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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Ideological Christianity is an illness which pushes people away: pope
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
quote:
posted by Zach82
Hopefully you will, one day, learn to read what a person actually said before viciously and ignorantly accusing them of saying horrible things.
I read what you wrote, which was quote:
But you were married, and your spouse's lack of fidelity to you in no way prevented you from having fidelity to him/her. Don't mistake my position here—the bible does grant that divorce is acceptable in some situations, but the goal is still marital fidelity, even when that fidelity is a cross rather than a joy.
And I think therefore it is reasonable to infer that you think marriage vows should be kept at all costs - including by people who are beaten by their spouse.
And in the case of someone who has been abandoned by their spouse, its not the fidelity that's the cross, its the knowledge that someone you love doesn't love you back, doesn't like you and doesn't need you, doesn't want you in their life in any way on any level.
If you have never experienced that you are truly blessed, but please don't talk to those of us who have about bearing a cross.
As for me being vicious: that is untrue and uncharitable; however - if you want to take it to hell I'm more than happy to slug this one out with you there.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
What is the point of fidelity to someone who has left you? Then you are not actually being faithful to a person, but to something abstract. That sounds to me less like a cross than a self-impalement.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
And I think therefore it is reasonable ...
You think wrongly.
[ 25. October 2013, 16:11: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
quote:
posted by Zach82
You think wrongly.
Politeness costs nothing but can yield great reward.
As I said above,I was not vicious - you either owe me an apology or see me in hell...
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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TurquoiseTastic
Fish of a different color
# 8978
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Cara:
Exactly. But "the rule" allowed them to kill her. Jesus was showing that this rule could be over-ruled by compassion, by giving her another chance to repent, etc.
If anyone is suggesting to stone the illicitly remarried, I promise to fight them, if need be physically.
Well, I'm glad we're all agreed that we shouldn't do that. But isn't the point about why we shouldn't do that?
Actually the Old Testament law did not merely allow the woman to be stoned - it commanded that she must be put to death (OK, not necessarily by stoning). And there is even a justification given: "You must purge the evil from Israel".
But Jesus does not give the impression that he is saying "OK, previously it would have been fine, indeed praiseworthy, to stone the woman: but now I'm telling you something different". He seems to be saying: "Seriously guys, you already know this is the wrong thing to do."
So this is not just an example of "better pastoral care", it is indeed overriding the rules as Cara suggests. Not all the rules, but at least some of the rules.
Posts: 1092 | From: Hants., UK | Registered: Jan 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Other examples are baptism, confirmation and ordination, i.e., all personal "state changes" through sacraments are once and for all.
I thought Catholics could remarry after their spouse dies?
Indeed. This sacrament is by its nature tied to "natural" contingencies (it is about becoming one flesh after all), and hence can be dissolved by the natural process death (which destroys the association of a person to their flesh). In that way this sacrament is more like the consecration of the Eucharist. There it is also true that nothing can "un-consecrate" the Eucharist again once it has been consecrated, but nevertheless the body and blood of Christ do disappear when natural processes destroy the "natural" contingencies of the species of bread and wine (be it stomach acids or the elements).
So your claim that marriage is "once and for all" is bullshit.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
What is the point of fidelity to someone who has left you? Then you are not actually being faithful to a person, but to something abstract. That sounds to me less like a cross than a self-impalement.
I agree. I think that's at the core of criticism of ideological Christianity.
Irrespective of the theory, which I can follow, even though I don't agree with it, I also can't see how one regard a person as either still married to someone who has meanwhile married someone else, or as expected to behave as though they were, even though self-evidently they are not.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
Everyone thinks their form of religion is non-ideological including atheists
I think you're using the wrong word to say a true thing.
A true thing - that we all bring preconceived ideas to any discussion, and none of us are innocent of wanting others to behave as our principles would have them behave.
The wrong word, because if all religious positions are ideological then you've used the word in such a way as to empty the Pope's statement of any content. Whereas it seems that most of us are finding some meaning in what he said.
I find with this Pope that I'm more conscious that English is not his first language; you may have good precedent for your usage, it just doesn't help us get at what he's saying.
Best wishes,
Russ
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Host Hat On
Zach82, L'organist
By sniping at one another after Doublethink's Host Post, you are ignoring a Hostly instruction, which is a Commandment 6 transgression and can get you in hot water with Admin. No more sniping in Purgatory. Take your differences to Hell.
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
Host Hat Off
[ 27. October 2013, 15:14: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Sorry, Barnabas62.
I did try to get to H**l but - it didn't happen.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I seen 'im! Larse night!! I was THERE. Lucky me.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The RC claim is that a sacramental marriage cannot be dissolved. Just like baptism and ordination cannot be undone. The matter simply has passed out of human control and competency into the Divine. The most sincere and best reasons for a dissolution of sacramental marriage and the establishment of another amount exactly to nothing, since they simply are contradicted by the facts of the matter... ...it is perfectly possible that their spouse is the devil in human form and that they escaped the hell of their marriage abused and destroyed, whereas their new relationship is of such deep, honest and fulfilling love that it would make Romeo and Juliet envious. And if you feel like adding a dozen children raised in the most exemplary manner, and a virtuous life full of prayer to that, fine. It changes nothing
What a wonderful example of ideology (in the commonly-used negative sense). It's all there:
- The core idea, elevated to an unchangeable law of physics, proof against any conceivable evidence that this might not be the best way to order human affairs.
