Pope Francis blessed King and Queen’s anniversary despite their divorces

Pope Francis gave the King and Queen a blessing for their 20th wedding anniversary, it has emerged.

The King and Queen, who had a private audience with the late pontiff in April, were offered his blessing behind closed doors.

Their marriage would not be recognised in the eyes of the Catholic Church. Both have been divorced, with Andrew Parker Bowles, the Queen’s ex-husband, still living.

But Pope Francis gave a blessing during a 20-minute meeting during their state visit to Rome, it has been claimed.

The late Pope and the King are also said to have prayed together, thought to be the first time the Supreme Governor of the Church of England and the Bishop of Rome have done so.

Read the rest here.

Indian Parliament Outlaws Triple Talaq

India's Parliament yesterday gave final passage to The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2019 (full text) (bill summary). The bill now goes to the President for his assent. The new law outlaws "triple talaq", the procedure under which a Muslim husband divorces his wife by uttering the word "talaq" three times to her.  The law makes talaq (including in written and electronic form) illegal and provides for a fine and up to three years in prison for anyone declaring talaq. It also allows award of child custody and subsistence to a wife against whom talaq has been invoked. The bill replaces a presidential Ordinance issued earlier this year.  In 2017, India's Supreme Court held that triple talaq is invalid and ordered the government to consider appropriate legislation on the mater. Rediff and Reuters report on the bill.

From Religion Clause

Catholic Bishops of Kazakhstan Implicitly Rebuke Pope Francis

His name may not have been mentioned but there can be no doubt who this was directed towards.

A Liberal Catholic's Complaint on Amoris Laetitia

His thesis on the synod of the family is perfect in every way - except the vital topic of communion for divorced and remmarieds.

Still they argue, argue, argue. Yes he did; no he didn't. He can; he can't. What exactly did Pope Francis intend to convey by chapter eight of his apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia? Conservatives say Pope Francis cannot have meant that "divorced and remarried Catholics could be admitted to Holy Communion in certain circumstances", as many have interpreted the document, because that would be plain contrary to long-standing Catholic practice sanctioned by the magisterium.

But that would have meant that he too is a conservative, and we know he is a liberal. We are free to interpret his words in the light of that. But why the uncertainty? Why couldn't he have spelt it out with a simple statement such as the one above? Was he under pressure, for instance facing threats of resignation from senior cardinals in the Vatican, so he had to create a smoke screen so everyone could claim a victory? How does that help the rest of us, or at least those of us who aren't conservative curial cardinals? He has created confusion precisely where there needs to be clarity.

Read the rest here.
HT: Dr. Tighe

Pope invites divorced, remarried Catholics to Vatican audience

ROME — As the countdown builds toward a major document in which Pope Francis is expected to address the controversial issue of Communion for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, the pontiff has invited a group of divorced and remarried believers to a private audience.

While the outreach certainly confirms Francis’ interest in better pastoral care for divorced Catholics who have remarried outside the Church, it doesn’t quite tip his hand in terms of which way he may be leaning on the Communion debate.

Francis invited a diocesan group in Italy that started a program to reach out to those who are in what the Church calls “irregular unions.” A date has not been set.

Read the rest here.

Forbidden To Call It Divorce. But It Sure Looks Like It

ROME, September 15, 2015 - As the days go by it becomes ever clearer how revolutionary is the scope of the two motu prorio published by Pope Francis on September 8 - the second for the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches - on the reform of procedures for marital nullity cases:

> Lettera apostolica "Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus"

> Lettera apostolica "Mitis et Misericors Iesus"

It is the pope himself, in the opening of the document, who presents the reason for the reform:

“The enormous number of faithful who, despite wanting to look after their conscience, too often are turned aside by the juridical structures of the Church.”

In the official presentation of the motu proprio the president of the commission that elaborated the reform, Monsignor Pio Vito Pinto, dean of the Roman Rota, turned the reason into an objective:

“To move from the restricted number of a few thousand findings of nullity to the enormous number of unfortunates who could have a declaration of nullity but are left out by the existing system.”

Francis has been absolutely convinced for some time that at least half of the marriages celebrated in church all over the world are invalid. He said so in the press conference on July 28, 2013 on the return flight from Rio de Janeiro. He said it again to Cardinal Walter Kasper, as Kasper in turn said in an interview with “Commonweal” of May 7, 2014.

Read the rest here.

Pope Francis to issue guidelines easing annulment process

Pope Francis on Tuesday will release new streamlined procedures for annulling marriages after he — and thousands of Catholics before him — complained that the church's current system is cumbersome, costly and often unfair.

Francis will release the new rules after a Vatican-appointed commission of canon lawyers spent the past year studying ways to simplify the process while safeguarding the principle of the indissolubility of marriage, the Vatican said.

