Since you won't give a yes or no answer Padraig, I looked it up for you. Zaro Thread-- Message of Our Lady of Zaro, November 26, given to Simona http://cenacolimariapellegrina.blogspot.fr/2015/11/messaggio-della-madonna-di-zaro-del_28.html I saw Mother, dressed in white, with a golden belt around her waist, a long blue mantle enveloping her that went from her head down to her feet; in her arms, covered by the mantle, she was pressing Baby Jesus to herself, dressed in a little white tunic. Mother had the crown of twelve stars around her head. Praised be Jesus Christ-- "Dear children, I am happy to see you gathered here in my blessed woods despite the bad weather. My children, true Christians do not become discouraged during the difficulties and storms of life, but grasp the holy rosary with greater strength and go forward, drawing strength from Jesus truly living in the Blessed Sacrament. My children, feed every day on my beloved Jesus; thus He will give you the strength to face all of life's adversities. Pray, my children, now more than ever there is a need to pray for peace, peace between nations, peace in my beloved Church, in order that it might not be divided, but might defend the good as a single body. Pray my children for my favoured sons [i.e. priests]! I watch specially over them, but so much prayer is needed, in order that they might all be safe and not depart from the truth. Pray especially for my beloved son Francis, Vicar of Christ. Pray for the whole world, but especially for my beloved Italy. (While Mother was saying this, I saw St Michael the Archangel, most beautiful, dressed as a warrior, clad with strength and majesty, with a great spear in his hands pointed towards the centre of Italy). Pray my children, many important decisions have to be taken. My children, I love you immensely, I watch over each one of you and I take your prayers to the feet of God the Father. Pray my children, pray. Now I give you my holy blessing. Thanks for having hastened to me." Who could doubt that this is true?--padraig, Nov 28, 2015
And of course that's why you post these pages, Brian. You use the website as a criticism (via sarcasm which you prefer to call satire) of the Holy Father and his papacy.
Correct! Only God knows, that's the point in all this and that illustrates the path and approach of the Pope.
Hi Padraig, the Seat of Peter is not vacant, this cannot be, 2 Popes are not possible as well, so someone in Rome is lying to us, probably the Dubia will give to us an early response but this time officially.
would any of pope Francis' critics like to give an explanation as to why Pope Benedict XVI could refer to the sufferings of those in irregular marriages (their exclusion from the sacraments) as a gift to the Church? I am very interested to know how it could possibly have any value-you know- bearing in mind they are all in mortal sin (spiritually dead)
http://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/sacrilegious-communiondoctrine-or-pastoral-opinion Sacrilegious Communion — Doctrine or Pastoral Opinion? by Bradley Eli, M.Div., Ma.Th. • ChurchMilitant.com • December 7, 2016 31 Comments If Cdl. Kevin Farrell, prefect of the new dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life (LFL), is left to interpret "Amoris Laetitia" (AL) as he will, then unchaste adulterers will soon be joining contracepting spouses and active homosexuals in making sacrilegious Communions. This Vatican official is currently center stage in speaking of how to properly interpret AL, the papal exhortation on marriage. He's saying those who forbid all unchaste adulterers from receiving Holy Communion aren't interpreting the document correctly. Cdl. Farrell also believes that the very question of who can and cannot receive Holy Communion isn't a doctrinal issue but merely a difference of opinions. The strong backlash against the four cardinals — Raymond Burke and three others — who formally questioned the Pope in their dubia regarding the correct interpretation of AL may well have gained force because these four brought back the question of who can receive Holy Communion from the category of pastoral opinion to that of a doctrinal problem. WATCH NOW In 2014 Cdl. Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C. separated faith from practice by predicting, "Reception of Communion is not a doctrinal position; it's a pastoral application of the doctrine." In so doing he circumvented the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), which always has the final say in such matters. But Cdl. Wuerl would then go on to define what now seems to be the role of Cdl. Farrell's dicastery by explaning that the question of who can receive Holy Communion "involves the mercy of God, the sacrament of reconciliation, the conscience of the individual person, the state of the soul of that individual person. ... And I think we have to sort those things out." It seems Cdl. Farrell's dicastery will have the job of sorting those things out while the CDF bows out. When Cdl. Gerhard Müller, prefect of the CDF, was asked recently to weigh in on the dubia sent by the four cardinals to his dicastery and to the Pope, he was hesitant to do so. This question, however, was considered a doctrinal issue to be handled by the CDF back when Cdl. Müller's predecessor, Cdl. Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), was head of the CDF under Pope St. John Paul II. There was no question the CDF had the final word. In fact, none other than Cdl. Walter Kasper, now famous for his "Kasper proposal," came to the CDF with this exact same issue in 1993. Cardinal Ratzinger drafted an official directive in 1994 presenting the Catholic response to those who erroneously believe they can live as sexually active divorcés in civil marriages: Should they judge it possible to do so, pastors and confessors, given the gravity of the matter and the spiritual good of these persons 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. The fact that this was always considered a doctrinal question is shown in the same document where Cdl. Ratzinger further iterated that St. John Paul II's apostolic exhortation "Familiaris Consortio" "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." But for the last 50 years, contracepting couples have been told to follow their own conscience when receiving Holy Communion, even though the teaching that artificial contraception is always gravely sinful hasn't officially changed. In the last 20 years pro-abortion politicians have been told the same thing, even though Canon 915 of the Catholic Code of Canon Law says they can't. And even sexually active gay couples are allowed in many places to follow their own conscience when receiving Holy Communion, even though paragraph 2357 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church continues to officially teach that homosexual acts are intrinsically evil and thus gravely sinful. So bishops and priests, who are deformed in these days when living practice has been unhinged from Catholic teaching, are perhaps a bit confused as to why this schizophrenic policy hasn't been applied to sexually active divorcés.
