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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Pope Francis' Extraordinary Synod Oct 2014
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
So does God withhold His blessing from me? If so how do I experience that? Now and after death? Does Jesus refuse to be present in my memorial of Him? How would I know?
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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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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
With the best will in the world, Martin, sometimes the answer really is: "It's not all about you".
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
So when people and circumstances change and a contract cannot be sustained, where is the 'sin'? Who 'sinned'?
How precisely do you imagine that this contract cannot be sustained? If I promise to have sex with only one other person till the end of (one of our) lives, then of course I can sustain that promise. Not that I might not be severely tempted to break this promise, in particular if the relationship with that person has otherwise ended. But people are not merely instinctive animals, and when people get "into heat", they can override this with conscious effort of will. Exceptions to this are either understood, like for example rape. Yes, the married victim of a rape by a stranger does not stay true to the promise in a formal sense, but nobody can possibly assign any guilt or sin to them (and if people do, then they are breathtakingly un-Christian and frankly disgusting). Or they are remote exceptions proving the rule, like a sex addict. But the fact remains that in the vast majority of cases this promise can be kept by those involved in it. It might be hard, but it is not impossible. And if we break a promise made before God, then that simply is a sin. If it is hard to keep that promise, then one can be understanding about that sin. But such understanding does not magically turn the sin into a good.
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Or when a contract is doomed from the weakness and ignorance of at least one of the parties, how is it still in force?
If one of the parties was indeed so weak or ignorant as not to be able to sustain such a promise, then that precisely is a ground for nullity. The Church does not hold people to promises that are way over their heads, because she does not believe that God does. However, the flip side of this is that it actually must be true. It cannot be a case of "well, I don't like the contract now, so clearly I must have been too weak and ignorant when I made it." That's not how that works. And let's be clear, being an idiot about something, and making terribly bad choices that come back to bite you, is part of what being an adult responsible for one's own life boils down to. Yes, some people will make utterly horrid choices as far as their marriage goes. That does not per se prove that they were in no fit state to make these choices.
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
And what is the difference between a sacramental marriage and a marriage? What does my present and final bogus marriage lack? How does it detract from my partaking of bogus communion? How much more damned could I possibly be?
I assume that you are baptized. If along the way you ended up being married to someone else who is baptized, and they are not dead yet, then in all likelihood you are sacramentally married to them. In which case God will frown on you having sexual relations with anybody else, whether you call them your spouse or not, as God does not like sex apart from marriage. What that means for your state of doom is much harder to guess for human beings, and ultimately only a matter for God to judge.
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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Must I go back to believing that God the Killer forbids divorce except for adultery?
Well, no. God forbids no divorce for just cause, but all remarriage no matter what the cause.
quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:
A 'sacramental' marriage is one which has been blessed by the Catholic church,where at least one of the contracting parties is a Catholic.
Sorry, but that's not correct. All marriages between two baptized parties are sacramental (and usually valid), no matter how they came about. This includes civil marriage. By virtue of the Church exercising her power to bind and loosen, Catholics are the one exception to this rule. Only in the case of Catholics it is true that they must use Catholic rites (or obtain dispensation) in order to validly contract (sacramental) marriage.
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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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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
I'm going through a pretty challenging couple of days (involving strict diet and purging) prior to todays hospital investigation but have had a good sleep and am awake very early. "Fun and games" start again in a couple of hours, but I have a little window of opportunity to respond to this from IngoB.
quote:
I think you are genuinely troubled by the obvious pressure of scripture on this matter.
I took it as a compliment, IngoB, which may be optimistic of me. I thought that at least you must see some kind of conscience and personal integrity there, however whacked out of shape by "Protestant heresies". I am troubled, but perhaps not in the way you think.
In our immediate families (that's Mrs B and myself) there are zero divorces. My wife's parents will celebrate 69 years of marriage later this year, my parents were married 54 years before my father's death, none of our parents' brothers and sisters have divorced, we have been married for 45 years, our siblings are married, so are our children and our siblings children.
That is I guess unusual today, but we got a good inheritance in how to make marriages work and have passed that on, are still passing that on in the work we do in marriage preparation. We believe in marriage for life. We know that all marriages have challenges and working through these is both worthwhile and can strengthen relationships.
We have also seen, close at hand, through counselling, pastoral care and friendships, the experiences of others who have not been so fortunate. That experience has taught us that success in marriage is far from inevitable, that people of good character can be deceived in their partners and by their partners, and that people of good character can discover chronic incompatibilities which prevent them from sustaining their marriages. These experiences give us pause for reflection.
I had a go (on 28 and 29 January) at placing my beliefs in a biblical context. The argument was an outline only, I could have written a lot more. I do not think the biblical evidence is conclusive in its support for the Catholic position, which I appreciate is both biblicly based and subject to authorised development.
By all means have a look at those posts. It may also help if you look at this. One of the authors is a Franciscan, the other is a Doctor of Canon Law. The article is much more developed than my own outline lay attempts, but I found it contained many arguments that I've seen in Protestant scholarship. It also contained a review of the development of the sacramental understanding of marriage and the relationship of that to indissolubility.
I do not think this is a simple matter. There is a strand of Protestantism which will recite "Jesus said it, I believe it, that's it". And, a lot of the time, that's just fine. But what do you do when there is legitimate doubt over what Jesus said, because of textual variation? Or when other sayings of Jesus point to other principles? Or other parts of the Canon point to yet other principles? Or the various traditions, each of which claim the priority of their own tradition, say different things?
I work it out as best I can. I try to be honest in that, not rationalise uncomfortable truths. What you see is what you get with me. Subject, as always to further learning. But I am not troubled by where I am at. I am troubled by where Catholicism is at. I am troubled by where some conservative Protestants are at.
The Orthodox "Economia", however vague it may appear, says something which strikes a chord with me when I read the gospels. There is letter, there is spirit and there is charity. A wise person runs after charity (agape, love) wherever and whenever possible. That is what I try to do here.
I would love for everyone to have found the happiness and fulfillment my wife and I have found in our long marriage. But it is not so. I have learned much from people who have struggled and failed to preserve their marriages. They have carried heavy burdens and faced daunting challenges that my wife and I have not had to face. I think they should have opportunities for redemption. When it comes to re-marriage, I have seen God restore to many of them "the years which the locusts have eaten".
[ 06. February 2014, 03:53: 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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Forthview
Shipmate
# 12376
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Posted
IngoB whilst you are technically correct to say that all marriages between baptised parties or where at least one of the parties is a baptised Christian can be considered a valid sacramental marriage,it is easier for the Church,while recognising these marriages,not to concern itself too much about them.Civil marriages do not usually concern themselves with faithfulness till deathes.They may well be valid marriages even in the eyes of the Catholic church,but can hardly be consider as sacramental since they lack promises made in the sight of God. Some Christians do not see marriage as sacramental.
