Most marriages today are invalid, Pope Francis suggests

I found this to be helpful http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/what-actually-makes-a-marriage-invalid-39335/ you may hear a little of it this weekend.

 

thank you Carol55

Every time I come back to this thread I keep thinking about Patrick and Nancy from Medjugorje. I feel like their story exemplifies exactly what this is about.



The audio is not the best, but the testimony is excellent.

 

Please forgive my naivete, especially as I have not had a chance to read the entire thread, but is one of the problems with the pope's statement about a large number of marriages being null, the possibility that a large number of divorced and remarried Catholics will be freely allowed to receive the Eucharist without a formal Annulment due to the presumption that their marriage was null to begin with??

 

I do not believe it as been brought up, or at least it has not been stressed.

 

I just checked Dolours said this also (post 47). others may have also.

 

From 1.5 years ago, the late saintly Cardinal Francis George on Pope Francis:

"The question is raised, why doesn’t he himself clarify these things? Why is it necessary that apologists have to bear that burden of trying to put the best possible face on it? Does he not realize the consequences of some of his statements, or even some of his actions? Does he not realize the repercussions? Perhaps he doesn’t. I don’t know whether he’s conscious of all the consequences of some of the things he’s said and done that raise these doubts in people’s minds."

"The pope, said Cardinal George, expresses sympathy “in a way that leaves people wondering if he still holds the doctrine.” But, added the cardinal, “I have no reason to believe that he doesn’t.”


The simple question is, does he still hold the doctrine?

 

Like Cardinal George, we must accept that he still holds the doctrine until he unequivocally denies it.

 

I'm beginning to think that Papa is making, seemingly, outrageous comments to get us out of our "Comfort Zones", "Off the Couch" and "Thinking Outside the Box"? The Vatican has it's own security, intelligence and news services so they must know the Planet & Church are in even worse shape than we imagine or watch/read in the Media. None of us here really know what's what ... except that The Signs, our gut instincts and the daily, whitewashed though it be, news is signaling that The SHTF Moment is here ... NOW!! .... and YES!! I, still, think the Pope is playing his role in the Divine Play called The Storm ..... Soooooo ... Get Off Your Butt, do your bit part in The Play and take care of your own affairs.

GOD SAVE ALL HERE!!

PS: Marriage in the Western World is in collapse! Near 50% Divorce and the last article I read about it claims that 20+% of those staying "together" would not get married if they could do a re-take. Something non-Sacramental be goin' on around here!

 

No, it does not mean that - not necessarily. Those statistics, unfortunately, have been that way for quite some time. In fact - although it may at times seem like ancient history - we had a saint for a pope just over a decade ago. He spoke to this problem many times, I'll just include two paragraphs that I find relevant ( but there are many more and I suggest that for those who are interested in what St. JPII has said to google "John Paul Roman rota addresses"):

http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-p...uments/hf_jp-ii_spe_20000121_rota-romana.html

No one can deny that the current mentality of the society in which we live has difficulty in accepting the indissolubility of the marital bond and the very concept of marriage as the "foedus, quo vir et mulier inter se totius vitae consortium constituunt" (CIC, can. 1055, 1), whose essential properties are "unitas et indissolubilitas, quae in matrimonio christiano ratione sacramenti peculiarem obtinent firmitatem" (CIC, can. 1056). But this real difficulty does not amount "sic et simpliciter" to a concrete rejection of Christian marriage or of its essential properties. Still less does it justify the presumption, as it is unfortunately formulated at times by some tribunals, that the predominant intention of the contracting parties, in a secularized society pervaded by strong divorce currents, is to desire a dissoluble marriage so much that the existence of true consent must instead be proven.

In order to affirm the exclusion of an essential property or the denial of an essential end of marriage, canonical tradition and rotal jurisprudence have always required that this exclusion or denial occur through a positive act of will that goes beyond a habitual, generic will, an interpretive wish, amistaken opinion about the goodness of divorce in some cases, or a simple intention not to respect the obligations one has really assumed.

5. In conformity with the doctrine constantly professed by the Church, therefore, we must conclude that opinions opposed to the principle of indissolubility or attitudes contrary to it, but without the formal refusal to celebrate a sacramental marriage, do not exceed the limits of simple error concerning the indissolubility of marriage, which, according to canonical tradition and current legislation, does not vitiate marital consent (cf. CIC, can. 1099).

 

Ed Peters is a renowned canon lawyer who teaches at a US seminary and works with the USCCB on canon law matters. He is as mainstream Catholic as they come. He is not a trad and cannot be ignored in this analysis. If he is concerned, you and I better be too.


https://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/...ection/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Papal comments on cohabitation and civil marriage suggest a direction
The pope’s most recent comments on marriage point in a disturbing direction but let’s address two important matters first.

