Francis effect: In the last couple of weeks, since the publication of "Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus" I have had five people asking me about the validity of their marriage, it very occasionally happened before. My concern is these are good practising Catholics, and the marriages are perfectly valid. This isn't a large parish and there are far fewer families than in most parishes.Is this the experience of other priests?
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You will often find people are normally quite happy until they're given an alternative path, and then they'll spend a lot of time dwelling on whether to go down it.
This is the same with marriage. If you have to accept your choices, most people will try and make the best of it. If you give them an out, chances are...
Of course, I'm referring to most well adjusted married couples who have the normal problems, not the abusive spouse scenario that liberals fixate on.
This is a surprise?
Don't you think that not only Jesus did not write His teachings nor dictate them to His Apostles, but He let them preach His Gospel in their own way, guided by the Holy Spirit, and yet, after more than 2,000 years of His Incarnation, Death and Resurrection, millions, if not billions of books, encyclicals, letters, etc., were written, creating more confusion than interpreting His simple, down-to-earth, understandable teachings?
Why, us humans, love to make our life miserable?
Jesus is giving us simple Commandments, why complicating them? Why creating confusion?
For example: Marriage between one man and one woman is eternal. Even the Annulment is non-biblical, not Christian.
Do you see that when humans change or not follow the teachings of Christ, how confusion reigns? Once you open the door a little bit (annulment), once you stray just a little bit away from His teachings, you open the floodgate of confusion and eventually of heresy. God knows what He is saying and doing and He knows the consequences of disobeying Him, that's why He warned us about not following His Commandments.
But we always disobey God, we never heed His warnings, we never listen to Him and it's always under the guise of "mercy" or "pastoral care" or "times (society) have changed."
And we always use the Bible against God by making up our own interpretations and putting words in God's mouth to suit our whimsical, social, changed behaviors.
How can you, who call yourself "Christian," create confusion and at the same time claim that your duty is to spread the Gospel? What kind of Gospel? Whose Gospel? The Gospel of Confusion?
Confusion has only one source: Satan.
Greg,
You can insist that it's simple and the rest of the world is acting in bad faith, but its just not. Let's use your own example: "Even the Annulment is non-biblical, not Christian."
Matrimony doesn't happen automatically or accidentally. At the most basic level, it happens when two people who are able to be married (of age, mentally competent, not already married), voluntarily take vows in front of valid witnesses.
An annulment is a formal recognition by the Church that one of those conditions was not met. So if, for example, if your so-called spouse threatened you into taking the vows, or if your spouse lied and already had a wife, or if you were on medication and couldn't consent. That is all annulment means.
Now it obviously get complicated finding out if consent was really given, but that is why there are (perhaps were) many safeguards and a presumption that the vow was valid.
But what would you do? Leave it up to every individual's conscience? Say that the peice of paper is always correct?
Father,
I have noticed that my wife,for several decades,and who has been following the Synod quite carefully,is cheering up no end.
And she's watching more and more of those TV programs about people moving to flats in Spain.
I'm getting quite worried. I means she is a very good cook!
Humans can play around the Commandments of God to justify whatever behavior they do or want to do.
If Christians are honest, are seriously honest, if they TRULY believe in God, in His Son and the Holy Spirit, then their conduct, their behavior, their way of life must be an imitation of Christ and modeled on Christ.
No excuses whatsoever.
But, as I wrote, humans always find excuses to justify their behavior. And sadly, they use the Bible, twisting the Word of God to accommodate their wrongdoing.
When are we going to take our faith seriously, if we have faith to begin with?
If people are not prepared and ready to be followers of Christ, obeying His Commandments and be responsible, assuming the consequences of discipleship, then instead of making up excuses, they should stop pretending to be "Christians" and go away.
You either obey God 100% or not at all. Christianity is either Black or White. You cannot pick and chose.
It is better to be honest with oneself, with others (and with God-if people believe in God).
I heard a priest say recently (in public) that annulment was very 'healing' because there are many marriages 'even with two or three children' which are 'not valid marriages' because 'they are not happy marriages'.
I am still shaking my head in disbelief.
Most children, even at Catholic schools, have schoolmates who are divorced. But very, very few little children have had to confront being told - on the authority of a bishop - that their parents *were never married*.
Annulments are certainly Scriptural. In the Matthean narrative, Christ said that whoever leaves his wife, unless the marriage be unlawful, commits adultery. Annulments are a determination to the effect that the putative marriage is unlawful.
When one man and one woman are married, in the Church, by the Church, that means, they went through all the preparations for that marriage, ordered by, supervised by, and instructed by the Church represented by the parish priest.
That marriage is eternal.
There is no divorce and there is and should never be such thing as "annulment" (the Catholic divorce) in Christianity. The couple, the mature couple made the choice to be ONE flesh and accordingly they are bound by their solemn vows in front of God and His Church.
Whoever says or does the contrary is not a Christian.
It is not difficult to understand.
But, as Jesus repeatedly says in the Gospels. It is because of lack of faith and the hardness of hearts that people don't understand.
And the saga of unbelief, of not understanding the words of Christ and the hardness of hearts continues.
How can one claims to be a Christian when one doesn't follow Christ's teachings?
Christ is not the subject of "pick and chose."
There is no 2, 3, 4 different teachings of Christ.
There is no MY Christ and YOUR Christ.
Christ's teachings are the SAME: Then, now and forever.
This is also happening in my country.
I seriously wonder just how many Catholics there are out there who are divorced and remarried but are desperate to receive communion. I would say very few. On the other hand maintaining the indissolubility of marriage is of supreme importance. Divorce has terrible effects not just on the parties but more drastically on the children. If you give the idea that 'annulments' are easily available after a quiet chat with a priest then you undermine the will of the married to overcome difficult patches. It is rather like the situation of a city overcome with plague where there is one person who has very strong personal reasons to be allowed to leave the city thereby creating the possibility of spreading the plague. However much you may sympathise with the plight of that individual surely the interests of the majority trump this desire to leave. There are no easy answers in dealing with situations created by sin but to give in and say the sin is okay is not the answer.
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