Teologi

Man antar at et ekteskap er gyldig, og i alle fall én av ektefellene er sikker på at alt er i orden, men så kan det vise seg – ut fra katolsk kirkerett eller også sivil rett – at det likevel ikke er gyldig. Etter sivil rett erklæres ekteskap ugyldige nokså sjelden, men etter katolsk kirkerett kan dette skje noe oftere – og det er Tribunalene som avgjør slike spørsmål.

Kirkerettseksperten Edward Peters skriver om dette i et innlegg, der han uttrykker svært stor forbauselse over at en kjent katolsk kardinal (Kasper) ikke ser ut til å forstå disse tingene:

Misunderstanding – sometimes seasoned with plain ignorance – about canon law, annulments, and tribunal work is common among Catholics and pervasive among non-Catholics. What is unnerving to see, however, in the wake of Cdl. Kasper’s call for holy Communion to be administered to those living in “public and permanent adultery” (CCC 2384), is how high up in Church life such problems apparently reach.

In his latest remarks on annulments, Kasper says: “There are situations in which annulments are possible. But take the case of a couple with ten years of marriage, with kids, which in the first years [was] a happy marriage, but for different reasons fails. This marriage was a reality and to say that it was canonically null makes no sense.”

Taking the cardinal’s words at face value, he flatly rejects (for it “makes no sense”) declaring null any putative (a term Kasper does not use, but which I will discuss below) marriage if it seemed happy for a time, produced children, and lasted ten years. Let’s look at these factors.

Though some these days are put off when canon law is quoted in correction of canonical errors, nevertheless, a legal principle from the thirteenth century is important here: Non firmatur tractu temporis quod de iure ab initio non subsistit, or, “What is null at the start does not become valid with the passage of time.” Regula Iuris XVIII (1298). …

Om «putavive marriage» (et antatt gyldig ekteskap) sier engelsk Wikipedia:

A putative marriage is an apparently valid marriage, entered into in good faith on the part of at least one of the partners, but that is legally invalid due to a technical impediment, such as a preexistent marriage on the part of one of the partners. Unlike someone in a common-law, statutory, or ceremonial marriage, a putative spouse is not legally married. Instead, a putative spouse believes himself or herself to be married in good faith and is given legal rights as a result of this person’s reliance upon this good-faith belief.

Putative marriages exist in both Catholic canon law and in various civil laws, though the rules may vary. In some jurisdictions, putative marriages are a matter of case law rather than legislation. …

Kirkerettseksperten Edward Peters skriver om Tribunalenes arbeid nå som bispesynoden om ekteskapet nærmer seg (selv om denne synoden ikke må få lov til å handle bare om skilsmisse og gjengifte, ifølge pave Frans og flere andre), og han skriver i et innlegg han kaller «The annulment argument: a quick guide to the two sides.»

There are basically two groups agitating for annulment reform, one saying that there are too many annulments, the other saying that there are too few. Let me suggest that (a) the first group is mistaken if it thinks the annulment problem lies in the annulment process and (b) the second group seeks not so much reform of the annulment process as its effective abolishment.

The first group (those holding that there are too many annulments), can scarcely suggest any procedural reforms (short of requiring tribunals to stamp DENIED on every annulment petition) for nothing about current canon and special law makes declaring marriage nullity easy. Under current ecclesiastical law, nullity must be proven, on specific grounds, based on sworn declarations and testimony, over the arguments of an independent officer, and confirmed on appeal. There are, that I can see, no gaps in the process through which marriage cases may slip quietly but wrongly into nullity. …

No, the objections of the first group to the number of annulments being declared is, I suggest, not to the annulment process but to the people running that process. Tribunal officers are, it is alleged, too naive, too heterodox, or just too lazy to reach sound decisions on nullity petitions; they treat annulments as tickets to a second chance at happiness owed to people who care enough to fill out the forms. How exactly members of this first group can reach their conclusion without extended experience in tribunal work and without adverting to the cascade of evidence that five decades of social collapse in the West and a concomitant collapse of catechetical and canonical work in the Church is wreaking exactly the disastrous effects on real people trying to enter real marriages that the Church has always warned about, escapes me. Nevertheless that is essentially their claim: the process needs no major reform, processors do.