Point One. Cohabitation is not marriage.

Largely overlooked amid the furor caused by Pope Francis’ rash claim that “the great part of our sacramental marriages are null”—an assertion reckless if false (which it is) and brimming with despair if true (which it is not), a claim followed not by an apology, an official retraction, or even a bureaucratic ‘clarification’ but instead by an Orwellian alteration of the pope’s words in Vatican records—overlooked, I say, in this greater mess was the pope’s later but equally problematic comment about his being “sure that cohabitating couples are in a true marriage having the grace of marriage”. Though multi-facetedly wrong (theologically, canonically, pastorally, socially) the pope’s equating cohabitation (‘faithful’, whatever that means) with Christian marriage did not, mirabile dictu, get edited down to a platitude or deleted completely: his words are still there, “in queste convivenze … sono sicuro che questo è un matrimonio vero, hanno la grazia del matrimonio…”

Let’s be clear: marriage is marriage but cohabitation (as that word is nearly universally understood in social discourse) is only cohabitation. Where to begin?

Everybody starts off single. One stays single unless one goes through a ceremony called a wedding, at which point, one is (presumptively, at least) married. People who are married get to do certain things that people who are not married don’t get to do, like, say, submit a married-filing-jointly tax return with a certain someone and have sex with that same certain someone if they both so choose. In addition, though, married couples who are baptized get something else at their wedding, they receive a sacrament called Matrimony, and with that sacrament come very powerful graces put there by Jesus to help Christian couples living the difficult and wonderful thing called marriage.

But, if one is not married, one does not get to submit a married-filing-jointly tax return with anyone and one does not get to have sex with a certain no-one or with anyone else. Moreover, even if one is baptized (and regardless of what other sacramental or actual graces might be wonderfully at work in one’s life) a single person does not get the specific graces of Matrimony. Why? Because cohabitation is NOT marriage, let alone is it “true marriage”, and cohabiting couples do NOT share in the graces of Matrimony.

Point Two. Civil-only marriage might, or might not, be marriage.

While asserting that couples cohabiting ‘faithfully’ (?) are in a real marriage (which they aren’t) the pope also said that merely civilly-married couples are in real marriages (which they might or might not be). To understand what is at stake here we need to distinguish more carefully.

Couples, neither of whom is Catholic (i.e., most of the world), even if both of them are baptized, can marry (the Church would say, “validly”) in a civil-only ceremony. To that extent, Francis would be right to say that civilly married couples have a true marriage. But if the pope thinks that merely civilly married Catholics—and given the context of his remarks this is likely whom he had in mind—are, just as much as cohabiting couples (supposedly) are, in real marriages and enjoying the graces of Matrimony, then I have to say No, that’s wrong—even though I wish he were right. Once again, the requirement of “canonical form” (a cure that has long out-lived the disease it was prescribed to treat) seriously complicates the Church’s message on the permanence of marriage.

Because Catholics (let’s just talk Romans here) are required for validity to marry in (still keepin’ it simple) a Catholic religious ceremony, those tens of thousands of Catholics who ‘marry’ civilly-only are (outside a few rare exceptions) no more married than are couples just cohabiting (‘faithfully’ or otherwise). Moreover, because of the inseparability of the marriage contract from the sacrament, if one is invalidly ‘married’ (and ‘marriages’ among Catholics who disregard canonical form are invalid) then one does not receive the sacrament of Matrimony either nor any of its graces. Why? Because, No marriage means no Matrimony.

Con't

 

Con't

Here’s the rub: as virtually all of the rest of the world, including baptized non-Catholics, can marry civilly-only, they are bound to such marriages if they enter them. So, even though a civil wedding might be just as much of a lark for some non-Catholics as it is for some Catholics, only Catholics have, in virtue of the requirement of canonical form, a “Get Out of Marriage Free” card to play. And play it they do. Lots. Hence, the complications that I (and some sterling canonists going back 50 years) have been warning about in regard to Church teaching on the permanence of marriage in the face of canonical form. Thus I say, one of these days, form has to go—but this is for another discussion.

In short, if the pope had in mind non-Catholics, he would be right to say that their civil-only wedding would count toward marriage (though why he would discuss such persons with cohabiting couples escapes me); but if he had in mind Catholics (as he probably did) then he is wrong to say that such persons are truly married and are drawing on the sacramental grace of Matrimony (though it would explain why he mentioned such persons in the same breath with cohabiting couples, as neither are married).