- The willingness for others to undergo unlimited suffering rather than compromise one's own ideas in any way.
And possibly your own suffering as well. I don't know your personal circumstances (and no ad hominem comment is intended). It's possible that you suffer thus also; that doesn't make the merciless system of thought you're putting forward any better, it just makes you an honest victim of it).
I applaud the clarity of your language and analysis that illustrates so well the type of thinking that the Pope is condemning.
Best wishes,
Russ
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Desert Daughter
Shipmate
# 13635
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
What a wonderful example of ideology (in the commonly-used negative sense). It's all there:
- The core idea, elevated to an unchangeable law of physics, proof against any conceivable evidence that this might not be the best way to order human affairs.
- The willingness for others to undergo unlimited suffering rather than compromise one's own ideas in any way.
(...)
I applaud the clarity of your language and analysis that illustrates so well the type of thinking that the Pope is condemning.
Thanks, Russ. My thoughts entirely.
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
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"Prayer is the rejection of concepts." (Evagrius Ponticus)
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
It does seem rather chilling to say that something has passed out of human control, so if you are really miserable in your marriage, sorry, there is nothing to be done really. It seems merciless.
I'm not sure about the Pope though - maybe he is condemning this kind of mathematical approach to human beings, but surely he cannot condemn its doctrinal basis.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Thank-you Russ. Excellent post.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
It does seem rather chilling to say that something has passed out of human control, so if you are really miserable in your marriage, sorry, there is nothing to be done really. It seems merciless.
I'm not sure about the Pope though - maybe he is condemning this kind of mathematical approach to human beings, but surely he cannot condemn its doctrinal basis.
Well, one hates to bring God into a matter like sex, but Jesus did say "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."(Mark 10:9) Are we serious when we invoke God to witness our marriages, or is all that religious stuff merely an ornament to be set upon whatever relationship we feel like committing to at the moment?
Of course this "trapping people in miserable marriages" business is all a straw-man, since what is at issue is not escaping dangerous or miserable situations, but remarrying.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
What about it?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
Russ, I also agree with you.
Meanwhile, can anyone explain to me in a way that is non-circular and persuasive, why it is maintained that if marriage is a sacrament, then that makes it ontologically indissoluble, rather than wrong, sinful or faithless to break the bond? It's not an automatic sequitur. Sadly, there are plenty of people who are baptised who are not faithful Christians or are even wilfully apostate. Likewise, it's clear from observation, that adultery and other forms of serious and wilful breaches of faith, destroy marriages. I said earlier in this thread,
quote:
It has long struck me that one of the most serious failings of the Roman Catholic doctrine on marriage is that it underplays the horror of both adultery and other actions that strike against the foundation rocks of a marriage. Saying that marriage is indissoluble - rather than should be indissoluble - encourages what one would traditionally have called the 'French' approach to marriage where people are supposed to tolerate one another's unfaithfulness, and 'be civilised' about it. It also punishes the victim rather than the aggressor who is unlikely to care.
IngoB gave the official answer to that, by saying that a divorced person can always live a single life, but that is not persuasive. As quetzalcoatl said, that is not being faithful to the dumper, but to something abstract, i.e. living ones life by faith in an ideology or a doctrine rather than God.
It is also treating ethics as though they were a sort of Torah.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
The core idea, elevated to an unchangeable law of physics, proof against any conceivable evidence that this might not be the best way to order human affairs.
The Lord walked on water, but declared marriage to be indissoluble. The laws of physics are like nothing to their Maker, but if He speaks the word on marriage, then that just is. You are simply forgetting who the Boss is in all matters, including human ones.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
And possibly your own suffering as well. I don't know your personal circumstances (and no ad hominem comment is intended). It's possible that you suffer thus also; that doesn't make the merciless system of thought you're putting forward any better, it just makes you an honest victim of it).
There is no need for God's mercy in your faith. What is God going to be merciful about? Doing what you think is the best that you can do while you think it is reasonable to do so does not require God's "mercy". You have no proper mercy there at all. Without just condemnation, no merciful pardon is possible. You have license. And how did you get license from mercy? By making it the law. If mercy is the law, then it becomes license. But God is not licentious, He is merciful. If you "remarry", then ask for God's mercy for your weakness. Don't go around pretending that all is fine, and don't require of the Church a seal of approval for what you are doing. Mercy is not license.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I applaud the clarity of your language and analysis that illustrates so well the type of thinking that the Pope is condemning.
Do you seriously believe that the pope will change a single thing about what I have said? Not that he has the slightest power to do so anyway, of course, but do you seriously believe that he will attempt to do that?
What you apparently desperately desire is ... the white lie. Or perhaps its posh cousin, the morally admissible mental reservation. But the problem with the (modern) Jesuit "expedient means" approach has always been this: they are not the ones calling the shots. God is. The pope is the vicar of Christ, he is not Christ.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
I wonder which phrases in the bible attributed to Jesus are his actual words and which aren't. Was Jesus speaking always for all people in all times? was he speaking about marriage to people whose life expectancy was optimistically perhaps 30? (assuming they got out of infancy without dying)
Any time someone wants to say Jesus says you're supposed to suffer especially because someone else misbehaved, well, that's theology that I rejected along with corporal punishment. And historically it was unmarried priests who told those who escaped from violent spouses either to go back or live without companionship.