Posts: 3444 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2007
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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
First, I note that according to you the husband is unlikely to attempt an annulment of his first marriage because he is lapsed. Well, I'm sorry, but that in my opinion really lets the Church off the hook in this case anyhow. Primarily to blame for the woman's hardships in that situation is her husband, as far as I'm concerned. And no, I don't think that it matters for that that he is lapsed. If this is important to his wife, he should just do it. It's not like he has to confess a faith he does not have in order to get an annulment. Actually, it's possibly helpful to the annulment if he is not a faithful Catholic...
Second, I continue to be weirded out by these two assumptions that stand behind this pressure to admit these people to communion: 1. That it is always good to receive communion. No, it bloody well isn't. It is always good to partake in mass, but not to receive communion. To receive communion unworthily is detrimental, certainly to one's spiritual health and possibly to one's physical health. Now, remarriage is an odd business as far as culpability is concerned, since one can well question the impact of habit and desire, etc. So I wouldn't be confident to claim that all remarried are in perpetual mortal sin (which would make it easy to delineate consequences). But by the same uncertainty I wouldn't be confident to claim that they can partake in communion worthily either. The Eucharist is medicine to the sinful, but poison to the unrepentant and spiritually dead, and I for one would suggest that fear of the latter is as important as desire of the former. 2. That every difficulty has to be resolved in this life. Life can hand out crosses that will not be taken away till death. There is no particular reason why the conflict between genuine love to someone and the rules governing marriage should not be on occasion the cause of such a cross. If one says that the Church must step back from her rules so that a cross disappears, then one is basically saying that the Church is making arbitrary rules. It is unjust to impose a cross on someone for no good reason. But the Church is not arbitrary at all, and has very good reasons for her rules. That for some people this becomes a cross is not as such a proof that the rules are wrong. In this world there rarely is any good that does not cause some bad.
I agree with you in relation to who/what is causing the problem. But I don't think anyone wants to figure out who to blame here, just to note that it's a sad situation. And no, of course it isn't the role of the Church to say that black is white because it might make people less sad about something.
The Really Big Issue here is, as you say, the one about our worthiness to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion. Does Henry Scobie (The Heart of the Matter, Greene) go to heaven or not?
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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.
Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006
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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
I don't see how it could be a good thing for her and her civil husband to separate, but at the same time it doesn't make sense to say that the best life she can live is one where she is unreconciled with God and never receives Holy Communion.
If I understand the Catholic position, there is a third option - live with her husband and care for her children with him as a mutually loving and supportive parenting team, and refrain from having sex with him on the grounds that that part of his life is promised to someone else.
Not the most attractive of lifestyle choices, and possibly not one that he would accept even if she chose it, but it is an option, and it's only fair to the RCC side to include it in the analysis.
As usual, an accurate and fair analysis, and I agree
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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.
Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I'm going through a pretty challenging couple of days (involving strict diet and purging) prior to todays hospital investigation but have had a good sleep and am awake very early.
Good luck.
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I took it as a compliment, IngoB, which may be optimistic of me. I thought that at least you must see some kind of conscience and personal integrity there, however whacked out of shape by "Protestant heresies".
I rarely doubt anybody's personal integrity. Most people who are wrong are honestly wrong. Conscience is informed, hence can be misinformed. But I rarely consider how personally culpable someone might be for the state of their conscience. Anyway, my compliment to you was quite simply that you care about scripture, and that I see the caginess of your replies as a sign that you might revise your wrong interpretation of scripture in future. Maybe I'm mistaken and you are just being polite, and doing the "seeing it with the other person's eyes" spiel. That would be regrettable, and entirely wasted on me. When people start talking about how they understand that I come to my position, I start skim reading until there's some actual content from them again.
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
It may also help if you look at this. One of the authors is a Franciscan, the other is a Doctor of Canon Law. The article is much more developed than my own outline lay attempts, but I found it contained many arguments that I've seen in Protestant scholarship.
Once you read things like the following, you know that it's just going to be blatant sophistry, no matter how much 'learning' is brought to bear: "Early Christian writers also insisted on the permanence of marriage, but with many differences and nuances. They most often spoke in moral terms: “forbidden to take another partner,” “partnership may not be sundered,” “sinful to remarry,” “remarriage not permitted,” “commits adultery." The language of “indissolubility” related to marriage is not biblical, nor is it patristic." ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) Anyway, here's a response to this article by Peter F. Ryan, S.J., and Germain Grisez: Indissoluble marriage: A reply to Kenneth Himes and James Coriden. (FWIW, there's ado on the net about the extent to which this response has been peer reviewed. I'm afraid that I find this account by the authors of the response altogether believable. And I say so as someone who has just finally had a paper accepted in a high ranking journal after three years of fighting due to unbridled factionalism among reviewers in electrophysiology... )
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
But what do you do when there is legitimate doubt over what Jesus said, because of textual variation? Or when other sayings of Jesus point to other principles? Or other parts of the Canon point to yet other principles? Or the various traditions, each of which claim the priority of their own tradition, say different things?
None of this is the case. There is one, and only one, difficulty here, and it is the "porneia" clause. Apart from that it would be hard to find any specific doctrine in the New Testament that is taught with greater insistence and clarity. And whatever hay one decides to make of the "porneia" clause, there simply is no way it can justify the majority Protestant position of today. That's just not there in the text. At most one can argue for a narrow permission to separate with the possibility of remarriage if there has been serious sexual wrongdoing. That's all you can possibly squeeze out of scripture, anything more is just blatant eisegesis. But that is not the practice that we see.
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
The Orthodox "Economia", however vague it may appear, says something which strikes a chord with me when I read the gospels. There is letter, there is spirit and there is charity. A wise person runs after charity (agape, love) wherever and whenever possible.
Where is the "letter" for that particular position then? Let's hear that, then we may discern its "spirit". I can think of none. True charity must be guided by prudence, or it becomes sentimentality - and that can be a vice rather than a virtue. And prudence first and foremost considers reality. And please do point out where Christ says that following Him will introduce one to a life of comfort, convenience and pleasure. Where does Christ say that partaking of his sacraments will make things easy? I just totally lack this sense of happy-go-lucky in the things Jesus says His followers must do, which for you apparently sweeps aside the otherwise clear sense of scripture as not Christ-like enough in some meta sense.
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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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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
I shall return, IngoB! Hopefully tomorrow. I am not seeking to change the mind of any Catholic, simply provide some reasons from scripture why Protestants and as I now see Orthodox see things differently.
Clearly I need to do more explaining about my January 28 post. That will take a bit more time than I've got.
Suggest you keep your "blatant sophistry"s or "Dada-ism"s observations up your sleeve. Thanks for your good wishes about the other.