Divorce, Remarriage and Communion: It’s Personal "I had absolutely no idea that I wasn’t supposed to be receiving Communion." With a heavy heart I’ve read and watched as the discussion about divorced and remarried Catholics receiving Communion has played out in the public sphere. It has been dismaying to see the very people with whom I’ve identified myself for many years—“conservative” Catholics, who, like me, fully believe and follow the teaching of the Church—bring a hammer, not an open heart, into the discussion. While watching, I’ve asked myself with alarming frequency, “Would I be Catholic had I encountered such voices upon my return to the Church? Would I have become a Catholic theologian had I been barred from receiving the sacraments at a time when I was a bruised reed?” I believe the Lord is calling me to share my story, because personal stories involve real people, real life situations, real consciences and real relationships with God. Personal stories involve the mystery of God’s grace, how grace works in the human heart, and how it often moves outside the boundaries and structures erected for our good. I’ve decided to tell my story anonymously to avoid public scandal, but please know that I am a faithful daughter of the Church, a Catholic theologian who holds the mandatum, a servant of the Church’s Deposit of Faith who has vowed personally to my archbishop to teach authentic Catholic doctrine in full communion with the Catholic Church, and never to teach anything that contradicts the Church’s teaching. I have kept my promise—a promise I take seriously—during the entire 15 years I’ve taught Catholic theology. Having said that, I feel much disappointment over what has been both assumed and stated repeatedly in discussions about the divorced and remarried, and over the persistent characterization of those in irregular marital situations as “unrepentant,” “in disagreement with the teaching of the Church” and “in mortal sin.” The sad fact is that many people are in irregular marital situations today because, at the time of their wedding, they were unevangelized, uncatechized and had not come to personal faith in God in the Catholic Church. In other words they may not have known any better. I was in an irregular marriage for a number of years upon my return to the Catholic Church. Like many others who grew up post-Vatican II, I did not know Christ or a whit of Catholic teaching, in spite of being educated in Catholic schools from kindergarten through college. A year after graduating from college as a professed agnostic, I thankfully awakened to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ through an evangelical Christian church. I have loved the Lord with my whole heart, mind and soul ever since. Shortly thereafter I married a divorced, non-practicing Catholic in that church. Several years later we made our way home to Catholicism. I returned to the Catholic faith as a daily communicant who, for the next three years, had absolutely no idea that I wasn’t supposed to be receiving Communion. By that time I had become active in my church community, involved in a prayer group and friends with many of the people I’d met at daily Mass. When an ex-Catholic friend informed me of the Church’s teaching, I immediately called our parish priest, praying fervently that he would direct me in God’s will. We met in person the next day, and after discussing my situation at length, he advised me to ask my husband to begin the process of regularizing our marriage and suggested that I continue to receive Communion while that unfolded. All of this I did, as I had no intention then or ever of disobeying the counsel I was given. My only objective was to earnestly seek and do the will of God. It took five years of serious prayer and discussion before my husband agreed to file for a decree of nullity. His hesitancy was due to his conviction that an annulment proceeding would place an unbearable burden on his already-strained relationship with his children from that marriage. (Sadly, he was quite right.) This, in spite of the fact that his first marriage had been a “shotgun wedding” with a woman he had no desire to marry, brought about by the coercion of unhappy parents. Further, both parties were non-believing Catholics. (Their union was ultimately declared invalid by a marriage tribunal.) During the year it took him to write the petition for the decree of nullity, plus the five years it took for a marriage tribunal to hear his case and issue the decree, I was consistently advised by pastors and spiritual directors to receive Communion, of which I partook daily. During this time I enrolled in a masters program in theology, giving rise to the occasion to discuss my situation at length with my moral theology professor, a well-known moral theologian at a highly orthodox Catholic university. His response? “You have been given good advice. Continue to receive Communion.” Why was I given such counsel? Did I consult with a string of “liberals” who were inebriated by the “spirit of Vatican II?” Not in the least. I brought my dilemma to holy orthodox priests and upholders of Catholic doctrine; priests and theologians who understood that there are nuances in personal situations and in decisions concerning conscience. Thankfully, they