“My God, what a shit God is!" (Evelyn Waugh quoting Randolph Churchill). [T]he Bible is a record of attempts to make God out of the sometimes morally ugly images of humanity.... no inspiration takes the human out of the productive process."
So the "no man put asunder" crap is merely this. I think that, hopefully, this pope probably gets that, while some of his less human followers may not.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
The Lord did NOT declare marriage indissoluble.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
So the "no man put asunder" crap is merely this. I think that, hopefully, this pope probably gets that, while some of his less human followers may not.
Less humane, I suppose. This isn't Star Trek.
And the pope, I'm happy to say, can think whatever he wants about this. He can neither change the Divine rules, nor the magisterial teaching that arose from it. He can fiddle with the procedural interface to accommodate the Zeitgeist, but that's it. The pope is not King, he is vicar.
quote:
Originally posted by no Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
The Lord did NOT declare marriage indissoluble.
He sure did. What you meant to say is something like "My self-defeating approach of making my personal judgement of scripture my personal rule of faith allows me to misinterpret a side comment in Matthew against the clear sense of both the rest of the passages in Matthew as well as multiple other, abundantly clear, statements in scripture. In doing so I happily ignore the unequivocal witness of the early Church, which both remembered more of the Lord's teaching than is written down in scripture and was sent the Holy Spirit for guidance, and instead follow my Protestant role models whose heresy from the beginning conveniently accommodated the violation of Divine rules on matters of intimate relationships. And nothing on earth or in heaven will be able to shake me from these convictions, as postmodernism in its abject idiocy was right about exactly one thing: a text like the bible cannot on its own determine "truth", and the claim that it does merely leads to the hidden projection of one's own preferences onto the text. And since I base my very faith in its width and depth on such hidden projection of my personal preferences, all discussion with me is perfectly futile."
Roughly. But I admit that your version is way snappier.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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seekingsister
Shipmate
# 17707
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Well, one hates to bring God into a matter like sex, but Jesus did say "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."(Mark 10:9) Are we serious when we invoke God to witness our marriages, or is all that religious stuff merely an ornament to be set upon whatever relationship we feel like committing to at the moment?
Of course this "trapping people in miserable marriages" business is all a straw-man, since what is at issue is not escaping dangerous or miserable situations, but remarrying.
The question is, if we invoke God at our marriage but one party blatantly rejects that invocation and disgraces the marriage through their behaviour - why would you think that God is still at the center of that union, if he ever was at all?
If I commit sins and claim they are in God's name, it doesn't make it so. In the same way someone who breaks marital vows and introduces deceit and sexual immorality into their marriage without any interest in repentance - I do not believe that it remains a marriage recognized by God at that point.
Posts: 1371 | From: London | Registered: May 2013
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
There's a reason why the question of the eternally binding nature of Christian marriage vows (or not) is always going to divide opinion is simple:
The earthly rules in the 21st century are being pronounced (and pronounced on) by a bunch of people who are not allowed to be married, who never have been married, whose only experience of marriage is from the standpoint not only of an outside but a child.
And for their authority primarily they are using writings from the 1st and 2nd century that (a) are reporting what someone said - in other words "hearsay"- and (b) were in any case the views of someone else who was not married, never (so far as we are aware) intended to be married and whose only experience of the institution was from a child's standpoint; moreover, if one accepts the Virgin Birth then the parental marriage of which he had experience was far from the norm.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
...I'm wondering if we are getting into a "good cop, bad cop" scenario with the Vatican here... For now, I will just wait for this pope to actually do something of significance, other than being the episcopal equivalent of an ad-libbing performance artist.
We are already in a "good cop, bad cop" scenario. The "bad cop" was the previous Pope, Benedict XVI, who was very plain speaking and understandable.
The "good cop" is the new Pope, who doesn't speak plainly, and is not clear about where he's coming from. I'm not surprised that liberals are gushing about him, but I myself personally preferred the previous one.
How can 2000 years be brushed aside, just because some people-pleasing Pope wants to appeal to the Spirit of the Age?
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
How can 2000 years be brushed aside, just because some people-pleasing Pope wants to appeal to the Spirit of the Age?
You could say the same about any issue where the consensus Christian view has changed, for example with slavery. I bet people said of the abolition campaigners that they were 'people pleasing' and 'appeal[ing] to the Spirit of the Age'. But with slavery and several other issues, the 'Spirit of the Age' has become the mainstream Christian view. Perhaps the same will happen regarding marriage and the RCC.
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My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
Posts: 3309 | From: The south coast (of England) | Registered: Jan 2011
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
How can 2000 years be brushed aside, just because some people-pleasing Pope wants to appeal to the Spirit of the Age?
You could say the same about any issue where the consensus Christian view has changed, for example with slavery. I bet people said of the abolition campaigners that they were 'people pleasing' and 'appeal[ing] to the Spirit of the Age'. But with slavery and several other issues, the 'Spirit of the Age' has become the mainstream Christian view. Perhaps the same will happen regarding marriage and the RCC.
What I meant to say was "2000 years of Holy Tradition." I don't think slavery (in the common sense) comes into this. I'm talking about the modern fuzzy view that it doesn't matter much what we believe, nor how we conduct our personal relationships.