Neither can the second group (those holding that there are too few annulments) credibly point to specific reforms of the annulment process for (with two exceptions …) every phase of the current annulment process is required by natural law to serve the ends of justice (and, as Pope St. John Paul II repeatedly reminded us, the annulment process is about justice—not mercy, not charity, not warm fuzzy feelings, but justice); to eliminate any of these steps would be to gut the unavoidably juridic nature of the annulment process. Natural law requires that presumptions (here, of validity) be overturned only for specific reasons (here, grounds) demonstrated by objective information (here, declarations and testimony) weighed by independent minds (here, judges) subject to review by superiors (here, appeal). Remove any of these steps and, whatever ‘process’ one is left with, it’s not a legal one. Thus I say, push proponents of the second school to be clear, and what most of them must admit seeking is the “de-juridicization” of the annulment process. It’s their right, of course, to make such a proposal, but one should not confuse calls tantamount to elimination of a process with calls for reform of a process. …. LES VIDERE HER.

Peters skriver i et annet innlegg på sin blogg om én av kardinalene som argumenterer mot kardinal Kaspers synspunkter, likevel ikke kan følges i alt han foreslår:

Cdl. Angelo Scola of Milan (not a canon lawyer but appreciative of the connection between canon law and doctrine) is the latest high-ranking churchman to come out solidly against what Sandro Magister calls the Kasper-Bergoglio proposal in regard to Communion for divorced-and-remarried Catholics. Toward the end of his essay, however, Scola offers a ‘fourth suggestion’ for dealing with the annulment problem, namely, a non-judicial canonical process wherein bishops will decide on marriage nullity petitions. Scola’s idea, I suggest, underscores the point that the annulment process does not lend itself to easy reformation. …

At biskopene skal overta annulleringsprosessen, og at dette ikke lenger skal være en juridisk prosess, syns Peters er en svært dårlig idé. LES HANS ARGUMENTER HER.

John Allen skriver en artikkel med følgende overskrift: «Maybe Francis isn’t after a lurch to the left, but a new balance.» Her sier han først at den nye erkebiskopen i Chicago nok er litt til venstre for midten teologisk, mens den nye erkebiskopen i Sydney, Australia, er ganske så konservativ. Han legger også til at mange nye medlemmer at Vatikanets teologiske kommisjon er (dyktige teologer) tydelig konservative. Så fortsetter han:

… So, what gives? Is Francis suffering from multiple personality syndrome, or is there another explanation?

For one thing, in both the Fisher appointment and the ITC nominations, the driving force wasn’t the pope himself. Pell was the prime mover with Fisher, and the choices for the theological commission came from German Cardinal Gerhard Müller, head of the doctrinal congregation, and his staff.

Yet Francis is a hands-on pope, and he wouldn’t sign off on these decisions if he weren’t aware of what they meant.

Perhaps the best hypothesis is that what Francis is really after isn’t a turn to the left, but a new balance. He’s said he wants the church to be in dialogue with everyone, and one way to accomplish that is to ensure a mix of points of view in leadership positions. …

Kardinal Kasper foreslo i vår at Kirken skal lette på restriksjonene (mht å motta sakramentene) for personer som er i et nytt (sivilt) ekteskap. Han har nå blitt kritisert for dette av flere andre kardinalet (i forkant av bispesynoden i oktober) og liker dette lite (fra catholicnews.com):

In an interview published Sept. 18, a proponent of changing church practice to allow such Catholics to receive Communion answered criticism from some of his fellow cardinals, suggesting they are seeking a «doctrinal war» whose ultimate target is Pope Francis.

«They claim to know on their own what truth is, but Catholic doctrine is not a closed system, but a living tradition that develops,» German Cardinal Walter Kasper told the Italian daily Il Mattino. «They want to crystallize the truth in certain formulas … the formulas of tradition.»

«None of my brother cardinals has ever spoken with me,» the cardinal said. «I, on the other hand, have spoken twice with the Holy Father. I arranged everything with him. He was in agreement. What can a cardinal do but stand with the pope? I am not the target, the target is another.»

Asked if the target was Pope Francis, the cardinal replied: «Probably yes.»

Cardinal Kasper, who will participate in the upcoming synod by personal appointment of the pope, was responding to a new book featuring contributions by five cardinals, including three of his fellow synod fathers, who criticize his proposal to make it easier for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion.

Kardinal Müller er en av kardinalene som går mot Kasper, men hans artikkel i den omtalte boka ble trykket i L’Osservatore Romano allerede i oktober i fjor.