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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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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:
IngoB whilst you are technically correct to say that all marriages between baptised parties or where at least one of the parties is a baptised Christian can be considered a valid sacramental marriage,it is easier for the Church,while recognising these marriages,not to concern itself too much about them.Civil marriages do not usually concern themselves with faithfulness till deathes.They may well be valid marriages even in the eyes of the Catholic church,but can hardly be consider as sacramental since they lack promises made in the sight of God. Some Christians do not see marriage as sacramental.
I certainly agree that the RCC has no business running after individual non-RC Christians to tell them which of their marriages are valid and sacramental. However, she certainly should state in general that marriage is a sacrament, which furthermore is accessible to all the baptised (since husband and wife are the ministers of this sacrament). Furthermore, a marriage between two baptised persons is either sacramental or invalid. There is no "valid but natural" option available for Christians, it is sacramental or nothing. The Lord has raised marriage as such to the level of sacrament for His faithful. There are no special promises needed to make the sacrament happen. Since marriages are to be affirmed as valid unless proven otherwise, it is correct practice to assume that Protestant marriages are sacramental. Of course, if one can show that the Protestant couple did not understand sufficiently what Christian marriage is about, then one has an argument why it should be considered invalid. This may play a big role if one of them wants to remarry a Catholic, which is a case where the RCC has to investigate such prior marriages in detail. Yet other than in this special case, one should happily affirm Protestant marriages as sacramental - and critique Protestant remarriages as adultery.
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
But I don't think anyone wants to figure out who to blame here, just to note that it's a sad situation.
Uhhh, no, what the heck? If your report is accurate, then the husband is primarily to blame for this sad situation and he should stop causing entirely unnecessary pain to his wife. The only possible excuse for him I could see is that there are financial difficulties (and then the parish really should help them then!). As mentioned, this is not a question of his faith, but simply basic respect for the exercise of her faith. And if he is doing this in order to make her lapse, too, then that is just wrong. Not because he could not validly try to do that if he is convinced that the RC faith is false. But because this would be a sneak tactic trying to sour faith for her by making her uncomfortable in the Church. That's no fair engagement. And yes, I would apply all these comments fully to me if I had for example a Muslim or atheist wife. One should not talk faith if one cannot even behave like a decent human being, in particular to one's spouse.
[ 06. February 2014, 15:27: Message edited by: IngoB ]
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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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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
But I don't think anyone wants to figure out who to blame here, just to note that it's a sad situation.
Uhhh, no, what the heck? If your report is accurate, then the husband is primarily to blame for this sad situation and he should stop causing entirely unnecessary pain to his wife. The only possible excuse for him I could see is that there are financial difficulties (and then the parish really should help them then!). As mentioned, this is not a question of his faith, but simply basic respect for the exercise of her faith. And if he is doing this in order to make her lapse, too, then that is just wrong. Not because he could not validly try to do that if he is convinced that the RC faith is false. But because this would be a sneak tactic trying to sour faith for her by making her uncomfortable in the Church. That's no fair engagement. And yes, I would apply all these comments fully to me if I had for example a Muslim or atheist wife. One should not talk faith if one cannot even behave like a decent human being, in particular to one's spouse.
Maybe he's a cross she has to bear.
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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.
Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006
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PaulTH*
Shipmate
# 320
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB
Our of morbid interest, what do you believe happens if one partakes of Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin? Is that good, bad or neutral for one's spiritual and bodily health
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Now, remarriage is an odd business as far as culpability is concerned, since one can well question the impact of habit and desire, etc. So I wouldn't be confident to claim that all remarried are in perpetual mortal sin .
Well you've partly ansrwered your own question. There is a huge difference between the culpability of some remarried when compared to others. But even those who have a high level of culpability, it may diminish over time, when lives are rebuilt and people move on, make new families and get over it. And you seem to be saying that not all remarried divorcees remain forever in a state of mortal sin. So who decides when their sin is no longer mortal and they can come back to the sacraments? As we've discussed on other threads, I have no real belief in eternal damnation, though I can share Pope John Paul II's assertion that hell still exists as a possibility. So the bogeyman of going to eternal hell for remarriage or taking communion when remarried doesn't float my boat. I don't say that a man who leaves his wife and children for another woman should ever have that marriage recognised by the Church without an annulment being granted, nor should he be admitted to communion the following week, but I believe in mercy, healing and redemption over a lifetime.
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
I'm not sure what you mean, unless it is that the Church should let divorced and remarried Catholics confess to this sin and then go on to receive Holy Communion even if still intending to live as husband and wife (with full conjugal relations) with their most recent spouse, so long as they can square that with their own consciences. If this is what you are suggesting it would certainly be a massive change of "principles" for the Church. It would also imply that either you thought the previous marriage had effectually disolved itself, or that it still bound but the consequent adultery was no sin.
Let me say again: The Church will never change the fact that a valid, sacramental marriage, is indissoluble. Nor should it, nor should anyone want it to. But what might change is the definition of what constitutes a valid marriage, and who has the authorityto make that decision. Many leading figures in the Church today, such as the Holy Father's predecessor as Archbishop of Buenos Aires (who claims that up to 50% of Catholic marriages may be invalid) are saying that, in our apostatic age, marriage has been seriously undermined. Even Archbishop Muller was willing to concede that. So it's quite possible that the validity of marriages, and the means of determining that, may change.
With regards to the Internal Forum solution this was quite widely practiced until the CDF under Cardinal Ratzinger banned it in 1994. It wouldn't be a huge leap for Pope Francis to reinstate such practice, without changing any received doctrine. Anyway, people are becoming expectant that the pope's Syned is going to right some of the wrongs that have torn the Church apart.
For those of you who don't want any changes, I don't see your position as having any more integrity than what's being proposed. Marriage may be indissoluble, but that's only unless it's undone by annulment. The way this process is being stretched to match our apostatic age is breathtaking, especially in countries like the US. Unless you're willing to admit that this system is unwell, the only way to go, which has any integrity, is in the pre-Vatican II direction, as IngoB has suggested. Make annulments as difficult as they were in 1917. Excommunicate all remarried divorcees and consign them to eternal damnation. That's the logical outcome of saying that they are in a perpetual state of mortal sin. I would never have joined the pre Vatican II Church, nor would I stick around long if it were ever to move in that direction.
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Yours in Christ
Paul
Posts: 6387 | From: White Cliffs Country | Registered: May 2001
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moonlitdoor
Shipmate
# 11707
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Posted
quote:
originally posted by IngoB
If this is important to his wife, he should just do it. ( this being attempting the annulment of his first marriage )
I'd like to ask a question as I am not sure if I understood this correctly. Do you mean that he ought to do it even if he believes that his first marriage was valid ? That would suggest that it's ok for people to pretend their intentions or understanding of marriage were deficient when actually they were not, which seems a bit surprising to me.