As an Orthodox, my views on marriage differ to those of the RCC, but neither stance is comparable to the vague, fuzzy "anything goes, God doesn't care" attitude of today.
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
As an Orthodox, my views on marriage differ to those of the RCC, but neither stance is comparable to the vague, fuzzy "anything goes, God doesn't care" attitude of today.
I agree, but who on this thread is defending the 'vague, fuzzy "anything goes, God doesn't care" attitude of today'? I'm not seeing any of that, rather it seems people are simply criticising the RCC position, at least as it's being expounded by IngoB.
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My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
Posts: 3309 | From: The south coast (of England) | Registered: Jan 2011
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
...I'm wondering if we are getting into a "good cop, bad cop" scenario with the Vatican here... For now, I will just wait for this pope to actually do something of significance, other than being the episcopal equivalent of an ad-libbing performance artist.
We are already in a "good cop, bad cop" scenario. The "bad cop" was the previous Pope, Benedict XVI, who was very plain speaking and understandable.
The "good cop" is the new Pope, who doesn't speak plainly, and is not clear about where he's coming from. I'm not surprised that liberals are gushing about him, but I myself personally preferred the previous one.
How can 2000 years be brushed aside, just because some people-pleasing Pope wants to appeal to the Spirit of the Age?
I miss Benedict XVI.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Any time someone wants to say Jesus says you're supposed to suffer especially because someone else misbehaved, well, that's theology that I rejected along with corporal punishment. And historically it was unmarried priests who told those who escaped from violent spouses either to go back or live without companionship.
Glad someone has said that. Where someone has escaped from a hell of a marriage with a Satan's spawn of a partner they have considered themselves bound to by the church's teaching should they consider themselves similarly bound not to accept the love which came their way afterwards? Fortunately there are clergy who do not think like this.
Right back at the beginning, God is recorded as being of the opinion that it is not good for man to live alone. If it is subsequently revealed that He feels that it is good if someone has been abused for a long time by a destructive partner of evil deeds, that seems quite contrary.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
How can 2000 years be brushed aside, just because some people-pleasing Pope wants to appeal to the Spirit of the Age?
You could say the same about any issue where the consensus Christian view has changed, for example with slavery. I bet people said of the abolition campaigners that they were 'people pleasing' and 'appeal[ing] to the Spirit of the Age'. But with slavery and several other issues, the 'Spirit of the Age' has become the mainstream Christian view. Perhaps the same will happen regarding marriage and the RCC.
What I meant to say was "2000 years of Holy Tradition." I don't think slavery (in the common sense) comes into this. I'm talking about the modern fuzzy view that it doesn't matter much what we believe, nor how we conduct our personal relationships.
As an Orthodox, my views on marriage differ to those of the RCC, but neither stance is comparable to the vague, fuzzy "anything goes, God doesn't care" attitude of today.
I would have thought that some people here are voicing the view that God does care - about people stuck in a loveless marriage, or people who find love again in another marriage. Why would God not care about that, if he is love, or intends for humans to be loving to each other?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Any time someone wants to say Jesus says you're supposed to suffer especially because someone else misbehaved, well, that's theology that I rejected along with corporal punishment. And historically it was unmarried priests who told those who escaped from violent spouses either to go back or live without companionship.
Glad someone has said that. Where someone has escaped from a hell of a marriage with a Satan's spawn of a partner they have considered themselves bound to by the church's teaching should they consider themselves similarly bound not to accept the love which came their way afterwards? Fortunately there are clergy who do not think like this.
Right back at the beginning, God is recorded as being of the opinion that it is not good for man to live alone. If it is subsequently revealed that He feels that it is good if someone has been abused for a long time by a destructive partner of evil deeds, that seems quite contrary.
That "til death us do part" bit that is usually part of marital vows? For some it is a vow and promise. For others, apparently it is a threat.
The point of the asunder line is that marriage should not be taken lightly, and in a culture where a divorced woman might be destitute, starve and die, it is a very bad thing. We "miss the mark" on most of the ideals of God, Jesus and everyone who encourages us to do right. We should try to keep marriages going, but we may fail. Just like we fail at pretty much everything.
I am married for 3 decades so can't speak from personal experience. But apparently half the married world divorces. Like abortion, no one is really in favour of divorce, and no-one enters into it lightly (except in Las Vegas apparently). Anyone with a strict legalistic approach to human problems; well that's why we have Jesus and don't just continue with legalistic Judaism.
"Sorry God, I have sinned and missed the mark. Tthe world is broken, and my world is broken. Please help me, please forgive me. Please give me relief from my suffering".
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I would have thought that some people here are voicing the view that God does care - about people stuck in a loveless marriage, or people who find love again in another marriage. Why would God not care about that, if he is love, or intends for humans to be loving to each other?
You do not care at all whether God cares. Of course God cares for anyone who suffers, and in particular if he or she suffers due to the sins of others. And yes God is also merciful to the weak, in particular if they are genuinely humbled by their weakness. But you do not care at all about God's mercy either. No, what you want is - for the want of a better word - "policy change". Or to be historically more precise, you insist that God take back the policy change introduced by Christ, who explicitly rejected the regulations provided by Moses. And it is just those regulations of Moses in a modern form that you want.