also understood that pastoral decisions must be discerned and applied on a case-by-case basis according to the attitude, disposition and conscience of the person seeking counsel. It is the ordinary practice of the Church to call people to repentance and conversion, to form their consciences according to Church teaching, and to invite them to live their lives in accord with such teaching. (This is true, at least, in principle, even if it has not been the case for millions of Catholics.) However, in extraordinary circumstances, when a person can’t bring their lives into formal alignment with Church teaching for a variety of reasons, it has been an accepted pastoral practice to have such persons make a decision of conscience in the “internal forum” about receiving the Sacraments—in the secret sanctuary of the conscience, where a person “is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths” (CCC par. 1776). While such scenarios may not be discussed publicly due to the risk of scandal and abuse, this is an age-old practice in the Church, and it takes into account the reality that while the law and its norms are good and necessary, there may be situations that the lawgiver did not foresee, or that may not be provided for by the letter of the law. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger referred to the possibility of recourse to the “internal forum” for the divorced and remarried in a 1998 document by the Congregation for The Doctrine of the Faith (written by Ratzinger and approved by Pope John Paul II) wherein he stated: Admittedly, it cannot be excluded that mistakes occur in marriage cases. In some parts of the Church, well-functioning marriage tribunals still do not exist. Occasionally, such cases last an excessive amount of time. Once in a while they conclude with questionable decisions. Here it seems that the application of epikeia in the internal forum is not automatically excluded from the outset. This was implied in the 1994 letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith. (ii) He then stated: “This question demands further study and clarification. Admittedly, the conditions for asserting an exception would need to be clarified very precisely, in order to avoid arbitrariness and to safeguard the public character of marriage, removing it from subjective decisions” (iii). What he did not say is that exceptions never exist, or that every person and situation can and must always be held to the letter of the law, without exception. Another scenario mentioned by Ratzinger in the same document is when “non-believing Christians—baptized persons who no longer believe in God” marry in the Church “for the sake of tradition,” subsequently enter in a new, irregular marriage and then come to faith in God. Ratzinger raises the question as to “whether every marriage between two baptized persons is ipso facto a sacramental marriage.” He then offers his personal opinion that a marriage celebrated in the Church without faith may be invalid, concluding that the matter must be “studied further” (iv). All of this begs the question: How many marriages today, entered into by non-believing Catholics for the sake of tradition, are invalid? And this begs a further question: Could a second marriage, entered into after faith in God was found in a Protestant church (as was our case) be considered valid but illicit, if the first marriage was, in fact, invalid? Invalidity exists in the conferral of the Sacrament—marriage tribunals don’t “create” it. Their role is to formally recognize invalidity and then pronounce a public judgment on it. None of this touches on the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage, which refers specifically to valid marriages. Invalid marriages don’t exist, and the Church’s tribunals merely recognize this fact. As Cardinal Ratzinger recommended, these questions need further study and discussion. For it is often massive cultural shifts that become the ground of not only the Church’s development of doctrine, but of the calling forth of more human pastoral practices that hold the potential to heal the wounds of a bleeding body of believers. I know they healed mine. http://aleteia.org/2015/11/18/divorce-remarriage-and-communion-its-personal-2/
As with the cases we have already discussed, it would need to be discerned in the confessional. are we saying anyone can?Of course not-but sadly the opponents of Pope Francis dont actually want to accept authentic catholic theology. They would rather go the protestant route and decide for themselves how to interpret these moral issues. Dont forget these people have a great suffering as well.I was at university with a muslim homosexual. HE told me he wished he wasnt. They have a cross to bear that at times may become too much in times of weakness. The Pope knows everyone who truly desires to search for God and shows repentance and the will to follow the path of true life needs help. So whats the idea with Pope Benedict saying the suffering of those remarried is a gift to the Church. there seems to be a bit of a struggle to answer it. Could it be because Pope Benedict - the great conservative pope is the one who proves that its actually perfectly authentic moral theology that Francis is rightly proclaiming?