Men i tillegg til kardinal Müllers bidrag til denne første boka, er det også utgitt et langt intervju med ham om samme tema (også denne på Ignatius press i USA – SE HER) Et udrag av denne boka er gjengitt på Firt Things nettsider, og der leser vi bl.a.:

Cardinal Müller: Not even an ecumenical council can change the doctrine of the Church, because her Founder, Jesus Christ, entrusted the faithful preservation of his teachings and doctrine to the apostles and their successors. The Gospel of Matthew says: “Go and teach all people everything that I commanded you” (cf. Mt 28:19–20), which is nothing if not a definition of the “deposit of the faith” (depositum fidei) that the Church has received and cannot change. Therefore the doctrine of the Church will never be the sum total of a few theories worked out by a handful of theologians, however ingenious they may be, but rather the profession of our faith in revelation, nothing more and nothing less than the Word of God entrusted to the heart—the interiority—and the lips—the proclamation—of his Church.

We have an elaborate, structured doctrine about marriage, all of it based on the words of Jesus himself, which must be presented in its entirety. We encounter it in the Gospels and in other places in the New Testament, especially in the words of Saint Paul in the First Letter to the Corinthians and in Romans. We also rely on tradition, with many writings and reflections of the Fathers of the Church, such as those of Saint Augustine. These are joined by the particular development that Scholasticism and the Magisterium made in the Councils of Florence and Trent. Lastly, a final stage in the progressive exposition of dogma is magnificently expressed for us in Lumen Gentium and, above all, in Gaudium et Spes (nos. 47–51), which are a complete synthesis that the Second Vatican Council made of the Church’s entire doctrine on marriage, including the question about divorce also.

In this regard, the Church cannot allow divorce in the case of a sacramental marriage that has been contracted and consummated. This is the dogma of the Church. I insist: the absolute indissolubility of a valid marriage is no mere doctrine; rather, it is a divine dogma defined by the Church. In the case of a de facto break-up of a valid marriage, another civil “marriage” is not permissible. Otherwise, we would be facing a contradiction, because if the earlier union, the “first” marriage, or, more precisely, the marriage, really is a marriage, the other later union is not a “marriage.” In this regard, I think we are playing with words when we speak about a first and a second “marriage.” A second marriage is possible only when one’s legitimate spouse has died or when the previous marriage has been declared invalid, whereby the preceding bond has been dissolved. Otherwise, we are dealing with what is called an “impediment of the bond.” …

Ganske tydelige ord av kardinal Müller – som er leder av Troskongregasjonen.

På kurset i katolsk tro i St Hallvard kirke i går kveld snakket vi bl.a. om forholdet mellom tro og viten, Kompendiet til den katolske kirkes katekisme skriver slik om dette:

3. Hvordan er det mulig å erkjenne Gud ved fornuftens lys alene?

Med utgangspunkt i skaperverket, det vil si verden og den menneskelige person, kan mennesket gjennom fornuften alene med visshet erkjenne Gud som universets opprinnelse og fullendelse, som det høyeste gode og som sannhet og uendelig skjønnhet. (31-36, 46-47)

4. Er fornuftens lys alene tilstrekkelig til å erkjenne Guds mysterium?

På veien mot erkjennelsen av Gud ved fornuftens lys alene, støter mennesket på mange vanskeligheter. Faktisk kan det ikke på eget initiativ tre inn i det indre guddommelige mysterium. Derfor er det avhengig av å bli opplyst av Guds åpenbaring, ikke bare om de sannheter som overstiger menneskets forståelse, men også om de religiøse og moralske sannheter …

John Allen skriver (et stykke nede på siden) om det som skjedde 12. september 2008 – også i en egen artikkel – at det virker som pave Benedikt fikk rett mht Islam, i sitt Regensburg-foredrag, at de som kritiserte ham den gang kanskje nå må beklage. Men det bør de egentlig ikke, for pave Benebikst foredrag handlet jo ikke om Islam, men om forholdet mellom tro og viten:

… In the Catholic commentariat, there’s been discussion lately about whether Pope Benedict XVI is owed an apology for the brouhaha that broke out in 2006 over a speech he gave in Regensburg, Germany, which opened with a citation of a 14th-century Byzantine emperor linking Muhammad, the founder of Islam, with violence.

At the time, Benedict’s quotation was seen as a crass religious slur. Now, with the rise of the self-declared ISIS caliphate in northern Iraq and its bloody crackdown on religious minorities, things look a little different.

However, the revisionist take on his words risks a repeat of the fatal mistake of eight years ago, only in reverse. Aside from its second paragraph, the Regensburg speech really had nothing to do with Islam, and reading it that way distorts the point the retired pontiff was trying to make.

If you read the entire 4,000 word text – which, to this day, relatively few of the pundits commenting on it seem to have done – you’ll discover that Benedict’s primary points of reference aren’t Muslims, but rather Socrates, Duns Scotus, Immanuel Kant and Adolf von Harnack, luminaries of the Western intellectual tradition.