So let's cut through all this blather about "care" and "mercy". You don't want those, you want "license", you want "policy change", you want the rules to go back to the good old Jewish ones (updated to make it equally easy for women to dismiss men, of course, modernity is scrupulously equitable in its sins). You think it is quite OK to end a marriage if by the human reckoning of the partners it has outlived its usefulness. And God and the Church are to say Amen to that, for it is really none of their business how people deal with their intimate relationships. That's the actual state of play, the rest is just a desperate attempt to claim the moral high ground.
As for who is hard of heart here, Jesus states that quite explicitly in scripture.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Well, one hates to bring God into a matter like sex, but Jesus did say "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."(Mark 10:9) Are we serious when we invoke God to witness our marriages, or is all that religious stuff merely an ornament to be set upon whatever relationship we feel like committing to at the moment?
Of course this "trapping people in miserable marriages" business is all a straw-man, since what is at issue is not escaping dangerous or miserable situations, but remarrying.
The question is, if we invoke God at our marriage but one party blatantly rejects that invocation and disgraces the marriage through their behaviour - why would you think that God is still at the center of that union, if he ever was at all?
If I commit sins and claim they are in God's name, it doesn't make it so. In the same way someone who breaks marital vows and introduces deceit and sexual immorality into their marriage without any interest in repentance - I do not believe that it remains a marriage recognized by God at that point.
Believe what you like, but is that belief biblical? The biblical faith is what the Christian Church is concerned with.
quote:
Originally posted by L'Organist:
There's a reason why the question of the eternally binding nature of Christian marriage vows (or not) is always going to divide opinion is simple:
The earthly rules in the 21st century are being pronounced (and pronounced on) by a bunch of people who are not allowed to be married, who never have been married, whose only experience of marriage is from the standpoint not only of an outside but a child.
You are of course free to reject teachings of the Bible and the Church and concoct any ethics of sexuality you like. You just can't delude yourself that such a belief is Christian without either the Bible or the Church.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
IngoB wrote:
You think it is quite OK to end a marriage if by the human reckoning of the partners it has outlived its usefulness. And God and the Church are to say Amen to that, for it is really none of their business how people deal with their intimate relationships. That's the actual state of play, the rest is just a desperate attempt to claim the moral high ground.
You are using some odd terms here. For example, that it is 'OK' to end a marriage. Where have I said that? From working with people going through divorce, it is often a bloody nightmare for them, all the pain and grief and guilt. So 'OK' does not really cover it.
Also, 'outlived its usefulness'. Have I said that? I'm not sure how a marriage is useful really, well, I suppose you could argue that it is. Again, my experience is not that couples look at each other and make that argument. It often emerges out of great unhappiness and loneliness and despair and other stuff.
'a desperate attempt to claim the moral high ground' - is it? I don't really get that.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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seekingsister
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# 17707
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Believe what you like, but is that belief biblical? The biblical faith is what the Christian Church is concerned with.
Yes - if you think Jesus speaking in Matthew 19 that sexual immorality is suitable grounds for divorce and remarriage is "biblical" enough for you.
1 Cor 7 - Paul also says divorce is OK if a Christian is abandoned by an unbelieving spouse.
Posts: 1371 | From: London | Registered: May 2013
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Zach82
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# 3208
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Believe what you like, but is that belief biblical? The biblical faith is what the Christian Church is concerned with.
Yes - if you think Jesus speaking in Matthew 19 that sexual immorality is suitable grounds for divorce and remarriage is "biblical" enough for you.
1 Cor 7 - Paul also says divorce is OK if a Christian is abandoned by an unbelieving spouse.
I've consistently argued (along with the Bible) that divorce and remarriage is permissible in certain situations, but better avoided even then.
Those "certain situations," though, are singularly few, and they don't include "irreconcilable differences."
[ 30. October 2013, 16:27: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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seekingsister
Shipmate
# 17707
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
I've consistently argued (along with the Bible) that divorce and remarriage is permissible in certain situations, but better avoided even then.
Those "certain situations," though, are singularly few, and they don't include "irreconcilable differences."
Zach, you are indeed lucky that in your world such circumstances are "singularly few."
Here are some of the divorces in my extended family:
- husband had a child with another woman during the marriage
- husband left wife (with infant child) for wife's best friend (the friend was also married, her husband also divorced her)
- husband had repeated affairs with no discretion, to the point that mistresses would publicly mock the wife (x2, although one has just separated and not yet divorced)
All of the above women were told by Christian relatives and friends that seeking divorce in their situations was wrong. Do you agree?
Posts: 1371 | From: London | Registered: May 2013
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Zach82
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# 3208
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Posted
Just LOVE the consistent assumption that anyone who believes divorce is wrong is just ignorant of how the real world works.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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seekingsister
Shipmate
# 17707
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Just LOVE the consistent assumption that anyone who believes divorce is wrong is just ignorant of how the real world works.
Maybe you can help in clarifying.
Either your definition for justified divorce is narrower than that of Jesus - which is sexual immorality - or you think that marital infidelity is much rarer than it actually is. Which one is it?
The divorce Jesus spoke of was a casting out of the house of a wife, with no money or means of caring for herself - essentially condemning her to a life of poverty, perhaps turning to prostitution to feed herself and her children. He was basically saying that unless your wife is cheating on you, you are obliged to care for her.