Catholic doctrine holds that a church marriage is forever. An annulment is a judgment by a church tribunal that the marriage had some inherent defect from the start. Reasons vary, including that the couple never intended their marriage to last or that one of the spouses didn't want children.

Catholics have long complained that it can take years to get an annulment, if they can get one at all. Costs can reach into the hundreds or thousands of dollars for legal and tribunal fees.

Without the annulment, divorced Catholics who remarry outside the church are considered to be adulterers living in sin and are forbidden from receiving Communion — a dilemma at the core of a current debate roiling the church.

Francis has already called for annulments to be free, saying all Catholics have the right to justice from the church. He has also said the church should take into account that ignorance of the faith can be a reason to declare a marriage invalid.

Francis has previously quoted his predecessor as Buenos Aires archbishop as saying half of the marriages that are celebrated are essentially invalid because people enter into them not realizing that matrimony is a life-long commitment.

Some of the proposals for streamlining the process have included removing the mandatory appeal for each annulment granted. A key member of the study commission, Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, has said he favors letting individual bishops make the decision rather than a full-fledged, three-member tribunal.

Many dioceses in the developing world don't have annulment tribunals. The United States has so many that it often accounts for half of all the world's annulments each year.

Source.

Maltese bishop: remove ‘barriers’ to those who have remarried outside the Church

Four years after the legalization of divorce in Malta, the head of one of the nation’s two dioceses has issued a pastoral letter on mercy for those who have divorced and entered into a civil marriage outside the Church. 

“It is no secret that there is expectancy about the conclusions of the Synod regarding the pastoral situation of those who are divorced and are in a second relationship,” Bishop Mario Grech of Gozo said in his August 15 letter. “Those who propose that certain barriers between those who are in an ‘irregular relationship’ but who believe in Christ as Savior, and the rest of the community, should be removed, are in no way putting at risk the teaching about the indissolubility of marriage, but they are eager to make possible the experience of the balm of God’s mercy, particularly that kind of mercy which according to the Tradition of the Church, the penitent accedes to it when he is on the road of conversion, known as the via poenitentialis [penitential way].”

“God’s mercy is not only a doctrine alongside the doctrine of marriage and the family, but is at the heart of Christian doctrine,” he continued. “The promoters of ‘God’s justice’ may feel uneasy when confronted with this pastoral view.” 

Read the rest here.

Cardinal Marx on Francis, the Synod, Women in the Church and Gay Relationships

Two issues at the present synod are divorced and remarried Catholics and gay Catholics, especially those in relationships. Do you have opportunities to listen directly to these Catholics in your present ministry?

I have been a priest for 35 years. This problem is not new. I have the impression that we have a lot of work to do in the theological field, not only related to the question of divorce, but also the theology of marriage. I am astonished that some can say, “Everything is clear” on this topic. Things are not clear. It is not about church doctrine being determined by modern times. It is a question of aggiornamento, to say it in a way that the people can understand, and to always adapt our doctrine to the Gospel, to theology, in order to find in a new way the sense of what Jesus said, the meaning of the tradition of the church and of theology and so on. There is a lot to do.

I speak with many experts—canon lawyers and theologians—who recognize many questions related to the sacramentality and validity of marriages. One question is: What can we do when a person marries, divorces and later finds a new partner? There are different positions. Some bishops at the synod said, “They are living in sin.” But others said, “You cannot say that somebody is in sin every day. That is not possible.” You see, there are questions we must speak about. We opened a discussion on this topic in the German bishops’ conference. Now the text is published. I think it is a very good text and a good contribution for the discussion of the synod.

It is very important that the synod does not have the spirit of “all or nothing.” It is not a good way. The synod cannot have winners and losers. That is not the spirit of the synod. The spirit of the synod is to find a way together, not to say, “How can I find a way to bring my position through?” Rather: “How can I understand the other position, and how can we together find a new position?” That is the spirit of the synod.

Therefore it is very important that we are working on these questions. I hope that the pope will inspire this synod. The synod cannot decide; only a council or pope can decide. These questions must also be understood in a broader context. The task is to help the people to live. It is not, according to “Evangelii Gaudium,” about how we can defend the truth. It is about helping people to find the truth. That is important.

The Eucharist and reconciliation are necessary for people. We say to some people, “You will never be reconciled until your death.” That is impossible to believe when you see the situations. I could give examples. In the spirit of “Evangelii Gaudium,” we have to see how the Eucharist is medicine for the people, to help the people. We must look for ways for people to receive the Eucharist. It is not about finding ways to keep them out! We must find ways to welcome them. We have to use our imagination in asking, “Can we do something?” Perhaps it is not possible in some situations. That is not the question. The focus must be on how to welcome people.

Read the rest here.

