NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/bit/listserv/catholic/3768

Text File | 1992-12-30 | 6.6 KB | 134 lines

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From: [e-mail] (Steve Creps)
Subject:  On separated and divorced persons
    _Familiaris consortio_, Pope John Paul II
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Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 16:57:53 GMT
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   As promised, here are the sections concerning divorced and
separated persons from Pope John Paul II's _Familiaris consortio_, "On
the Family."

83. d. Separated or divorced persons who have not remarried.
-----------------------------------------------------------

  Various reasons can unfortunately lead to the often irreparable
breakdown of valid marriages.  These include mutual lack of
understanding and the inability to enter into interpersonal
relationships.  Obviously, separation must be considered as a last
resort, after all other reasonable attempts at reconciliation have
proved vain.

  Loneliness and other difficulties are often the lot of separated
spouses especially when they are the innocent parties.  The
ecclesial community must support such people more than ever.  It
must give them much respect, solidarity, understanding and
practical help, so that they can preserve their fidelity even in
their difficult situation; and it must help them to cultivate the
need to forgive which is inherent in Christian love and to be ready
perhaps to return to their former married life.

  The situation is similar for people who have undergone divorce,
but, being well aware that the valid marriage bond is indissoluble,
refrain from becoming involved in a new union and devote themselves
solely to carrying out their family duties and the responsibilities
of Christian life.  In such cases their example of fidelity and
Christian consistency takes on particular value as a witness before
the world and the church.  Here it is even more necessary for the
church to offer continual love and assistance without there being
an obstacle to admission to the sacraments.


84. e. Divorced persons who have remarried.
-------------------------------------------

  Daily experience unfortunately shows that people who have
obtained a divorce usually intend to enter into a new union,
obviously not with a Catholic religious ceremony.  Since this is an
evil that like the others is affecting more and more Catholics as
well, the problem must be faced with resolution and without delay.
The synod fathers studied it expressly.  The church, which was set
up to lead to salvation all people and especially the baptized,
cannot abandon to their own devices those who have been previously
bound by sacramental marriage and who have attempted a second
marriage.  The church will therefore make untiring efforts to put
at their disposal her means of salvation.

  Pastors must know that for the sake of truth they are obliged to
exercise careful discernment of situations.  There is, in fact, a
difference between those who have sincerely tried to save their
first marriage and have been unjustly abandoned and those who,
through their own grave fault, have destroyed a canonically valid
marriage.

  Finally, there are those who have entered into a second union for
the sake of the children's upbringing and who are sometimes
subjectively certain in conscience that their previous irreparably
destroyed marriage had never been valid.

  Together with the synod, I earnestly call upon pastors and the
whole community of the faithful to help the divorced and with
solicitous care to make sure that they do not consider themselves
as separated from the church, for as baptized persons they can and
indeed must share in her life.  They should be encouraged to listen
to the word of God, to attend the sacrifice of the Mass, to
persevere in prayer, to contribute to works of charity and to the
community effort in favor of justice, to bring up their children in
the Christian faith, to cultivate the spirit and practice of
penance and thus implore, day by day, God's grace.  Let the church
pray for them, encourage them and show herself a merciful mother
and thus sustain them in faith and hope.

  However, the church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon
sacred scripture, of not admitting to eucharistic communion
divorced persons who have remarried.  They are unable to be
admitted thereto from the fact that their state and condition of
life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and
the church which is signified and effected by the eucharist.
Besides this there is another special pastoral reason: If these
people were admitted to the eucharist the faithful would be led
into error and confusion regarding the church's teaching about the
indissolubility of marriage.

  Reconciliation in the sacrament of penance, which would open the
way to the eucharist, can only be granted to those who, repenting
of having broken the sign of the covenant and of fidelity to
Christ, are sincerely ready to undertake a way of life that is no
longer in contradiction to the indissolubility of marriage.

  This means, in practice, that when, for serious reasons such as,
for example, the children's upbringing, a man and a woman cannot
satisfy the obligation to separate, they "take on themselves the
duty to live in complete continence, that is, by abstinence from
the acts proper to married couples" [180].

  Similarly, the respect due to the sacrament of matrimony, to the
couples themselves and their families, and also to the community of
the faithful forbids any pastor for whatever reason or pretext,
even of a pastoral nature, to perform ceremonies of any kind for
divorced people who remarry.  Such ceremonies would give the
impression of the celebration of a new, sacramentally valid
marriage and would thus lead people into error concerning the
indissolubility of a validly contracted marriage.

  By acting in this way the church professes her own fidelity to
Christ and to his truth.  At the same time she shows motherly
concern for these children of hers, especially those who, through
no fault of their own, have been abandoned by their legitimate
partner.

  With firm confidence she believes that those who have rejected
the Lord's command and are still living in this state will be able
to obtain from God the grace of conversion and salvation, provided
that they have persevered in prayer, penance and charity.

-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -
Steve Creps, Indiana University
[e-mail]