Posts: 1371 | From: London | Registered: May 2013
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
You do not care at all whether God cares. Of course God cares for anyone who suffers, and in particular if he or she suffers due to the sins of others. And yes God is also merciful to the weak, in particular if they are genuinely humbled by their weakness. But you do not care at all about God's mercy either. No, what you want is - for the want of a better word - "policy change". Or to be historically more precise, you insist that God take back the policy change introduced by Christ, who explicitly rejected the regulations provided by Moses. And it is just those regulations of Moses in a modern form that you want.
So let's cut through all this blather about "care" and "mercy". You don't want those, you want "license", you want "policy change", you want the rules to go back to the good old Jewish ones (updated to make it equally easy for women to dismiss men, of course, modernity is scrupulously equitable in its sins). You think it is quite OK to end a marriage if by the human reckoning of the partners it has outlived its usefulness. And God and the Church are to say Amen to that, for it is really none of their business how people deal with their intimate relationships. That's the actual state of play, the rest is just a desperate attempt to claim the moral high ground.
As for who is hard of heart here, Jesus states that quite explicitly in scripture.
Jesus states many things, and we debate them because they are not clear. When people suggest they are clear, often they neglect the context.
That said, the "policy change" to which you refer, I think you're talking of the ideology this pope speaks of.
I think it is profoundly incorrect to say marriages "outlive their usefulness". Usefulness has nothing whatever to do with marital breakdown.
They breakdown in extreme sorrow and pain, with grave and severe personal costs. What people really want is love. The Love of Christ to enter into human troubles, and not what you're discussing.
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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art dunce
Shipmate
# 9258
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Posted
This thread has become sadly illustrative of the very illness the Pope was lamenting.
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Ego is not your amigo.
Posts: 1283 | From: in the studio | Registered: Apr 2005
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
I'm still reminded of a dear friend who was divorced by her husband because he'd discovered / decided (not sure which or both) he was homosexual.
As a good catholic she was anti divorce, as a woman she was devastated - I mean, how complete a rejection can you give anyone but decide you prefer someone of your own, i.e. not their, sex?. He divorced her but the church still told her (a) that SHE had sinned by being divorced and (b) she was asked innumerable times if she had "really tried and worked at" her marriage.
15 years later, having finally rebuilt her life and gained some confidence she meets a super chap and wants to marry. She goes to her priest who approaches the canon lawyers - and he comes back with the answer that the powers-that-be "see no grounds" for her to be granted an anulment and so she can't marry in the catholic church.
What would your take be, IngoB and Zach82?
My friend never remarried: her husband did and he and his partner have 2 surrogate children.
So who loses out?
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Penny S
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# 14768
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Posted
Odd that it's usually the woman that has the suffering.
A bit like the Jewish women whose husbands are happy to go off but refuse a religious divorce to their ex-wives.
I am so sorry for your friend, l'organist. (Me, I'd have done a Henry 8, and gone off to another church, but I'm non-conformist to the core.) Surely, if the husband was proved to be homosexual, the marriage could be argued never to have existed.
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Dunno, PennyS, she just drifted away from the rest of us and was last heard of living in the Canary Islands - alone.
Her situation was not as rare as you might think: I know of (not friends but have heard of) at least 2 other women who've had the same experience.
The only link seems to be that in all cases the husband was religious - and of the partnership the MORE religious of the two. Maybe it was something to do with not being able to face being gay because the church was against it?
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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PaulTH*
Shipmate
# 320
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
There is nothing that stops the RCC from adopting the 1917 canon again, for example, at which point annulments would largely cease without any change of doctrine.
There are many of us, including I hope, Pope Francis, who wouldn't want to see the Church return to how it was in 1917, because the rest of the world won't. In 1917, civil divorces were rare by modern standards, and annulments, presumably rarer. Although divorces grew in each decade of the 20th century, it was when people were exposed to the many times divorced Hollywood legends like Carey Grant of Elizabeth Taylor, and 60's culture gave us Bob Dylan saying;
Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex they dare
To push fake morals insult and stare
that divorce began to grow exponentially, and the Church realised that it had a major pastoral problem on its hands. That God is unchaging, if eternal, is a given, but perhaps our perception of Him changes over time. The Catholic Church realised this in the Aggiornimento, and in the Second Vatican Council, in which many of the Church's hardest pronouncements from a feudal age were "modified" to meet the demands of the global era, and where ecumenism was given due consideration for the first time. I personally thank God for that.
The Holy Father said, in his now famous in flight inteview,
quote:
My predecessor in Buenos Aires, Cardinal Quarracino always used to say: “I consider half of today’s marriages to be invalid because people get married without realising it means forever. They do it out of social convenience, etc...” The issue of invalidity needs to be looked into as well.”
This is an off the cuff version of what Archbishop Muller has said in a more considered way. IMO it's no good telling people that they can participate in the life of the Church, go to Mass, or Adoration, get involved, but not receive the sacraments. If confession is unavailable, and people die in mortal sin, those who believe in damnation will say that a remarried divorcee is automatically bound for hell, because he/she can't receive absolution for ANY of their sins. How do you be "pastoral" with people when giving them that message?
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Yours in Christ
Paul
Posts: 6387 | From: White Cliffs Country | Registered: May 2001
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PaulTH*
Shipmate
# 320
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The primary purpose of marriage is procreation. Thus if one understands that by taking the marriage vows one grants each other the rights to the sort of activity - sex - that leads to procreation, then one has understood enough for the marriage to be valid.