Now, these two points being addressed, and with the debacle of assertions of massive nullity supposedly plaguing Christian marriage still reverberating, something deeper may be emerging here. Consider,

Marriage, like pregnancy, is one of those ‘either/or’ situations—either you are or you aren’t. Others’ opinions, even your own opinion, about whether you are or aren’t, are irrelevant to whether you are or aren’t. Marriage is an objective fact, not a subjective (however sincere) feeling or attitude. Continuing,

The pope’s most recent statements on marriage were not slips akin to getting the date of a meeting wrong, they are not hearsay shared by a prelate known for a flexible attitude toward accuracy or stories shared by relatives from Argentina, and they are not hints of his views left ambiguous by some obvious omission. Instead these latest assertions were calmly offered by the pope before a large and sympathetic audience, with expert advisors readily at hand, in an extended manner, all of which factors point, I think, in a consistent if disturbing direction.

And what direction is that?

This one: Pope Francis really—and I think, sincerely—believes:

(A) most marriages (at least, most Christian marriages) really aren’t, deep-down, marriages (and so the annulment process has to be sped up to dispatch of what are, after all, probably null marriages anyway, and the consequences of post-divorce marriages need to be softened because most people in those second marriages probably weren’t in true marriages the first time, and so on); and,

(B) lots of things that aren’t marriages (like cohabitation and civil-only weddings between Catholics) really are, deep-down, marriages (so we need to affirm them and assure them that they enjoy the same graces as married people, and so on). That this is pope’s view can, I suggest, be directly determined from his own words (expunged and otherwise) and, if I am right, would explain many things, from his favoring Cdl. Kasper and side-lining Cdl. Burke, rolling out several problematic tribunal “reforms” in Mitis Iudex, and leaving ambiguous several crucial points that sorely needed clarity in Amoris laetitia. The irreducibly objective, ‘either/or’, nature of marriage would not sit well with someone who prefers subjective, flexible approaches that allow for ‘this and that’ responses, but, whatever problems the principle of non-contradiction poses here, a conviction that most marriages are not marriage but lots of non-marriages are marriage, would explain a lot.

That said, I see no way to avoid the conclusion that a crisis (in the Greek sense of that word) over marriage is unfolding in the Church, and it is a crisis that will, I suggest, come to a head over matrimonial discipline and law. If so, a key fact to keep in mind will be this: No sacrament owes so much of its theology to Church discipline as marriage owes to canon law.

Perusing the pages of, say, Jesuit Fr. George Joyce’s classic study of Christian Marriage (1933), one is repeatedly struck by how deeply indebted the development of Catholic doctrine on marriage is to the practical work of canon lawyers handling marriage matters. That the latest crisis over marriage depends so much on how canonical terms like “valid” or “null” are used, on how “marriage” and “Matrimony” are defined, or on what legally constitutes “objective grave sin” and “repentance”, should surprise no one. Catholic theology of marriage and Catholic canon law on marriage are deeply, deeply interwoven. This heavy presence of law in marriage matters even explains, I think, at least in part, why some proponents of “softening” Church discipline on marriage so often berate canon lawyers as Pharisees with stony hearts who care only about rules (oblivious to the irony that it was, after all, the Pharisees who tried to derail God’s plan for marriage.) By their defense of Church discipline on marriage canon lawyers have long been crucial in the defense of Church doctrine on marriage. And I hope we remain so.

To conclude, and prescinding from what other questions might face the Church under Francis, I think the marriage crisis that he is occasioning is going to come down to whether Church teaching on marriage, which everyone professes to honor, will be concretely and effectively protected in Church law, or, whether the canonical categories treating marriage doctrine become so distorted (or simply disregarded) as essentially to abandon marriage and married life to the realm of personal opinion and individual conscience. History has always favored the former; disaster lurks behind the latter.

Sts. Thomas More and Raymond Penyafort, pray for us.

 

http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2016/06/we-deserve-francis.html#more
Editorial: WE DESERVE FRANCIS

Leonaert Bramer
King Josiah reads the Book of the Law found by Helcias the High Priest
When, minutes after the election of Cardinal Bergoglio as Pope, this venue published the most widely read piece in its history, a forecast of the future pontificate based on past experience, this page was brutally criticized for it. The experience of Cardinal Bergoglio as Archbishop of Buenos Aires had provided more than enough information on his personality, his theological inclinations, his idiosyncrasies. That is, nothing done by him in the past three years has been a surprise to those who knew him. It was all foreseeable: Saul does not become Paul without a Damascene conversion, and it must be admitted even Saul had what any conversion demands -- an overzealous heart, hard, but open to the truth.
leeway for this theory by implying the existence of a bizarre papal diarchy.


Other souls wonder if perhaps private revelations of the past or present might explain this situation. Eminent theologians pronounce the limits of what is bearable have been crossed. The occasional critic even goes so far as to ask for the Pope's resignation. In this specific instance, it must be said once again that this is a vain exercise: based on this Pope's personality, he will never resign. Ever. Not only that: his supporters, the forces that made every possible effort to have him elected (including sabotaging the two previous pontificates), would never allow this to happen. So, yes, Francis is staying in the Vatican -- as "titular" Pope, just to be clear, never as "emeritus" -- until his last gasp, and the faithful should not be surprised if a comatose pope is still creating cardinals many years from now...