If Benedict was criticizing anything, it wasn’t Islam, but rather Western secularism and its tendency to limit the scope of reason to what can be scientifically and empirically verified, excluding any reference to ultimate truth.

The heart of Benedict’s argument at Regensburg was that reason and faith need each other. Reason shorn of faith, he suggested, becomes skepticism and nihilism, while faith deprived of reason becomes extremism and fundamentalism. In isolation, each becomes dangerous; to be healthy, they need each other.

In Regensburg, Benedict warned against “a reason which is deaf to the divine,” among other things pointing out that ignoring the transcendent handicaps the West in trying to engage the rest of the world, which takes religion seriously, indeed.

“Listening to the great experiences and insights of the religious traditions of humanity, and those of the Christian faith in particular, is a source of knowledge, and to ignore it would be an unacceptable restriction of our listening and responding,” he said.

Benedict XVI saw himself as a teaching pope, not a governor or a diplomat, and there’s no doubt his eight-year reign suffered because of it.

Yet as a teacher, he had an impressive record. ……

Avisa Dagen skriver at vi katolikker sender våre prestestudenter (det går ikke helt klart fram av artikkelen) til Roma for at de der skal undervises om ting som i det siste har blitt nevnt som problematiske på MF. Slik skriver avisa:

Menighetsfakultetet tilbyr et katolsk studietilbud og fagmiljø, men katolske studenter tar ikke «kontroversielle fag» ved institusjonen.

Hvis undervisningen skal dreie seg om moral, må vi få det formidlet av katolske foredragsholdere. De fagene MF ikke dekker fra vårt synspunkt tar studentene våre i Roma, sier biskop Bernt Eidsvig i Oslo katolske bispedømme. …

.. Fagene som kan være kontroversielle tar de ikke på MF, uten at det er begrunnet i noe mistro mot MF i utgangspunktet, sier Eidsvig. Han forklarer at forutsetningene er nokså forskjellige. Som luthersk institusjon, skiller MF seg fremfor alt fra katolsk lære i troslæren. Etikk og dogmatikk er blant fagene de katolske studentene tar under sitt ett til to-årige opphold i Roma, eller ved blokkforelesninger av katolske professorer som besøker MF. …

Lederen av Troskongregasjonen, kardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, har for ikke lenge siden gitt et langt intervju, som WWW.CHIESA beskriver slik: «In a book-length interview recently released simultaneously in Italy, Spain, and the United States, Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, revisits and develops what he had already reiterated last fall in an article in “L’Osservatore Romano” that made a sensation. In that article, Müller dwelt above all on the question of communion for the divorced and remarried, reiterating the reasons for the prohibition.»

Og i intervjuet sier han svært så tydelig:

Q: The problem of the divorced and remarried has recently been brought to public attention again. On the basis of a certain interpretation of Scripture, of the patristic tradition, and of the texts of the magisterium, solutions have been suggested that propose innovations. Is a change of doctrine on the way?

A: Not even an ecumenical council can change the doctrine of the Church, because its founder, Jesus Christ, has entrusted the faithful custody of his teachings and his doctrine to the apostles and their successors. We have a well-developed and structured doctrine on marriage, based on the word of Jesus, which must be offered in its integrity. The absolute indissolubility of a valid marriage is not a mere doctrine, but rather a divine dogma that has been defined by the Church. In the face of the de facto rupture of a valid marriage, another civil “marriage” is not admissible. If it were, we would be facing a contradiction, because if the previous union, the “first” marriage – or rather, simply the marriage – is really a marriage, another subsequent union is not “marriage.” It is only by a play on words that one can speak of a first and second “marriage.” A second marriage is possible only when the legitimate spouse has died, or when the marriage has been declared invalid, because in these cases the previous bond has been dissolved. If this is not the case, we are in the presence of what is called the “impediment of the bond.”

…………

Jeg leste i går en grundig artikkel skrevet av en gruppe amerikanske teologer, som tar opp spørsmålet de neste to bispesynodene skal diskutere. Artikkelen har overskriften: Recent Proposals for the Pastoral Care of the Divorced and Remarried: A Theological Assessment – og kan leses på engelsk her.

Artikkelen er også oversatt til flere andre språk – se her.

Pave Frans gjorde nylig enda et intervju med journalisten Eugenio Scalfari, og der ble det bl.a. referert noe om gifte prester, og om et problem som skulle kunne løses. Vatikanets pressetalsmann, p. Federico Lombardi, sa om dette:

“If it can be maintained that overall the article conveys the sense and spirit of the conversation between the Holy Father and Scalfari, what was said on the occasion of a previous ‘interview’ that appeared in ‘Repubblica’ must be reiterated forcefully, namely that the individual statements reported, in the formulation presented, cannot be attributed to the pope with certainty.»

