The canonical situation and the exercise of the rights and obligations of the divorced (original) (raw)
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Many factors have contributed to the precipitous decline of Catholics' knowledge of and adherence to the Church's Magisterium on marriage and the family—including powerful forces of liberalism, secularism, hedonistic materialism, and individualism, the failure of the clergy to articulate and defend sexual ethics, the counterwitness of dissenting Catholic politicians and Church leaders, and the continuing effects of deficiencies in religious education and school curricula. A neglected factor, however, may turn out to be the sacred liturgy, which is where Catholics most commonly encounter the Church and her teaching. It is worth asking whether tremendous changes in the form of the liturgy itself, taken together with prevailing customs of celebration, may have contributed to confusion, uncertainty, ignorance, laxity, and heterodoxy in the realm of marriage and family. This essay tests the hypothesis in five areas: the suppression or marginalization of key Scripture texts in the reformed lectionary; the advance of feminism and egalitarianism in liturgical ministries; the serious doctrinal and spiritual deficiencies of much contemporary church music and other sacred arts; the disconnect between the Church's exalted doctrine and the horizontal, anthropocentric ars celebrandi of wedding ceremonies; and the almost total loss of asceticism in connection with the reception of Holy Communion. If the argumentation is cogent, it follows that the Church today must take much more seriously the urgent need for a " reform of the reform " as well as the promotion of the traditional form of the Roman Rite, which is unencumbered with the foregoing difficulties.
Anthropotes, 2017
SUMMARY: The recent proposal to admit divorced and remarried Catholics living in more uxorio to the sacraments of Penance and Communion presents itself as a merciful solution to a very painful situation. But this pastoral course of action would be harmful to the faithful and is not viable since it constitutes a corruption, rather than an organic development, of Church doctrine and praxis. This becomes clear by scrutinizing the proposal in light of Christ's and the Church's teaching on this matter as found in Scripture, the writings of the Fathers, the decrees of the early councils, up through the pontificate of John Paul II. A theological analysis shows that this proposal fails to meet each one of the seven sound criteria developed by John Henry Newman in his essay on the development of doctrine. Pastoral regard for the context and culpabil-ity of the acting moral subject is essential, as highlighted by professor Rocco Buttiglione; yet this must not entail affirming persons in their moral error to their detriment. Rather, such subjective situations require pastors to inform and encourage the faithful about life in Christ in matters of marriage, divorce and remarriage, and the fruitful reception of Penance and Communion, in organic continuity with what the Church has always taught. It has recently been proposed that some divorced and remarried Catho-lics who are not committed to living continently ought to be admitted on a case-by-case basis to the sacraments of Penance and Communion.
Catholic Doctrine on Divorce and Remarriage: A Practical Theological Examination
Theological Studies, 2017
This essay uses practical theology as a method to investigate the disconnect between church teaching on divorce and remarriage without an annulment and the lived experience of the faithful, and argues for a reformulation of the doctrine. First, it presents the interrelationship between sociology and the sensus fidelium as a methodological framework for doing practical theology; second, it explores the sociological data on divorce and remarriage; third, on the basis of historical-theological justification, it argues for the reformulation of church doctrine; finally, it posits that such reformulation is an authentic methodological and normative development of Catholic tradition.