***

O somma sapienza, quanta è l’arte

che mostri in cielo, in terra e nel mal mondo,

e quanto giusto tua virtù comparte!

Dante, Commedia (Inferno, c. XIX)


We deserve Francis. What is missing in many souls is a typically Christian attitude: resignation. It was not the Holy Spirit who chose Francis, that is not how conclaves work. But God has certainly allowed it, and he has allowed it to continue, and he will allow it until He deigns it necessary to end his Vicar's time here on earth, as He does to each one of us.



Other than resignation, missing from many spirits is the notion of collective justice -- and collective punishment. We have sinned, we have grievously sinned. So many Catholics have been for long immensely unfaithful to the Apostolic tradition they have received, to the pure doctrine that was passed on: is it surprising that from this soil arise unfaithful hierarchs? What is surprising is not that we have Francis as Pope, but that it took so many centuries for us to have a Pope like him. As it is known, the Popes who were considered "bad" and "appalling" in Catholic history never dared touch the deposit of the faith, or to mollify this deposit so it would fit into contemporary mores; they may have been personally immoral, and their example caused great scandal and grievous consequences, but their utterances on matters of faith, moral, sacraments did not themselves cause scandal (the examples of such were so rare as to be counted on a couple of fingers).


We deserve Francis. King Josiah was the exception, and Judah was punished before and after him: was there not a single just man in Judah under King Amon? Was not Jeremiah alive and warning of dangers under King Zedekiah? Yet even the just were punished on this earth, collectively, by what God allowed to happen: irreverent kings, leaders who acted as if God did not exist. The just were subjected to upheaval on this earth, but it profited for their eventual eternal life: as Dante wrote in the Inferno, "O Supreme Wisdom, how great is the perfection / that you show in heaven, on earth, and in hell / and how justly you spread your virtue!"



We deserve Francis. The Catholic faithful on earth in this moment in history deserve him -- and deserve worse, so be prepared. We will bear it because we must bear it, because this is what God has prepared for us. If you hope for something better, then the answer is prayer, and fasting, and almsgiving, the personal work of each one for one's own final perseverance, and the teaching of the truth of the Gospel, especially to one's children. One day, a new Josiah will arise to sit on the cathedra of Peter in Rome. Yet even afterwards, new chastisements and exiles will remain part of Catholic life, in this Church founded by "the Just who died for the unjust" (I Pet 3:18).

Maranatha!

 

Our poor God... how far we have strayed

 

Brian, I see that you did not copy the second paragraph were they infer that PF is the FP.

 

This is garbage and should not be allowed on MOG. If those who have time to read and post this garbage, should put their time into praying for Pope Francis, as it would serve the Will of God, but as it is, a continual assault upon the Vicar of Christ is being allowed and the evil one is loving it. Because Pope Francis is the Vicar of Christ on earth, he deserves out prayers and silent meditation, not our cowardly attacks on his papacy.

Brian, you have done nothing but attack Pope Francis since you came on to MOG. Is this your mission to put the Vicar of Christ down? Do you think blessings will come from God by continuing your relentless assaults upon him. Yes, upon Him, as Pope Francis is his Vicar! I for one am sick of seeing your relentless slander against our Holy Father and you are not doing the MOG forum any justice by your vehement hatred towards our Pope.

 

Even on Fathers Day he's still attacking our Pope? Very sad. I will keep praying for these poor souls

 

Still some Catholic authority would have to decide for such permission. For that matter one would have to say that loads of persons already receive the Eucharist in serious sin as a general pattern. Because that hasn't been addressed with force it has only mushroomed to the point that all have been given the impression that it simply doesn't matter what state one's soul is in....nor, today would most even know how to discern such since we've reached the point where whole societies champion evil over good and say that evil IS good.

 

But the difference now is that the Church is saying officially that evil is good once it says that non-marriages are real marriages and the divorced and remarried without an annulment are welcome to receive Communion without a change in their circumstances. The rule about not receiving Communion unless in a state of grace stands, therefore, lifting the restriction on the divorced and remarried or the unmarried living as though married is in effect declaring that such "irregular situations" are no longer sinful.

 

That is really sick and certainly points to that spirit of diabolical disorientation cloaked in pious pride.

In this specific instance, it must be said once again that this is a vain exercise: based on this Pope's personality, he will never resign. Ever.

Because his "personality" is one willing to be martyred as we shall most likely experience!

 

And where has "it said that"?? Everybody playing little "popes" today, wishing to stoke the ignorance abounding.