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We've evolved to being strange monkeys, but in the next life he'll help us be something more worthwhile - Gwai
Posts: 2210 | From: london | Registered: Aug 2006
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Organ Builder
Shipmate
# 12478
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Posted
The conversation over the last few days has inspired me to do just a little reading about the Magisterium. Perhaps the least surprising thing is that one can find every position imaginable on the web about what does or does not constitute the Magisterium on websites that always purport to be the view of the One True Scotsman--I mean, the One True Church. Regardless of how flexible or adamant any particular site seems to regard this amorphous Magisterium, they all seem to see the authority of the Magisterium vested in the Pope and/or the bishops. If you happen to go to the Wikipedia article, it's a lot more entertaining to read the conversations about the edit history, though...
Regardless, it is expected that good Catholics will obey it whether they agree with it or not. That might be easier if there was a real agreement as to just what constituted the Magisterium, but it seems to be a lot like the British Constitution--everyone knows there is one in practice, but no one can really point to what is or is not part of it except for the most obvious bits. It does certainly seem that it has in the past been "flexible"--in the manner that bible scholarship has been treated, for instance.
So I'm thinking about the implications of the statements in the quotes below, which struck me as extraordinary when they were made:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Speaking personally and frankly, as someone who believes that the Church's teaching about the indissolubility of marriage is infallible, if that teaching were formally reversed I would cease to be a Catholic altogether. But, as it happens, I believe this eventuality is quite literally impossible - because Christ has promised otherwise.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
If there is some generalised waffle about how spiritually wonderful laissez faire will be for all, then I will indeed grudgingly accept this as another instance of a grand tradition of Church SNAFU. And I end up in hell for my sins, then at least I will have the consolation that there is no room for me in the deepest circles of hell, given that they are overflowing with bishops. But if they change the teaching on marriage itself, if they attack the doctrine to justify their deed, then I will leave the RCC. It would be the Catholic thing to do. It may be the last thing I do as a Christian, but you will never catch me selling out the pearl of great price.
Call me cynical if you wish, but I doubt the Extraordinary Synod will make very many doctrinal (as opposed to administrative) changes--quite possible none at all. My understanding, though, is that if they did it would become part of the Ordinary Magisterium of the church. To suggest that you would leave the church if they do one particular action suggests to me that what you are defending is not the Magisterium--it is your particular idea of the Magisterium. At that point, a certain church door in Wittenberg comes to mind.
It also strikes this outsider as another form of the cafeteria Catholicism you have both deplored for so long on these pages.
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How desperately difficult it is to be honest with oneself. It is much easier to be honest with other people.--E.F. Benson
Posts: 3337 | From: ...somewhere in between 40 and death... | Registered: Mar 2007
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
This contract
Exodus 21:10-11
10 If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights. 11 If he does not provide her with these three things, she is to go free, without any payment of money.
which was operational in Jesus' culture, not repealed prior to His life, or during it or after His death. Not by Heaven. Despite the custom having changed, apparently, to a more monogamous one. Progressive revelation again. By Heaven.
This contract and its Christian deconstruction, reconstruction, re-application in circumstances Jesus never dreamed of (gay marriage for one), amplification, is easily broken. Only a Christian response to the failure to provide for each other: forgiveness, patience, grace, tolerance: love, can sustain it, overcome the constant breaches, the erosion by the vicissitudes of life.
What's adultery got to do with 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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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Oh, and Chesterbelloc, nice rhetoric. What does it mean?
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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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PaulTH*
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# 320
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Organ Builder:
At that point, a certain church door in Wittenberg comes to mind.
Luther or Archbishop Lefebvre. Take your pick! Both Protestants by definition!
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Yours in Christ
Paul
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
It is in fact part of the obligation I enter into when I promise you that I will spend all next Thursday helping you to move house in Birmingham that I will not undertake Barnabas that I will help him to do the same thing on the same in Dundee. I have no business making such a subsequent promise, and if I do my obligation remains to you
The question is not should you double-book yourself in this way. Obviously you shouldn't.
Nor is the question whether, if you find yourself in this position, you should honour the first-made promise or the second.
The question here is rather this - if in your example I phone you to say thanks awfully for the offer but I've changed my mind and no longer want your help (perhaps as the magnitude of the task sinks in I've decided to get professional movers in, whatever) are you then morally obliged to honour your promise to Barnabas ? Or can you weasel out of going to Dundee on the grounds that you realised that the promise you made to him was, although well-meaning, unwise ?
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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Eliab
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# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Yes, you are correct - I do assume that a large fraction of "annulled" marriages in places like the USA in fact were sacramental and hence remain in place. The ensuing adultery is sinful, but the Catholics proceeding in good faith on the Church's false judgement will not be culpable for it (unless they consciously misled the Church in arriving at that judgement, of course).
The Church is not some kind of undifferentiated chunk of infallible operations. I really and honestly have no idea why this would worry you as far as the authority of the Church is concerned.
It's a trust thing.
I'll freely admit that wrong operational decisions at this sort of level do not raise any logical contradiction to the claims of authority that the RCC makes. If I had (for other reasons) been persuaded that the RCC's view of its own authority was true, practical failure like this would not make me question it.
But I'm coming to this as someone unconvinced that the Catholic Church ever has truly infallible authority*, and it simply is harder to accept that if I can see that many of the official declarations of that Church are likely to be wrong. I know that those decisions aren't being made on the level at which infallibility supposedly operates, but all the same, my confidence in the ability of the Church to discern truth, including the truth of when she is and is not infallible, is at least a little undermined.
(*I think the Catholic Church can be certainly right about some propositions, but that's because I think those propositions to be objectively true - the various Protestant churches are largely right about those things as well, without having or claiming any infallible status)
[ 06. February 2014, 21:41: Message edited by: Eliab ]
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Chesterbelloc. YOU I like. Sorry, it has to be said. And yes it IS all about Him and He is all about us. As He showed in His only begotten Son. And He was as ignorant and culturally bound as us, worse - as shown by His racism - as we are His beneficiaries. We HAVE learned from Him. But He took Brian's advice. He worked it out for Himself. As far as it was possible. And showed us - WE, the magisterium - the TRAJECTORY. Not some new legalism carved by His finger in our stone hearts. Truly we ARE doing greater things than He.
And Pope Francis' Extraordinariness is because NO ONE since ... Jesus has tried SO hard, on such a scale, from such a platform of power, to show people what it means to be Christian.
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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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Forthview
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# 12376
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Posted
Moonlit Door - we do not know whether the gentleman in question himself considers his first marriage to be a valid one or indeed whether he considers it to be a valid Catholic marriage or whether,although he may have undergone a form of marriage whether he knew or cared what he was letting himself in for .These are however questions which could be asked.
Paul Th you can't look back to preVatican2 church and say 'I wouldn't have joined it'.50 years ago you yourself might have had a different outlook.