In: Iustitia et iudicium: studi di diritto matrimoniale e processuale canonico in onore di Antoni Stankiewicz. 4 sv., in sum 2434 pp. (continues numbering in all four volumes). Città del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2010. sv. IV,. ISBN 978-88-209-8352-9; pp. 1033–1054, 2010
The author presents in his article the legal situation in a sensitive matter of human life and in ecclesiastical law too, namely the marriage, and focuses especially the legal position of church matrimony in different post-communist countries with emphasis to the concordat agreements with themselves. In the first two sections he describes the historical and juridical facts giving more general survey. In the next sections he analyses particular stipulations of concordat agreements regarding particular issues: civil impacts of canonical marriage, civil impact of the statements of ecclesiastical courts and administrative authorities regarding marriage, providing for the principle of indissolubility of marriage and collaboration in protection of marriage and family. At the end of each section he recapitulates shortly the different stipulations offering a short synthesis of each matter. In the conclusion he tries to offer short synthesis and typology of the described phenomena regarding the differences between countries who established the obligatory civil marriage just in the 19th century, countries with a large variety of religions and churches, countries with a strict Church-State separation, countries with the predominant orthodox churches being in the 20th century situated under the domain of the Soviet influence, countries with a little predomination of protestant churches and countries where the Catholic Church represents the majority of population or where it is at least the greatest religious community. He states that only in the last mentioned type of countries there is usual to conclude concordat agreements including stipulations regarding canonical marriage. Nel suo articolo, l’autore si occupa della situazione giuridica riguardante una materia molto sensitiva della vita umana neanche del diritto ecclesiastico, vale a dire matrimonio, sottolineando specialmente la posizione giuridica del matrimonio canonico nei vari paesi post-comunista con accetto agli accordi concordatari stipulati con essi. Nelle prime due sezioni del suo articolo l’autore descrive fatti storici e giuridici dandoci un prospetto generale. Nelle altre sezioni esse fa una analisi dei particolari prescritti contenuti negli accordi concordatari riguardanti particolari questioni: implicazioni civili della celebrazione del matrimonio canonico e delle sentenze dei tribunali ecclesiastici e dei decreti delle autorità amministrative ecclesiastiche riguardanti validità dissoluzione del matrimonio, considerazione del principio della indissolubilità del matrimonio e ultimamente collaborazione nella protezione del matrimonio e della famiglia. Alla fine di ogni sezione esse fa una breve ricapitulazzione delle differenti stipulazioni concordatari offerendoci una breve sintesi delle singole materie. Nella conclusione esse chiede a offerre una breve sintesi e tipologia dei fenomeni descritti mostrando differenze tra varie tipi dei paesi: paesi che hanno introdotto nozze civili obligatorie già nel ottocento, paesi con una grande varietà delle religioni e chiese nel suo territorio, paesi introdotti una rigorosa separazione fra Chiesa e Stato, paesi con predominanti chiese ortodossi versati sotto dominanza della Unione Sovietica nel novecento, paesi con una legera predominanza delle chiese protestante e ultimamente paesi nei quali la Chiesa Cattolica rappresenta la maggioranza dei cittadini o almeno dove essa è la più grande comunità religiosa. L’autore costata che solo in ultimamente detti paesi si stipulano di solito accordi concordatari contenenti stipulazioni riguardanti il matrimonio canonico.
DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE IN THE CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH'S RESPONSE
Divorce and remarriage is an increasing widespread phenomenon in contemporary society due to the liberalization of divorce and changing gender roles. No one can gainsay this fact because statistics show that the rate of divorce and remarriage is high in many developed countries where human freedom is politicized compared to other conservative countries where religious institutions play a strong role in society. 1 While divorce and remarriage is possible and legal in some societies, remarriage is not possible in some situations as not all authorities allow divorce. While the Catholic Church forbids divorce entirely, Protestantism on the other hand has more relaxed rules for divorce and remarriage. 2 In Judaism, there are several views on divorce and remarriage: Orthodox Jews allows remarriage incase of death of a spouse. Jewish scripture also obliges the brother of the deceased man to marry his wife if his brother does not have children, otherwise he can be exempted from this obligation. They are also permitted to get divorced if the husband gives his wife a divorce document, which is referred to as a 'get'-which states " you are hereby permitted to all men ". In Islam, the Qur'an approves divorce but forbids a divorced couple to remarry each other again until the wife marries another man, consummates the marriage and receives divorce. 3 In summary, this 'trend' poses a lot of question on the fundamental purpose of marriage and family life, and tends to downplay the sacramentality and role of marriage in family life and child formation. In this write-up I shall critically present the Catholic Church's position on this issue-divorce and remarriage, and why such views are upheld in relation to the effects that come from the choice of divorce and remarriage.
The ordinary ministers of the sacrament of marriage
The ordinary ministers of the sacrament of marriage, 2018
We pretend to examine the status quo of the Church’s doctrine on the ministers of marriage, not only presenting diachronically the evolution of the doctrine until the most recent interventions of the Magisterium; but also deconstructing its apparent solidity in the light of the latest progresses of the history of Canon Law and medieval Theology.