemned. We are not told if she made any resolve to actually go and sin no more.
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That’s really not the point. If the woman had decided to take up and follow Christ then one would imagine that he would’ve been somewhat unhappy if she did so while continuing the adulterous affair. If not, one wonders why:
  1. Christ pronounced it a sin (who was he to judge?);
  2. Didn’t inquire after her and her lovers respective situations (where’s the pastoral approach?);
  3. Spend more time trying to accompany her (Didn’t he have time to drop what he was doing in order to explain why what she was doing was a sin and to try to her lead her out of sinfulness? What did he think? That she should know sleeping with a married person was wrong?
The Church blesses sinners after every Mass.
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The Church also offer the sacrament of confession (for now) but I wonder why as it seems we are capable of deciding our own states of grace and should not subject ourselves to judgement from priests, who have no grounds to judge (e.g. to hear my confession and deem whether my confessed sins are sins).
 
pnewton said:
FYI - That declaration was made after the woman caught in adultery was told she she was not condemned. We are not told if she made any resolve to actually go and sin no more.

The Church blesses sinners after every Mass.
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Of course she does. Whoever claimed she does not? Is it your claim that Jesus forgave someone contrary to their will to be forgiven? The woman’s “Yes” here was simply unimportant to Jesus?
 
Ginny89 said:
Of course she does. Whoever claimed she does not? Is it your claim that Jesus forgave someone contrary to their will to be forgiven? The woman’s “Yes” here was simply unimportant to Jesus?
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My point was what happened. The Scripture is there for anyone to read what really happened instead of the proof-text it seems to be used for all the time.
 
pnewton said:
My point was what happened. The Scripture is there for anyone to read what really happened instead of the proof-text it seems to be used for all the time.
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What was the significance of noting that sequence of events? I dont understand why you felt it mattered unless you thought it meant the woman’s conversion did not precede the absolution. It certainly does not say that Jesus removed someone’s sin contrary to their own will to have it removed. As Jesus reads hearts, as the woman’s conversion and “YES” did not need her spoken words to be noticeable to God himself, and as we know that it is a heresy to claim that God ever overode the will of even one person in History even once and that the church teaches that God would not save man “without his consent”, I dont understand how anyone can read that verse as Jesus not caring if the woman did not actually want to be free of the forgiven sin before removing it. Given that, I don’t understand the significance of the sequence you highlighted for this discussion.
 
RCinMT said:
And engaging in a relationship with somebody other than a person to whom you’re validly married is adultery.
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I don’t believe so.
I think you meant to say engaging in a relationship when at least one of the two is married to another … is adultery.
 
RCinMT said:
If the woman had decided to take up and follow Christ then one would imagine that he would’ve been somewhat unhappy if she did so while continuing the adulterous affair.
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You mean with the same guy accused by the “clean” of:
"…eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at this glutton and drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and of adulters!’ But wisdom is vindicated by her actions.”

Then there is the other guy who answered “how many times shall I forgive my sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” with “I tell you, not just seven times, but seventy-seven times!”
 
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