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iloveangels
Guest
Well you know, it might be a lot more cheerful wedding without them, if they think of this like you do.
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Elizium23
Guest
Very well, since you refuse to reveal what you imagine to be the meaning of the whole document, I shall quote Wikipedia’s version of the summary.
We have all acknowledged that she has free will. We all acknowledge that none of us humans can force her to act. What you refuse to accept is that we have patiently laid out the consequences, both immediate and eternal, for her to make her own decision. She was not well-formed enough in her faith to formulate valid objections to the Eucharist when this thread started, so we have been very systematic and clear when we explain these consequences.
It is your free will to call the parents names, and it is my right to take offense on their behalf. I consider it uncharitable and unconstructive. It adds nothing to your argument but rather detracts from it and causes an ad hominem fallacy to emerge. You have clearly taken sides, and you clearly don’t like the parents’ behavior. That is acknowledged by me.
Once again, you denigrate the parents in a way that the OP never did. She loves and respects her parents. This is tearing all of them apart. It is a very sad situation, and it is a shame that it has gotten this far. If she goes ahead with the simulation of the wedding, then she will embark on a new chapter in life where her parents are no longer her best friends. She will be cast adrift, and God willing, there will be others to help her in her continued journey. Perhaps she will be adopted by the fiancé’s parents, who are reportedly supportive of the situation. It seems that she has found acceptance in the Methodist ecclesial community. Being a Protestant isn’t completely beyond hope. I trust in God, and I believe that nobody is truly beyond hope. There is always a chance for reconciliation and mercy until the point of death.
I chose to make my reconciliation sooner rather than later. What about you?
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iloveangels
Guest
Oh nice. Quoting wikipedia at me now.
I understand that her parents are unhappy. I understand that they’re bewildered.
But if they care about their daughter, they’ll work something out.
BTW, it’s not the parents’ behavior that bothers me because I don’t know them. I find it odd that some people are so determined to keep people in the Church who don’t want to be in it, that they’d use force and any law they can get their hands on to try to force them to stay and toe the line.
People can and do leave. And when they do leave, they do not deserve the vitriol we dump on them.
Rather than trying to hog-tie them with canon law and make them stay, maybe we’d ought to try to understand why they leave.
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Elizium23
Guest
Am I correct in understanding that you deny this summary is accurate? You are being extremely cagey about your own opinion of the meaning of the whole document, because you have insisted that we need to figure it out for ourselves, but you are holding some kind of secret belief about it, and this sidebar will never be resolved if you don’t fess up and reveal your cards.
It cuts both ways: your quote of a single paragraph (which you subsequently mocked as “proof texting”) served to uphold the parents’ right to freedom from psychological coercion, which is exactly what the OP has revealed she is doing. She is holding her wedding as a bargaining chip against her parents who will not support her heresy.
It cuts both ways: your quote of a single paragraph (which you subsequently mocked as “proof texting”) served to uphold the parents’ right to freedom from psychological coercion, which is exactly what the OP has revealed she is doing. She is holding her wedding as a bargaining chip against her parents who will not support her heresy.
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Vico
Guest
Yes, they both want this to be approved by the Church.
Not quite what I had described though. A and B are baptized Catholics. A marries Catholic, then joins another denomination, divorces, and then wishes to marry B, a baptized Catholic. A does not want to reconcile with the Church, B wants to remain with the Catholic Church. A is applying as a non-Catholic, but is not.
Another example, a baptized Catholic C has joined another denomination and makes an invalid attempt to marry a Christian D never baptized in the Catholic Church. The couple divorce. (All baptized Catholic are bound to observe canonical form of marriage for their entire life so this was an invalid attempt.) Later the Christian D remarries E and converts to Catholicism. The Church verifies the existing marriage and determines that the first marriage of C and D was an invalid attempt. If the canons did not apply then this first marriage would be irrelevant.
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iloveangels
Guest
I actually don’t know that she’s “bargaining.” I think she just wants a pleasant wedding to remember. That’s what most young women want. I honestly don’t think she wants anything from the Catholic Church whatsoever, and I think she’s made that clear.
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iloveangels
Guest
Vico, these are all very weird hypothetical examples, and they don’t really have anything to do with the OP at all.
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Vico
Guest
Well, they have to do with what you posted. Also these things have really been happening.
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iloveangels
Guest
No, they don’t. The OP isn’t even married yet, let alone divorced! Easy does it, Vico!
Maybe, maybe not. They don’t have anything to do with the OP’s situation.
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Vico
Guest
It was in response to your post 237:No, they don’t. The OP isn’t even married yet, let alone divorced! Easy does it, Vico!
Maybe, maybe not. They don’t have anything to do with the OP’s situation.
“C) Canon law does not apply to those outside the church, even those who’ve left the Church, IF they aren’t trying to do anything in the Church. Canon law only applies to those who are trying to do something INSIDE the Church. Do you know why this is??? Because we don’t have our own version of SHARIA, that’s why!”
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Phemie
Guest
But should she divorce and then decide to return to the one true Church she’ll be more than happy that Canon Law says she was never validly married so is now free to marry.