There is a crisis building in the Catholic Church and I suspect that after decades of building pressure things may be approaching the boiling point.

Roman Catholic Family Synod: Early report called a "pastoral earthquake"

A document summing up the synod so far has been described as a “pastoral earthquake” by a leading Vatican commentator.

The document, called the relatio post disceptationem, was read aloud in the synod hall this morning. It has been drafted by synod fathers selected by Pope Francis and can be read in full here.

The document calls on the Church to build on the “positive aspects” of relationships that are deemed irregular – such as between remarried couples or same-sex partners – and keep the “doors always wide open” to people in those relationships.

Read the rest here.

Everything I have read about this synod from Roman Catholic sources and blogs has been deeply disturbing.

Unwilling to Allow His Wife a Divorce, He Marries Another

LAS VEGAS — The wedding was a modest affair, held in a reception hall overlooking an artificial lake tucked behind a suburban strip. But just minutes after it ended, the bride and groom hurriedly scurried past dozens of protesters here who were chanting “Bigamist!” and “Shame on you!”

One of the wedding guests on Thursday evening glared at the demonstrators, repeatedly hissing: “Mazel tov. Mazel tov. Mazel tov.” The bride, in a lace and sequin floor-length gown, grasped the hand of her husband and looked at the crowd in silence.

Meir Kin, the new husband, has been divorced for more than seven years, under California’s civil law. But he has refused to give his previous wife the document known as a “get,” as required by Orthodox Jewish law to end a marriage. In the eyes of religious authorities, the woman he married in 2000 is what is called an agunah — Hebrew for chained wife. Without the get, the woman, Lonna Kin, is forbidden under Jewish law to remarry.

Read the rest here.

A Roman Catholic critique of the Orthodox discipline pertaining to divorce and remarriage

Divorce and Remarriage, Oikonomia, and the peril of following the Greeks 

Generally forgotten, or at least downplayed, when discussing the myriad issues which divide Rome from Orthodoxy, and firmly ignored by the "our only real difference is the Papacy" crowd, is the reality that restoration of communion with Rome would require us to excommunicate a sizable percentage of Orthodox Christians. Many thanks to Fr. Dylan for pointedly thrusting this issue back into view.

Pope Francis may float compromise on divorce

...Sometimes mocked as “Catholic divorce,” an annulment is a declaration by a church court that a marriage never existed in the first place because one of the conditions for validity wasn’t satisfied, such as free consent by both parties.

Facing that tension, a compromise may be coming into focus: No change on the sacraments ban, but an easier and broader process for granting annulments.

O’Malley floated that idea during a recent Globe interview, saying that perhaps annulments could be sped up by eliminating the possibility of appeal to Rome, a provision that often means a case can drag on for years if one of the parties wants to contest the result.

A Feb. 15 conference of church lawyers in the Italian region of Liguria seemed to point in the same direction, arguing that the grounds upon which an annulment can be granted ought to be expanded.

In particular, these church lawyers proposed adding “mamma-ism” to the list, meaning a situation in which spouses are so completely under the thumb of one of their parents – usually, according to the jurists, the mom – that they don’t have free will.

Whatever one makes of “mamma-ism” as a legal or psychological concept, it illustrates how eager many Catholic officials are to make annulments more user-friendly.

Read the rest here.

Disclaimer: The Boston Globe is not a Catholic friendly news source. That said they are offering direct quotes with attribution.

Pope says judgments on annulments must be impartial and pastoral

...Pope Francis has said that church law on marriage is a topic that exemplifies a general need for mercy in the Church today, and that it will be among the subjects of discussion at this October’s extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the “pastoral challenges of the family in the context of evangelization.”

In his speech to the Rota, the Pope said a judge on a Church tribunal must sympathise with the “mentality and legitimate aspirations” of the community he serves, and thus render “justice that is not legalistic and abstract, but appropriate to the needs of concrete reality.”

Read the rest here.

Two stories relating to Rome

Cardinal Kasper says Church will soon give Communion to divorced, remarried Catholics

My take; we will see. There are limits to what even the Pope can do and I can't see this happening without fundamentally weakening RC teachings concerning divorce and remarriage. Oddly, neither we Orthodox nor Roman Catholics seem to include this on the usual lists of major differences dividing us, but it's a pretty big issue. Absent a shift by Rome, how could communion be restored between our churches with millions of divorced and remarried Orthodox admitted to the chalice?

'Who am I to judge?': The pope's most powerful phrase in 2013

There are many things that I deeply admire about the new Pope. But dear God, I do wish he would be more careful with his off the cuff statements. The Episcopal wing of the Catholic Church and large numbers of equally hostile non-Catholics are using his words, sometimes unfairly, to undermine the Roman Church's authority. He needs to remember who he is and accept that everything he says and does will be dissected and parsed by people who are not friendly to his church.

