See the full LifeSiteNews story here.
Highlights:
Vatican Chief of Sacraments:
No pope can change divine law on Communion
ROME, November 19, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) —
Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, speaking of priests, said: “There are preconditions for the reception of Holy Communion and when those conditions are not met, and the situation is publicly known, ministers of the sacrament “have no right to give him communion.” If they do so, their sin will be more grave before the Lord. It would be unequivocally a premeditated complicity and profanation of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus.”
“The entire Church has always firmly held that one may not receive communion with the knowledge of being in a state of mortal sin … Not even a pope can dispense from such a divine law.”
Regarding “communion for all, without discrimination,” Cardinal Sarah says that those in grave sin who are unrepentant (unless in total ignorance) “would remain in a state of mortal sin and would commit a grave sin by receiving communion.”
The cardinal’s most powerful statements, however, are his lament at the confusion about Holy Communion among the clergy.
ADDED LATER:
IMO there are very few things to which OMG should ever be added. However, this might be one:
Read the link carefully and note the lack of an apostrophe.
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I believe Sandro Magister is the origin:
http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1351180?eng=y
I was happy to see the following quoted as Canon Law in the article Ben posted:
“1. If one undergoes domestic violence, one has the right to leave one’s spouse (Code of Canon Law, canon 1153).”
A close female relative who was in love with someone she met in high school and married young right out of high school, suffered tremendous, constant, ongoing physical, mental, emotional, and sexual abuse from her husband after they were married. Additionally, he would force her out of the car a long distance from home on a regular basis, and make her walk back home the rest of the way. He also forced her to turn her paycheck over to him after she got paid.
She eventually left him and returned back to her parents’ home. In court, the judge granted immediate divorce after he heard the abuse she had gone through. She had been beaten down and it took a while for her to regain some strength.
When this female relative approached her parish priest (same church and same older priest who had performed her marriage) in regard to how to apply for an annulment, he refused to help her. Despite her detailing the extreme, constant abuse she had suffered at her husband’s hands, he insisted that marriage was a permanent bond and she should go back to her husband, make the best of it, and work things out with him. This was in the mid 1970’s.
Within 5 years time, when I was visiting at a family’s home very involved in the same church, they had a young female visit who was also involved in the same church. This young woman relayed her meeting with her parish priest, the same older priest my close female relative had met with, regarding how to obtain an annulment. She said the priest refused to help her. She stated he told her that marriage was a permanent bond and she should go back to her husband, make the best of it, and work things out with him. The young woman was distraught and at the verge of tears. The woman of the house, a traditional, orthodox, devout Roman Catholic, was upset at hearing the priest’s words. She commented that she couldn’t believe that he expected her to go back to her husband to suffer his abuse. The woman of the house turned to me and relayed that her husband had beaten her on a regular basis, and had even taken off his belt and whipped her.
After the young woman left, the woman of the house commented that any man who would beat a woman, she didn’t consider a man. She was also disturbed at the advice the priest had given this young woman, insisting no woman should have to endure abuse by their husband.
I knew this priest in question, and although an affable man, thought he was sheltered and out of touch with everyday life families faced when hearing his homilies. Everything had a “rosy spin” on it and he seemed to think everyone’s family was like the TV show “Leave It To Beaver.”
I also wonder if he thought if a sacrament he performed was broken, it would reflect on him and he would suffer eternal consequences. He did not seem to acknowledge annulment. I wonder if he even knew anything about the annulment process.
This older priest was far from the only priest who wouldn’t help a woman to get an annulment and advised her to return to the husband who had been abusing them.
No telling how many Catholics were turned away from the church when attempting to apply for annulment in an abusive marriage, and were refused process for applying for an annulment and told to return to their abusive environment and make the best of it, because marriage is permanent.
Regarding predisposition before marriage – the abuser in a marriage, whether it be a man or woman, usually doesn’t show their “true spots” in the time period before marriage, in front of their relatives and friends, and in front of their intended spouse, when they are not co-habitating before marriage.
For the abuser, the concept of the permanence of marriage fuels their security in a relationship, and their sense of ownership over a person. Often, the abuser will move to an area which is not close to their spouse’s family and friends, and/or will also try to distance them from family and friends.
An abuser wants power and control over their spouse. An abuser, especially male, thinks they own their spouse and have the right to beat, abuse, and order their spouse around.
I really don’t call these type of abusive relationships what is intended to be marriage, and I don’t believe anyone should have to go back into an abusive relationship to appease their parish priest in what he considers the doctrine of the Catholic Church.
Please take a deep breath and read Jimmy Akin’s on this intercommunion thing Pope Francis talked about recently. Akin gives some hope that there was nothing untoward going on.
http://www.catholic.com/blog/jimmy-akin/pope-francis-on-intercommunion-with-lutherans
+JMJ