More importantly for the people for whom you (so rightly) feel sympathy,we should not feel that they are consigned to eternal damnation because they cannot receive Communion.Although the Church
may feel that they cannot offer Communion,the Church knows only too well that it is God who will be the final Judge.
Posts: 3444 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2007
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Whoops!
And despite his inevitable, excluding, sacramental conservatism may God bless him and keep him for many years.
[ 06. February 2014, 22:09: 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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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
Many leading figures in the Church today, such as the Holy Father's predecessor as Archbishop of Buenos Aires (who claims that up to 50% of Catholic marriages may be invalid) are saying that, in our apostatic age, marriage has been seriously undermined.
I think this comes close to the heart of the problem.
My starting point on the 'remarriage' issue is that I understand the whole OT law and 'certificate of divorce' thing to be making clear that the one unacceptable thing under the old covenant was for a man* to have things both ways: abandoning his responsibilities to his wife AND at the same time keeping her bound to a marriage that he had essentially repudiated. I think it was always the principle that he ought not to neglect the marriage, and always seek to be a good and loving husband, but because of the hardness human hearts, it was recognised that, shits that we often are, we would sometimes treat our partners badly. Leaving a marriage was never a good thing, but if a man did it, he was under obligation to do it properly, which meant setting his wife free of his claims on her. Neglecting her and simultaneously keeping her bound was (and is) unconscionable.
Therefore, to the extent that Catholic rules allow a person to abandon their spouse without setting them free, those rules permit an injustice. And it is an injustice which is plainly against God's will.
The justification for allowing that possibility of injustice can only be that the risk is freely chosen. I can, without unfairness, decide to subject myself to the possibility of being taken advantage of in a way that would be grossly wrong if it were imposed on me without my consent. If I vow lifelong fidelity, no matter what, even if my spouse abandons me, and I do so knowing what I am choosing to do, and what I risk if the worst happens, then the possibility injustice becomes something that I have accepted, for reasons which I (presumably) think justifies the risk.
But if, in fact, many Catholics, possibly half of Catholics, don't understand that this is what they are promising, and therefore can't meaningfully have intended to promise it, the justification evaporates. The risk of injustice is still there, but the one thing that justifies that risk is gone. It's a serious pastoral problem, and also a serious ethical problem.
I'm also not convinced that more annulments is the answer. The point of marriage is commitment - if half of all putative Catholic marriages actually lack that binding quality, there's something wrong with the institution. One thing that might be considered is to look at the issue of nullity at some point other than after the couple has split up. I'm not saying it never happens, but I've certainly never heard of a Catholic asking for a declaration of nullity for a marriage which was continuing and happy, purely so that a suspected defect at the time the marriage was osensibly contracted could be corrected. And, if annulments are as commonly available as the quoted opinions would seem to imply, that really ought to be happening all the time. As Catholics learn more about what they commited to, and realise that they didn't have the necessary maturity and understanding to vow that at the time, they should want to make sure that they really are sacramentally married.
As it is, it seems that being validly married is only ever a disadvantage to a Catholic. A putative marriage is good for all purposes while it lasts, but if it ends, might well cease to be binding. If I were a Catholic, about to marry, I'd be tempted to line up a pre-nuptial agreement for the express purpose of supporting a petition for annulment should my wife or I ever want to make one. If we didn't split up, it would make no difference to our lives in the Church. If we did, we wouldn't be required to seek annulment, but the option would be there.
Can anything be done to incentivise valid Catholic marriage? To make it an advantage truly to understand and accept the commitment that the RCC thinks that married couples ought to be making? Or, at the very least, ensure that everyone getting married is expressly warned in advance that this is their one shot at having a recognised Catholic marriage, and they cannot expect any second chance, so they should proceed only if they are fully intent that this is what they want? It seems to me that merely making annulments available as a pastoral concession without treating widespread invalidity of Catholic marriage as a moral crisis might be consistent with Catholic doctrine, but would completely undermine the proper function of a church.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
So what exactly are you involved in if you live with someone for 25 years, raise a child, and then have an annulment owing to your partner having kept a lover from before the marriage ceremony ? 25 years of porneia ?
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
IngoB
Firstly, a personal note. I came through yesterday well, though it was a bit of an ordeal. Initial signs are good, but I await the results of a biopsy to confirm that I am OK. They are talking about a further precautionary check in three years time. "O frabjous day, callooh, callay!" Quite enough of that!
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Anyway, my compliment to you was quite simply that you care about scripture, and that I see the caginess of your replies as a sign that you might revise your wrong interpretation of scripture in future.
You were not mistaken about my high view of the authority and inspiration of scripture. Any argument you ever see from me can be assumed to be based on that. One consequence of that is that I do change my mind, modify my understanding, when the word of God becomes sharper than a two edged sword. So be assured that any time your posts illuminate scripture for me in a way that I have not seen, it will affect the way I look at things. quote:
Maybe I'm mistaken and you are just being polite, and doing the "seeing it with the other person's eyes" spiel. That would be regrettable, and entirely wasted on me. When people start talking about how they understand that I come to my position, I start skim reading until there's some actual content from them again.
There is economy in explaining how you believe you see through someone else eyes. If you have seen correctly, it helps you to identify the real areas of disagreement more accurately, also to identify what purpose there may be in further discussion.
On a personal note, I find that you dismiss the views of others with such scorn sometimes. Blatant sophistry may indeed be your opinion, and indeed you may stick to it, about my arguments and those for example in the paper I quoted. They suggest that your mind is made up imperviously, When phrases like that are used in serious discussion, people pack their bags, move out, say "no point".
When I write here, I am not just writing to you in response. Other folks look at my arguments. They may not be so convinced of blatant sophistry as you are.
You are lucky with me. Generally, I skim past anything in your posts which strikes me as scornful bullshit, try to get at the substance, try to address that.
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
It may also help if you look at this. One of the authors is a Franciscan, the other is a Doctor of Canon Law. The article is much more developed than my own outline lay attempts, but I found it contained many arguments that I've seen in Protestant scholarship.
Once you read things like the following, you know that it's just going to be blatant sophistry, no matter how much 'learning' is brought to bear: "Early Christian writers also insisted on the permanence of marriage, but with many differences and nuances. They most often spoke in moral terms: “forbidden to take another partner,” “partnership may not be sundered,” “sinful to remarry,” “remarriage not permitted,” “commits adultery." The language of “indissolubility” related to marriage is not biblical, nor is it patristic." Anyway, here's a response to this article by Peter F. Ryan, S.J., and Germain Grisez: Indissoluble marriage: A reply to Kenneth Himes and James Coriden. (FWIW, there's ado on the net about the extent to which this response has been peer reviewed. I'm afraid that I find this account by the authors of the response altogether believable. And I say so as someone who has just finally had a paper accepted in a high ranking journal after three years of fighting due to unbridled factionalism among reviewers in electrophysiology... )
That strikes me as rhetorical overkill. In the context of this discussion, I'm quite happy to look at the paper even though it has not been peer reviewed.