This is so for people who get married during the reproductive part of their lives. But what of an old couple, perhaps widowed, perhaps divorced, who get married for companionship? Openness to children certainly isn't an issue. Sex may not be. Although widowed people are perfectly free to marry in Church, they wouldn't, in theory, be contracting a valid Catholic marriage. There has to be more than one understanding of what constitutes a marriage.
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Yours in Christ
Paul
Posts: 6387 | From: White Cliffs Country | Registered: May 2001
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
What would your take be, IngoB and Zach82?
My friend never remarried: her husband did and he and his partner have 2 surrogate children.
So who loses out?
The husband.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
No He didn't. And I'm using His cultural Aramaic technique of hyperbole (you are not, you are simply literally WRONG on at least two counts IngoB). Just as Paul recognized. Paul had no problem faithfully making it up as he went along. Just as we must today with gay marriage.
There is no weird Platonic ideal form marriage 'in heaven' with our feeble contracts as shadows on the wall.
The question is rightly asked and comes down to Kipling's five serving men: who, what, why, where, when.
Jesus. His 1500 year culture (a culture that was more humane in the Bronze age - Exodus 21:7-11 - than you now). The Jews. The Pharisees. Their abuse of divorce. Justice. Truth. Openness. Accountability. Faith. Hope. Charity. Mercy. Grace. Compassion. Forgiveness. Jerusalem. 2000 years ago.
What Jesus forbad in Matthew 5:31 is divorce on demand and remarriage in that context. If He meant His hyperbole, to which you ignore the two obvious exceptions, in which He typically extrapolates from one extreme to another, what right did Paul have to abrogate it? To accommodate being divorced, abandoned, driven out by non-Christian partners and remarrying?
Paul's abrogation is itself abrogated by situations he didn't envisage.
As Brian says in his eponymous Life, work it out. With grace, understanding, wisdom. Not one size fits all ever decreasing, meaningless, arbitrary, unreal legalism AKA ideological Christianity.
[ 30. October 2013, 21:13: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
Yes - if you think Jesus speaking in Matthew 19 that sexual immorality is suitable grounds for divorce and remarriage is "biblical" enough for you.
The interpretation of this as divorce (defined as "separated and free to remarry") being possible on account of "sexual immorality" is untenable both by what Christ said just prior and by the reaction of the apostles just after. You don't get Jesus contradicting Moses in no uncertain terms, accusing all Israelites since then of hardness of heart, just in order to establish the then well known teaching of the school of Shammai on divorce. It is totally incoherent for Jesus to heavy on Moses only to come up with the same teaching as one of the two major schools interpreting Moses. Neither does it make any sense for the apostles to stammer that under these conditions nobody should marry if Jesus has just reiterated the teachings of Shammai by which a large number of Jewish couples were in fact living their marriages. Your interpretation of Matt 19 simply makes no sense by and in itself. It is also of course an isolated difficulty, and the idea that not only the other gospel writers (e.g. Mk 10:11-12) and St Paul (1 Cor 7:10-11), but the entire Church of antiquity including all the Church fathers would forget about this for centuries in the face of both Jewish and Gentile cultures that knew divorce is just plain ridiculous. This difficulty can be removed in several different ways, but not by saying that this allows divorce in the case of adultery. That is an untenable claim. (And incidentally, modern Protestant practice has usually little to do even with this misinterpretation. Divorce is not being limited to cases of adultery.)
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
1 Cor 7 - Paul also says divorce is OK if a Christian is abandoned by an unbelieving spouse.
These regulations of St Paul (Pauline privilege) and their further outworkings ("Petrine privilege") of course remain in full effect in the RCC. After all, St Paul explicitly states that the Lord commands this, and unless one wishes to claim that he is lying this is hence Divine law. As is what St Paul declares as the general rule in the name of the Lord, to which these are specific exceptions: namely that couples should not divorce and remarry, though they can separate (1 Cor 7:10-11).
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Where someone has escaped from a hell of a marriage with a Satan's spawn of a partner they have considered themselves bound to by the church's teaching should they consider themselves similarly bound not to accept the love which came their way afterwards?
Nobody ever gets bound into marriage by someone else, forced marriages or marriages where the partners are unaware of what they are doing are invalid and belong annulled, not divorced. Now, Christian marriage simply is "all in", to use a poker term, by the Lord's command. And sometimes when people go "all in", they lose. And then they have to live with that. By saying that it must not be possible for anybody to ever lose it all, you are de facto insisting that nobody can ever give it their all. But Christ has established just that as the Christian standard for marriage. If you are shocked by that, then you are in the good company of the apostles.
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
The divorce Jesus spoke of was a casting out of the house of a wife, with no money or means of caring for herself - essentially condemning her to a life of poverty, perhaps turning to prostitution to feed herself and her children. He was basically saying that unless your wife is cheating on you, you are obliged to care for her.
In fact, this is the basis for one interpretation of what the exception clause is actually about. To quote myself: Namely, the exception clause applies to the divorce only, and is hence inserted directly after divorce is mentioned, but does not apply to the remarriage, and is hence inserted before that. The meaning is therefore not "whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, except in the case of unchastity." Rather it is an unfortunately compacted form of "whoever divorces his wife commits adultery, except for unchastity, in which case whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery."