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Phemie
Guest
The entire document is about governments not imposing a state religion or, where they already do, not curtailing the rights of those who do not belong to that religion to worship in public and private. It also makes it clear that Christianity is not to impose itself as the ‘state religion’.Don’t proof text it. Read the whole thing, and read each sentence in the entire context.
Proof texting.Now who’s being the protestant?
But it also makes it perfectly clear that Catholicism is the one true faith and that this document in no way limits the rules and tenets of faith that the Church imposes on its own members, who, by definition, are those who were baptized in the Church and those who were received into full Communion. One such tenet is that “once a Catholic, always a Catholic.” You can stop practicing, but that does not undo your Catholic Baptism or your reception into full communion. You are still subject to the Church’s laws whether you give a hoot about them or not.
The Church will not hunt you down if you fall into heresy (her situation) or apostasy. It will leave you to make your own mistakes and will take you back if you should ever decide to return because you are still her child and she will not abandon you even if you’ve abandoned her.
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TraderTif
Guest
If you were my child, what would I do?
Probably something similar to your parents, although not exactly.
I mean, think about it. Your parents’ faith is just as important to them as yours is to you. They honestly believe they cannot, in good faith, attend or support a wedding that they understand to be invalid.
You cannot have what you are seeking. You can’t, essentially “fake” a Catholic wedding or dispensation, which you have no intention of following. And you can’t force your parents to support a marriage that they don’t recognize. (Expecting your parents to joyfully show up and support such a thing is every bit as “fake” as you getting married in the Catholic church solely to please them.)
You have to do what you believe is right, to the best of your understanding. And…please, try to recognize that your parents have the best of intentions, even if they’re going about things in a hurtful way. (I’m sure that this ordeal is just as hard, emotionally, on them as it is on you.)
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clem456
Guest
It’s not your place to judge the eternal consequences of this woman’s Christian religous beliefs, because you do not know the eternal consequences. You do not know the disposition of her soul in God’s eyes. God knows that, not you. The best we can do is make observations based on the her life. Seems to me, with the information we have, she is living the Christian life far more maturely than her parents.
Based on the words and behavior we have before us, which party is living a life of solid Christian witness to chastity and service? Which party is potentially causing a lifetime of division? Which party is clinging to doctrine as the ultimate good, to the detriment of others?
This is not the example Christ gives us. Christ is the truth. We may know the truth, Christ is the truth. What does he do with that truth? He goes to the Cross with it. He does not force it on anyone, although he has the power to do so with the snap of His fingers. And even though He is the truth and expresses it, He does not let rejection separate Him from His people. And being with people in their everyday lives in no way indicates Christ’s approval of their sin or weakness or lack of belief. He is simply there for them, proposing. He does not shut people off in the Gospels. Peter as prime example, who makes perhaps the ultimate denail of truth.
It’s always interesting when someone presumes to proclaim God’s eternal mind in regard to someone’s eternal soul, and then attempts to speak about charity.
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Corki
Guest
Just on the facts we have here?
The parents.
Both parties share responsibility here.
Neither. I don’t see the daughter as clinging to any doctrine at all based on what she has shared. The parents may be more grounded in doctrine but want to apply it for the **good **of all. It’s not the doctrine nor the application that is causing the rift here.
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dixieagle
Guest
You simply have it wrong.
The OP’s situation - or the situation of any person baptized into the Catholic church - has nothing to do with “wanting anything from the Church” but rather with obligations that come with being baptized Catholic.
There is no longer a process whereby one can formally leave the Church, therefore someone who quits practicing their Catholicism is, in the view of the Church, if not their own, a lapsed Catholic. You have also misapplied the papal encyclical.
This has to do with how the Church views her flock, whether you or anyone else disagrees. None of which changes the very sad and difficult situation faced by the OP and her parents.
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ToBeWedBarb
Guest
That’s an ugly thing to say. I will not divorce, and I very seriously doubt I will ever return to Catholicism. I’m not saying that by divine grace it could not happen - if the spirit leads me to it. But I am 100% satisfied in the Methodist church and have never been closer to God in my life. My future husband and I are both devout Christians with a Christian vision for our marriage and family. That absolutely does not include divorce and/or remarriage!
I do understand that Catholics believe my Methodist wedding will be invalid. However, that’s all it is - a belief. It is not based in biblical teaching or any actual evidence or proof. There is no reason for me to believe that marrying each other in the Methodist faith will render us only “fake” married. People are free to believe what they wish and can ascribe to any set of rules that they like, my parents included. That doesn’t mean that they are objectively right or true.
I guess what this thread has shown me is that there is probably no way to fully reconcile this situation. I will marry in my faith and my parents will either attend begrudgingly or will stay home in protest. I will try not to take that personally if it happens. I hope that after my wedding, we can come together and offer one another forgiveness. If my parents choose not to accept my husband or my marriage, my children will miss out on a relationship with their grandparents. And that will break my heart. I was very close to my mother’s parents. I always imagined my mom and dad being there for my kids.
Ultimately, my parents must do what they feel God wants them to do. And if that means drawing a hard line, denying our marriage, viewing our home as a hotbed of sin, and considering our children illegitimate, then that is something I will have to really work hard to accept. It’s a shame when people’s faith leads them to this point.
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