I'm not yet competent to review the close arguments over the developments of Catholic doctrine over this matter. I may do more work on that. I have however looked at the arguments over the key scriptures and they make some good points. But, absent peer review, I do not think the original authors are obliged to put up any further response. They may have, I just haven't seen it. So far as blatant bullshit is concerned you are just asserting a blanket opinion based on one paragraph you find in a long article. Your experience may have taught you this is wise from your POV. So your scorn is noted for the future and for the present.
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
But what do you do when there is legitimate doubt over what Jesus said, because of textual variation? Or when other sayings of Jesus point to other principles? Or other parts of the Canon point to yet other principles? Or the various traditions, each of which claim the priority of their own tradition, say different things?
None of this is the case. There is one, and only one, difficulty here, and it is the "porneia" clause. Apart from that it would be hard to find any specific doctrine in the New Testament that is taught with greater insistence and clarity. And whatever hay one decides to make of the "porneia" clause, there simply is no way it can justify the majority Protestant position of today. That's just not there in the text. At most one can argue for a narrow permission to separate with the possibility of remarriage if there has been serious sexual wrongdoing. That's all you can possibly squeeze out of scripture, anything more is just blatant eisegesis. But that is not the practice that we see.
I do not think that you see your rhetorical overkill. I have a good idea what your position is. The fact is that the texts in Matthew, Mark, Luke and Paul do not say the same things. The Catholic doctrine represents a harmonisation of and a development of these scriptures in a wider context. It is not just based on Matthew 19.
What I believe you argue is that harmonisation over marriage doctrine from scripture must be based primarily on what is said in the scriptures which refer to marriage. Indeed, if you do that, there seems precious little doubt from the record that Jesus said "What God has joined, let no man divide". The problem lies in the later emphases and is not resolved purely by harmonising of what might appear to be common ground. The texts show that each author has a different recall, a different interpretation of the emphases of Jesus at this point.
The exception in Matthew looks like an interpolation. "Except for immorality (porneia)" in v8 actually contradicts the plain "let no man divide" of v6. Also, it isn't there in Mark. So did Jesus even allow an exception?
Mark 10 has no exception, but it has something else very puzzling; a woman divorcing a man. Under Mosaic law, a woman could be divorced by a man and then had certain rights, but there is no evidence that she could initiate divorce. So how good is Mark's recall at this point? Given that in Protestant scholarship Mark and the prior oral histories are seen as the earliest sources, this produces a real issue. We believe that Matthew had Mark as one of his sources when producing his gospel, so we see Matthew interpreting Mark, who seems to have been confused over women having the right to divorce! I know that for Catholics, Matthew has a particular place in Tradition, but the arguments from scholarship for Mark first (if not best!) are very impressive.
So in both cases, the emphases after "let no man divide" look to be authors' interpretations.
And to go further, Luke 16:18, which again applies to men only, is very oddly placed in the context, since it appears to contradict verse 17. The last jot and tittle of the law allowed divorce and remarriage. Verse 18 says remarriage breaks a commandment!
So there is genuine exegetical difficulty in taking the expansions of "let no man divide" too far, simply because of the genuine problems with the texts which do that. How far you can go with the exception and remarriage is not clear from an honest look at the gospels.
You may not agree with my caution, but there are reasons for it which I find by exegesis.
However, those scriptures are not hermetically sealed from the rest of scripture, they sit in wider contexts, of which two must in my view be taken into account in weighing scripture against scripture to get at its application. These are.
1. Jesus' general teaching about the values of kingdom of God, both in proclamations and discussions.
2. The extent to which the recorded words are influenced by the knowledge and beliefs about the parousia in the minds of Jesus in his earthly life, the gospel writers and Paul.
I touched on both those points in my post of 28 January. Himes and Coriden go further and there is some consideration of both in the response you linked. There is a great deal more to be found in many other scholastic works. ["Jesus Remembered", by James Dunn is a book I have found particularly helpful in this context.] Given in particular my reservations about the gospel texts, it seems a good idea to search wider, to see what sense we can find in Paul in 1 Cor 7 and Eph 5, to see kingdom values in the context of the gospels, the effect of second coming expectations on the the issues and priorities of personal relationships.
If, however, you think there is nothing to be gained in considering these wider issues in discussion of the biblical material and how it is to be applied today, then I am happy to drop it in any response to you. It is emphatically not eisegesis to consider any texts in their wider context, at least not in terms of Protestant scholarship. You may not like it but that is way things are in my neck of the woods.
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
The Orthodox "Economia", however vague it may appear, says something which strikes a chord with me when I read the gospels. There is letter, there is spirit and there is charity. A wise person runs after charity (agape, love) wherever and whenever possible.
Where is the "letter" for that particular position then? Let's hear that, then we may discern its "spirit". I can think of none. True charity must be guided by prudence, or it becomes sentimentality - and that can be a vice rather than a virtue. And prudence first and foremost considers reality. And please do point out where Christ says that following Him will introduce one to a life of comfort, convenience and pleasure. Where does Christ say that partaking of his sacraments will make things easy? I just totally lack this sense of happy-go-lucky in the things Jesus says His followers must do, which for you apparently sweeps aside the otherwise clear sense of scripture as not Christ-like enough in some meta sense.
See, you have done it again. The pejorative use of phrases like "happy go lucky" and "sweeps aside the otherwise clear sense of scripture" and "comfort and convenience" begs all the questions that might arise. They say to me "don't waste my time". "Economia" strikes a chord with me precisely because I have considered marriage in the wider contexts I referred to above. But if you don't want to discuss those, then we'll agree to disagree.
For the record, I am not "happy go lucky" in my treatment of scripture, nor about anything we find from Jesus therein. And I am anything but happy-go-lucky about the pretty parlous state of marriage in the Western World, and the often ignorant and careless way folks enter into it. Whether or not they belong to faith communities.
Nor do I think Jesus calls us to a life of pleasure comfort and convenience. When Jesus calls a man or a woman, he bids them come and die. Certainly to self, sometimes even to the cost of our own lives. It is a high calling. Please do not say that Catholics have a corner on that. I have known two Protestants very well who have died on overseas mission, one murdered, one by tropical disease (leaving a husband and three small children). I think you damage your own arguments that way.
[ 07. February 2014, 15:09: 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?
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Enoch
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# 14322
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Posted
I posted earlier on this thread, and what I said then, still represents my considered, and as yet, unchanged, view on this. Barnabas62, glad to hear the op seems to have gone as OK as one can say at the moment.
Meanwhile, though, some questions for IngoB and other RCC apologists.
1. Where does the doctrine that there are some marriages that are sacramental, and others that are not, come from?
2. Does that mean that to the RCC a non-sacramental marriage, say, between two agnostics before a Registrar, is no more than legalised coupling?