There are millions of stories out there on divorce and remarriage that appeal to the heart of all. What I don't understand is that there is a process the Church has in place called an annulment that will determine if ones first marriage was valid in the eye's of God or not. When the person was a "bruised reed" did they read what Jesus said about divorced and remarried? Is Jesus a bigot? Was he not clear? Was it just for the people of his time that he said it was adultery to divorce and remarry? Has the Churches teaching, reiterated even recently as taught by St. Pope John Paul and Pope Benedict wrong? What has changed? Again, the Church has a method of determining whether a person was married in the eye's of God, so why is no one talking about this? It seems to me some people do not want to go through this process and want it resolved quickly by going to a local parish priest who will show "compassion" outside what the church has always taught form Jesus himself. Compassion and truth cannot be separated. Truth is compassion and it is unchanging, because God is unchanging. If one was married in the eye's of God, which he gave full authority to his Church to discern, then far better for the divorced person to remain single and prayerful than to usurp God's law.
Although I may be wrong about this, Fatima, I suspect that you only read a little bit of the testimony before categorizing it as a plea for compassion and then you wrote your response. The lady giving the testimony is not making a plea for compassion. She is explaining her life experience as an explanation of why Pope Francis' approach is a good one and in keeping with Pope Benedict's approach also. Let me quote a short paragraph from Pope Benedict, speaking during a pastoral visit in Milan in 2012. Then it is also very important that they truly realize they are participating in the Eucharist if they enter into a real communion with the Body of Christ. Even without “corporal” reception of the sacrament, they can be spiritually united to Christ in his Body. Bringing them to understand this is important: so that they find a way to live the life of faith based upon the Word of God and the communion of the Church, and that they come to see their suffering as a gift to the Church, because it helps others by defending the stability of love and marriage. They need to realize that this suffering is not just a physical or psychological pain, but something that is experienced within the Church community for the sake of the great values of our faith. I am convinced that their suffering, if truly accepted from within, is a gift to the Church. They need to know this, to realize that this is their way of serving the Church, that they are in the heart of the Church. Although, at that time, Pope Benedict felt unable to change Church practice in this matter, it is perfectly obvious that his sympathy is greatly with the couple to whom he is responding. And the important points to make from his words are that it is clear that the refusal to allow Holy Communion for such people is not because they are in a state of mortal sin as some on this forum seem insistent on claiming. This is doubly reinforced by the sentence, "Even without “corporal” reception of the sacrament, they can be spiritually united to Christ in his Body." How could that be if they were in a state of mortal sin!
then why would Pope Francis make this remark According to the "Spiegel," Francis did not have much time to change, because the maximum time he had prescribed himself will soon have expired. To his most intimate circle, Francis himself had already declared himself self-critically: "It's not excluded that I will enter as the one who will split the Catholic Church."
There is no proof anywhere that he ever said that. The ONLY reference to that is on an anti-pope personal blog. There is no other reference to it anywhere. https://www.google.com/search?q="It...ome.0.69i59.1151j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Gang, I must "jump-in" here with some real world observations. Firstly! Divorce and Re-marriage is a Fact of Life .... near 50% for Catholics ... like everyone else!! Expecting normal people to become celibate nuns & monks after divorce is wishful thinking at best and nonsense at worst... especially as we have learned over the past few decades that too many Clergy seems to be having "troubles" in this regard. Calling these people adulterers and mortal sinners is counter productive and would allow a casual observer to assume that you would be one of those eager "To Cast the First Stone". The Mission of The Church has always been redemption of sinners ... especially the worst of the lot. Labeling sinners with unpleasant terms and forcing them to wear a big Red "A" is not going to get them thru the Church door nor dropping Shekels in the collection plate! I believe that Pope Francis is making an honest effort/much needed attempt to address this problem that like the hi-jacking of Vatican II and subsequent-n-ongoing clergy sex scandals was ignored/dismissed for decades. I'm guessing that his attempt is, in fact, clumsy and perhaps ill conceived but a needed attempt just the same! No! I don't have an answer how best to handle it or much else I see going on around here! GOD SAVE ALL HERE ....... & Merry 4th Day of Christmas!! View attachment 5904
Unfortunately there was once a fundamentalist teacher who stated that if a man divorced his wife and married another he was committing adultery. How insensitive was he? And his cousin lost his head because he believed the same thing.
Your answer is yes as long as they are accompanied pastorally. An active married homosexual who lives and promotes the gay lifestyle can receive communion in good conscience.
http://www.kath.net/news/57963 gives a second hand account of the original article I could not find the original article because either it is fake news or because it has been scrubbed. If it has been scrubbed, it is because the quote is scandalous to the faithful.