Roman Catholic Church may reconsider sacraments for divorced and remarried

Just a few days after the publication of Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium”, Archbishop Baldisseri, Secretary General of the Synod, has confirmed the issue remains open: “We will discuss it without any taboos. The Orthodox experience could be of help to us”

“A new approach needs to be taken with respect to the administration of the sacraments to remarried divorcees.” Archbishop Lorenzo Baldisseri is the prelate the Pope nominated Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops. Born in 1940, the Tuscan prelate has four decades of experience as a member of the Vatican diplomatic corps and as of the end of September he has had the task of renewing the Synod institute that will meet twice – in 2014 and 2015 – to discuss the family, after a questionnaire or consultation containing 39 questions on family issues.

In the “Evangelii Gaudium” Francis does not explicitly mention the issue of the administration of sacraments to remarried divorcees. However, he does write that the Eucharist “is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.” How should these words be read?

“We should pay attention to the phrase that follows immediately after this: These convictions have pastoral consequences that we are called to consider with prudence and boldness.” The Pope presents these two elements together. This means he wants these issues to be examined with prudence and therefore with attention to the Church’s doctrine. But he also wants them to be examined with boldness, which for me means “without fear”, taking individual circumstances into account.”

Read the rest here.

Pope Francis Again Hints at New Approach to Divorce and Remarriage

ROME (AFP) - Pope Francis on Monday called for "another way" of treating divorcees who remarry - a thorny issue since Catholics who wed a second time are currently not allowed to receive Holy Communion at mass.

Read the rest here.

This appears to be a topic the Pope has taken an interest in as he has mentioned it several times now in his still young pontificate. It is also worth noting that in a free wheeling interview with the press on the plane from the World Youth Day events, he referenced the Orthodox approach to divorce and remarriage when discussing the issue.

The Bickersons Go To Court (again and again)

Former Couple's Legal Fight Now in Year Seventeen. Unbelievable.

Important: More things the Pope said that the media missed

I received an email from blog reader John L. with some extremely significant quotes from the Pope's impromptu flying press conference. Some of them deal with touchy issues dividing Rome from Orthodoxy including the question of the sacraments for the divorced and remarried while others speak rather kindly of our liturgical praxis. Rather than paraphrasing I am going to append the entire email below. On a side note I deeply appreciate the tips I get from blog readers. Obviously I can't spend the entire day wandering the web and even if I could I would not be able to touch even a fraction of the often blogworthy stuff that's out there.

Emphasis is mine...

Trad blogs are obsessed with either the gay comments or the Latin Mass, but there was more. The way Francis' presents himself on issues... it's a bit like grasping jello, or picking up tofu with chopsticks. But sedecvacantist priest Fr. Cekeda noticed all of these things at Rorate Caeli's comments...

Check out this bit on divorce and remarriage. This is a huge issue that affects far more Catholics and ex-Catholics than the media fixation on gays. Cekada calls divorced/married Catholics "adulterers", but Pope Francis described this attitude as "clericalism".

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/gmg-26831//pag/2/

>>The Church is a mother and in the Church we need to be merciful towards everyone. We shouldn’t just wait for the wounded to come to us, we need to go out and search for them. I think the time for mercy has come as John Paul II predicted by introducing the Feast of Divine Mercy. Divorced people can take communion, it is those who have divorced and remarried that cannot. Here I must add that the orthodox follow the theology of economics and allow second marriages. When the commission of eight cardinals meets at the beginning of October we will discuss how to proceed. The Church is taking a very close look at pastoral initiatives for marriage. My predecessor in Buenos Aires, Cardinal Quarracino always used to say: “I consider half of today’s marriages to be invalid because people get married without realising it means forever. They do it out of social convenience, etc...” The issue of invalidity needs to be looked into as well.”
<<

>>
“The Orthodox Churches have preserved the liturgy which is so beautiful. We’ve lost sight slightly of the meaning of worship. They worship God and they sing about it; time is immaterial to them. One day we were speaking about Western Europe and they said that “ex Oriente lux” “ex Oriente luxus”, meaning that light comes from the East and consumerism and wealth which do a lot of harm, come from the West. The Orthodox Church preserves the beauty of God being at the centre of everything. When you read Dostoevsky you can really feel the Russian and Oriental spirit. We are deeply in need of this breath of fresh air, this light from the East.”
<<

Do check out the linked article.

Putin to Divorce Wife

MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin announced on Thursday that he plans to divorce his wife of 29 years, Lyudmila, who for years has barely appeared in public, prompting widespread chatter about the secretive leader’s private life.

The couple made the announcement to a television crew after attending a ballet performance at the Kremlin together — an unusual event in itself, since in recent years Lyudmila Putin has appeared in public only rarely.

Read the rest here.