As far as I am aware, that isn't CofE teaching, which as far as I know regards all marriages as equally binding.
3. If I've got this right, under RCC doctrine, the crucial question that determines the status of a marriage is what happens at the moment it is entered into. What happens thereafter is largely irrelevant. Either the indissoluble sacramental bubble was created or it was not. From this thread, it is clear that there is a widespread belief among the RCC clergy that a large number even of RCC marriages (up to 50%) lack the correct intention. Isn't it then the duty of the clergy to interrogate married couples about how well they understood what they were doing then, perhaps 40 years ago, and if not satisfied with the answers, to insist they separate?
4. If that is not the case, why not?
5. In the piece by IngoB that linked to the form couples sign when they go to RC marriage preparation, one of the questions was about whether the couple were going to enter into any sort of pre-nuptual agreement. If that invalidates a catholic marriage, as demonstrating the wrong intention, doesn't that invalidate virtually all marriages on the continent of Europe, where it is normal practice for the couple to declare what marital regime they are going to adopt for their property and earnings?
6. Has this form always been used? If so, wouldn't that also mean that the marriages of landed recusants would have been invalid since they normally involved property settlements?
7. Does the doctrine that marriage is indissoluble derive from Jesus's words, ie an incident of marriage, but we'll conveniently leave out asking what porneia means? But if so, why does that apply to some marriages and not all? Or does it derive from the marriage being sacramental? If the latter, why does its being sacramental make it indissoluble?
[I'm harking back here to the point in one of my previous posts that to me, dogmatic indissolubility reduces the dreadful heinousness of adultery.]
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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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Erroneous Monk
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# 10858
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
Can anything be done to incentivise valid Catholic marriage? To make it an advantage truly to understand and accept the commitment that the RCC thinks that married couples ought to be making? Or, at the very least, ensure that everyone getting married is expressly warned in advance that this is their one shot at having a recognised Catholic marriage, and they cannot expect any second chance, so they should proceed only if they are fully intent that this is what they want?
On the days I feel optimistic about my marriage, its "absoluteness" seems wonderful. Like Mount Everest, it is simply *there* and it always will be until one of us dies.
ON the days I feel less cheerful about it, its absoluteness is still awesome. After all, all of my weakness and selfishness and sin can't bring Mount Everest down, can it?
In some ways, it is a bond which is liberating.
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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.
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moonlitdoor
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# 11707
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Posted
That last post of Erroneous Monk makes me think there would be a significant downside if it was made much easier to get an annulment. People who draw strength from the permanence of their marriage bond, as she describes, must find it very upsetting to be told by the church that they were never married at all, if their spouse seeks an annulment.
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We've evolved to being strange monkeys, but in the next life he'll help us be something more worthwhile - Gwai
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Sufficient abuse can erode it to nothing, to null and worse, to an aching void in a final instant.
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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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Forthview
Shipmate
# 12376
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Posted
If there is an annulment it doesn't cancel out the years already spent in a marriage which has been declared as not a sacramental marriage.The years which have been spent together, the things which have happened,both good and bad,need not be forgotten,the children who may have come along need not be denied.
All that has happened is that for Catholics the Church has declared that the marriage though legal
is not seen as a sacramental marriage and the couple can start again,if they wish.
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
So I as a non-Roman and therefore never having been in a sacramental marriage, just mere marriage, can do that any time I like?
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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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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:
If there is an annulment it doesn't cancel out the years already spent in a marriage which has been declared as not a sacramental marriage.The years which have been spent together, the things which have happened,both good and bad,need not be forgotten,the children who may have come along need not be denied.
All that has happened is that for Catholics the Church has declared that the marriage though legal
is not seen as a sacramental marriage and the couple can start again,if they wish.
If it is not a sacremental marriage how is it not sex outside marriage ?
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Forthview
Shipmate
# 12376
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Posted
You can only commit a sin ( according to Catholic teaching)if you are aware of what you are doing,
if you know something is wrong and yet deliberately choose to do try t to car.If someone believed that they were married,even if they weren't married,then they would be right to behave as if they were married.
Martin - you don't seem to worry that you are not a member of the visible outward form of the Catholic church, so why should you worry about
whether you have not or you have not had a Catholic marriage ? Of course maybe you are or were a Catholic ? If you don't feel inferior about not being a Catholic,don't feel inferior about not having a Catholic marriage.
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Forthview
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# 12376
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Posted
Sorry my cursor keeps jumping.My second line of previous post should be
'Only of you know that what you are doing is wrong and that nevertheless you choose to do it,then it is a sin.If you think you are married then you are right to behave as if you were married.'
Civil law often does not punish those who do not know what they are doing -children who have not reached the age of criminal responsibility or adults who cannot understand.
The Church has to try to think less about the minutiae of sexual behaviour.To my mind there are many more serious sins that sexual'peccadillos'
At the same time marriage is amongst many other things a noble vocation.The Catholic church teaches that Christ raised that noble vocation to the level of a sacrament,but marriages contracted outwith the Catholic church should be valued and fostered.
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Eliab
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# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
So I as a non-Roman and therefore never having been in a sacramental marriage, just mere marriage, can do that any time I like?
I think the Catholic position is that as far as humanity in general is concerned, promises, including those made in marriage, are morally binding, but God allows humans to make provision for the ending of failed marriages.
However it is understood that Jesus called his followers back to the intended standard of marriage being forever, and thereby made it a sacrament. It is a sacrament for everyone who is able to receive the sacrament, and the way you become able to receive the sacrament, the way you become part of the sacramental economy, is to get baptised. So if you were validly married after being baptised, your marriage is sacramental automatically because Jesus said so. And the accommodation that God allowed before Jesus spoke doesn't apply to you. You cannot be released from marriage so as to marry again by anything save death. It's nothing to do with being a Catholic or marrying in a Catholic church.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Planeta Plicata
Shipmate
# 17543
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
So I as a non-Roman and therefore never having been in a sacramental marriage, just mere marriage, can do that any time I like?
If you and your spouse are both baptized, then your marriage is a sacramental one despite your not being a Catholic. See canon 1055 § 2. That said, even if it were a natural marriage, it would carry the same obligations as a sacramental marriage, including the prohibition against adultery. The main difference is that a natural marriage is potentially dissoluble through the Petrine or Pauline privileges.
Posts: 53 | Registered: Feb 2013
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:
Sorry my cursor keeps jumping.My second line of previous post should be
'Only of you know that what you are doing is wrong and that nevertheless you choose to do it,then it is a sin.If you think you are married then you are right to behave as if you were married.'