But how can a man be said to commit adultery by merely divorcing his wife? Jesus has previously stated the reason: "But I say to you that every one who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery." in Matthew 5:32. And indeed there are apparently variant codices that have "makes her commit adultery" rather than "commits adultery" also in Matthew 19:9. The idea is simply that by sending his wife away, the man leaves her with little choice - in that time and place - but to hook up with another man and thereby become an adulteress. There was no proper place for a single adult woman in that society. The man hence is reckoned responsible and culpable for her future adultery. Only if the woman actually was unchaste already, then the man does not cause her adultery in sending her away. So an even better gloss of Matthew 19:9, in the light of 5:32, would be "whoever divorces his wife is the proximate cause of her adultery, except if she has been unchaste, in which case divorce is licit but not remarriage, for that would be the direct cause of his own adultery."
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
He divorced her but the church still told her (a) that SHE had sinned by being divorced and (b) she was asked innumerable times if she had "really tried and worked at" her marriage.
"The Church" most definitely did not tell her that she had sinned, for there is no basis for that claim in what you have said. Ignorant members of the Church may well have accused her of sinning, and the same or other members of the Church may well have given her a hard time, pretending that this is spiritual encouragement. I'm not in the business of defending random Catholic assholes on a "holier than thou" trip, be they laity, hierarchy, or popes. I'm in the business of defending official Church teaching. And for that matter, only here, which IMHO is an appropriate place for such discussions.
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
15 years later, having finally rebuilt her life and gained some confidence she meets a super chap and wants to marry. She goes to her priest who approaches the canon lawyers - and he comes back with the answer that the powers-that-be "see no grounds" for her to be granted an anulment and so she can't marry in the catholic church. What would your take be, IngoB and Zach82?
I do not have sufficient information to judge the case. If both husband and wife at the time of marriage were baptized, sufficiently aware of the commitments of marriage, and if there were no other impediments - then yes, sure, the marriage remains indissoluble by any human means. The mere fact that the husband has turned to gay adultery does not change that. It may well be though that the later homosexuality of the husband indicates that he never really intended to have a Catholic marriage, i.e., an intimate relationship with a women ordered to procreation. In that case, the marriage would be invalid and could be annulled. If the priest is trustworthy and the consulted canon lawyer competent, and if the full details of the case were presented to them, then their judgement is likely to be accurate though.
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
My friend never remarried: her husband did and he and his partner have 2 surrogate children. So who loses out?
By the standards of the world, or by the standards of God? Perhaps you forget that another belief I hold is the existence of eternal hell as punishment for unrepentant, mortal sinners. Oh, and I also believe in a hierarchy of heaven, where greater merit in this life is repaid by greater eternal reward. Neither is heaven egalitarian, nor is it universal. This woman apparently stayed true to her Catholic faith under circumstances that would have crushed many. Her eternal reward likely will be great. Her husband will have to reform his life, or his eternal punishment is likely to be great.
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
There are many of us, including I hope, Pope Francis, who wouldn't want to see the Church return to how it was in 1917, because the rest of the world won't.
I made a specific point about the canons on marital consent in the 1983 vs. the 1917 code. To turn this into some general recommendation of turning back the clock to 1917 is just plain misrepresentation.
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
This is an off the cuff version of what Archbishop Muller has said in a more considered way.
Indeed, this pope needs to be stripped of all cuffs. But as for the content: in this particular case, I do agree. A good many Catholic marriages now must be considered just as doubtful as the general Catholic understanding of the couple. That's however not an occasion for pumping out even more annulments. It's an occasion for significantly tightening up Catholic marriage preparations, until we can be reasonably sure that every Catholic couple knows exactly what they get into when marrying.
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
If confession is unavailable, and people die in mortal sin, those who believe in damnation will say that a remarried divorcee is automatically bound for hell, because he/she can't receive absolution for ANY of their sins. How do you be "pastoral" with people when giving them that message?
Perfect contrition removes mortal sin even prior to absolution. It is only perfect if it includes a desire for the sacrament of confession, but if this is not available (here for special reasons), then that is not the fault of the penitent. But yes, it would be valuable to think about the possibility of a "partial" confession (one that excludes the remarriage). However, it is far from clear to me that a corresponding "partial" absolution is even possible (and if it is, that it is desirable).
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
This is so for people who get married during the reproductive part of their lives. But what of an old couple, perhaps widowed, perhaps divorced, who get married for companionship? Openness to children certainly isn't an issue. Sex may not be. Although widowed people are perfectly free to marry in Church, they wouldn't, in theory, be contracting a valid Catholic marriage. There has to be more than one understanding of what constitutes a marriage.
Seriously?!? That's the sort of bullshit argument I expect from a Protestant, frankly, not from a Catholic. I have explained so many times on these boards that being ordered to procreation does not mean resulting in procreation or even expected to result in procreation... Please inform yourself about these basics of Catholic doctrine. Suffice to point out that I was precise in what I said: "rights to the sort of activity - sex - that leads to procreation". The highlighted qualifier does the work there.
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Paul had no problem faithfully making it up as he went along.
1) Bullshit. 2) You are not St Paul.
You invoke grace. You have no need for grace. You make Christianity up as you go along with the world. And you are the judge of how well you are doing. There's no grace required as your will is done on earth as in heaven, and consequently I doubt that God is giving you any (at least for talking about scripture and doctrine).
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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