I don't think that follows if the Christian rule is "don't have sex with anyone unless you have made this sort of irrevocable commitment". If I know that I haven't made the required commitment I'm sinning even if I think that the commitment I have made is enough for me to count as 'married'. Presumably the Catholic Church considers the necessary commitment is an objectively good thing, part of God's direct command, not merely a technical requirement that might be overlooked by accident.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
Sorry to be reading more than posting at the moment, but just chiming in to add my voice to what Planeta Plicata and Eliab have been saying.
[Forthview, since you mentioned your cursor problems, can I ask you a wee technical favour? Would you kindly consider - if your cursor permits - putting spaces between your punctuation marks and the following word? It would make your posts SO much easier for me and, I imagine, others. Petty, I know, but all the same...]
[ 07. February 2014, 22:18: Message edited by: Chesterbelloc ]
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Our baptisms are bogus. Everything we think, do and say that we proclaim Christian is an illusion, a delusion, a lie.
Because God is placist.
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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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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Our baptisms are bogus. Everything we think, do and say that we proclaim Christian is an illusion, a delusion, a lie.
According to whom, precisely? Not the RCC, as I'm sure you must know.
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Sorry to be reading more than posting at the moment, but just chiming in to add my voice to what Planeta Plicata and Eliab have been saying.
Another add.
It reminds me of an argument I had with one of the Open Brethren after I heard him deliver a sermon. He proclaimed that the first act of sexual intercourse created an unbreakable marriage bond with whoever it occurred. Apparently that argument was used a fair bit in some circles; clearly designed to discourage the curious young from experimentation.
Started off by asking him "do you have a sacramental understanding of marriage?". Conversation went downhill after that.
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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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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
For those who are following the biblical part of the discussion, you may be interested in this comment re Mark's gospel (Mark 10 parallels Matthew 19).
It comes from James Dunn's "Jesus Remembered" (p578, Note 153). The book is available to read on line, but it is long and not easy to move from index references to texts. Here is the comment.
quote:
Mark 10:12 looks like an elaboration of the tradition (by which he means the earliest recollections of the apostles of conversations with Jesus), envisaging as it does the possibility of a woman initiating divorce, something not permitted in the Judaism of Jesus' day (Josephus Ant 15.259 plus other references).
It should also be noted that in a society where only the husband could initiate divorce and where the erwa of Deuteronomy 24.1 could be interpreted liberally (even if she spoiled a dish for him) an absolute prohibition of divorce was a way of protecting the wife
[ 08. February 2014, 09:04: 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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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
Well, as marriage ceremonies are a late development - presumably in 100 ad he'd have been right .?
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
DT, that clearly refers to the post above my latest.
That's what he argued, IIRC. Consummation need not follow ceremony, nor did there need to be one. The argument was about whether a casual sexual encounter without any human promises of commitment could produce something unbreakable.
The fact that the speaker had a number of unmarried daughters might also have had something to say.
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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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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Organ Builder:
Call me cynical if you wish, but I doubt the Extraordinary Synod will make very many doctrinal (as opposed to administrative) changes--quite possible none at all.
I don't think one has to approach the extremes of cynicism in order to suspect that.
Seems to me that no-one wants anything that will undermine the sense among practicing Christians that marriage is definitely for life. No change in the ideal, or in the extent that practicing Christians are encouraged to pursue it.
But also we are called to be merciful to those whose marital relationship has been eroded to nothing (possibly despite their best efforts, possibly through their spouse effectively abandoning the Christian faith).
The Church is entirely free to change its guidelines on who should be refused communion, and the burdens that are placed on those wanting to return to the practice of their baptismal faith after a period of non-practice.
Standing by one's second (civil) marriage, however wrong it may have been to undertake it in the first place, may not be what the Church advises, but it seems pretty obvious that in these times this isn't the sort of sin that scandalizes the faithful, and shouldn't fall under the sort of misconduct which the Church should try to deal with by shaming the offender by refusal of communion at Mass.
Similarly, when the lapsed wish to return to full and active membership of the Church community, stipulating that they must abandon their second marriage in order to do so doesn't seem like the welcome offered to the prodigal son.
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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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
DT, that clearly refers to the post above my latest.
That's what he argued, IIRC. Consummation need not follow ceremony, nor did there need to be one. The argument was about whether a casual sexual encounter without any human promises of commitment could produce something unbreakable.
The fact that the speaker had a number of unmarried daughters might also have had something to say.
In the first millennium a woman who was known to have had sex was effectively unmarriagable, a spoiled chattel. It was why marriage by rape was a meaningful concept.
So effectively, this was the female reality. It was also why betrothal and breach of promise provisions existed in common law.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
That too, DT. It helps to understand the context of these things, particularly for women. Women as property, chattels, spoiled goods? These are demeaning understandings. Both of the women and the men who held them.
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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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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
They are, but they were also the social context in which Jesus' teaching were first given and understood.
Now either the text of the bible is not the whole of the revealed truth and things have changed overtime - in which case you can make a strong case for remarriage on the basis of effectively pastoral principles - or it is and marriage ceremonies in church are a gilding of the lily and cohabitation is a sacramental marriage. You could read Jesus instruction as saying, if your daughter has sex with someone she loves and you wanted her to marry someone else, you must accept her choice as she is now married. And you, young man who has had sex with her, should not be saying - oh but it is not really a marriage so I can marry this rich heiress my uncle has lined up for me.
But oddly, that is not the line tradition took.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Forthview
Shipmate
# 12376
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Posted
The Catholic church teaches that a properly constituted marriage ( by its understanding of a properly constituted marriage ) is indissoluble.
The Ten Commandments given to us by Moses say : Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Experience possibly leads us to see that the best place for human sexual activity is within a properly constituted loving relationship which gives at least theoretically the best possibility of propagating and nurturing the human species.
The Catholic church is right to promote and foster indissoluble marriage as an ideal.
The Catholic church is a community of imperfect people,brought towards perfection by the saving power of Jesus Christ.
I come from a time when the Church had perhaps an unhealthy view of human sexual activity outside of and also within marriage.I welcome the fact that within the Church there is not the same scrutiny of sexual activity which there was in my youth.
Whatever 'fornication' , whatever 'adultery' mean , I do not think that it is helpful to speculate as to whether those whose marriages are
annulled have been fornicating or sinning during the time when they may have thought that they were married.
Posts: 3444 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2007
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:
... Experience possibly leads us to see that the best place for human sexual activity is within a properly constituted loving relationship which gives at least theoretically the best possibility of propagating and nurturing the human species.
The Catholic church is right to promote and foster indissoluble marriage as an ideal. ...
I would hope we all agree with this, but without the words 'possibly' and 'at least theoretically'.
But where does the notion come from that the one thing that matters is the state of affairs at the moment of marriage, and everything after that is irrelevant? If you're not an RC, and not obliged to believe what the church teaches just because that's what it teaches, that doesn't automatically follow.
I'm going to be offline for the rest of today, but could someone please answer my seven questions.
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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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