In particular, Fr. Lombardi cast doubt on the notion that the pope had proclaimed, with regard to the celibacy of the clergy, «I will find the solutions.”

Den tyske kardinalen og historikeren Walter Brandmüller har skrevet om dette hos www.chiesa, og hevder at sølibatskravet/ -idealet går helt tilbake til apostlene. Likevel fins det noen unntak, bl.a. dette:

… There is a similar motivation behind the papal dispensation from celibacy granted – beginning with Pius XII – to the Protestant pastors who convert to the Catholic Church and want to be ordained priests. This rule was recently applied by Benedict XVI to the numerous Anglican prelates who wanted to unite, in conformity with the apostolic constitution “Anglicanorum Coetibus,» with the Catholic mother Church. With this extraordinary concession, the Church recognizes the long and sometimes painful religious journey of these men of faith who have reached their destination with conversion. A destination that in the name of truth leads those directly concerned to renounce even the financial support realized until that moment. It is the unity of the Church, a good of immense value, that justifies these exceptions. …

Kirkerettseksperten Edward Peters skriver også om den kommende bispesynoden om ekteskapet, men han regner ikke med at det kan bli gitt noen tillatelse til gjengifte om å motta kommunion:

The project to justify holy Communion for divorced-and-remarried Catholics seems to be losing steam. That’s good. As I have said many times, unless one is willing to countenance the administration of the Eucharist to those obstinately persisting in manifest grave sin (pace Canon 915), or is willing to say that typical remarriage after divorce is not the grave sin of adultery (pace CCC 2384), or is willing to say that Christ was wrong about marriage lasting till death and about remarriage after divorce being adultery (pace the New Testament!), then that project was doomed from the start. It’s now time to consider ideas that would strengthen the Church’s witness to marriage, not weaken it.

Father Z tar opp denne tråden (og åpner opp for diskusjon om Peters’ artikkel), men er ikke enig i denne første vurderingen:

It would be good, were it true. I don’t think it is losing steam. I think the valve was closed and the steam is building for the fall meeting. I don’t think that the advocates of Communion for the divorced/remarried will frame it in terms of changing doctrine. They know that if they do, they will be shut down immediately. They will try to stretch doctrine, maybe even suggest that this represents development of doctrine. Then they will play the pastoral card as a trump to doctrinal purity or rigid legalism. They will stress mercy over and against rules. Then they will play the fear card. They will shout that the sky is falling when it comes to practice of the faith by the rank and file. «People are leaving the Church!», they will cry. In short, they will be sly and manipulative.

Edward Peters skriver så om tre andre ting han ønsker bispesynoden skal se på (og det første av disse punktene kjenner jeg ikke til at andre har tatt opp, men jeg har sjekket med bare én kirkerettsekspert):

1. Canonical Form for Marriage. The requirement that Catholics wed before clergy has always been an imposition on the natural and sacramental reality of marriage, and the societal conditions that supported its imposition a few centuries ago have all but disappeared today. Instead of defending marriage, the requirement of form now permits tens of thousands of Catholics annually to walk away from marital unions that we demand all others honor, deprives Catholics in such unions the graces specific to Matrimony, and relegates such unions to the status of concubinage. Further, the pastoral need to blunt the ecclesial consequences for disregarding canonical form has led to the elaboration and/or invocation of several juridically dubious “work-arounds” in such areas as jurisdiction, dispensation, and sanation. The question is: does the requirement of canonical form do more harm than good to the Church’s proclamation of marriage today?

2. The Annulment Process. In the popular mind (including many bishops’), the annulment process is a pastoral mechanism that “works” when it allows Catholics in failed marriages the chance to marry someone else. Correcting this massive misunderstanding about the vital juridic nature of the annulment process is of the utmost importance. Beyond that, however, the annulment process, being established and administered by human beings, is in need of reform especially regarding: (a) appreciating the canonical impact of widespread societal and familial dysfunction on young persons attempting to enter marriage as Christ and his Church proclaim it; (b) the actual or perceived disconnect between the interpretation accorded norms on consent as given in Rome versus that in many other tribunals around the world; (c) the real burdens and benefits associated with mandatory appeal; and (d) the feasibility of allowing third instance tribunals to function in nations that actually need them.

3. Same-sex unions vs. ‘same-sex marriage’. If there is a philosophically, juridically, and pastorally defensible distinction between same-sex unions and ‘same-sex marriage’, the time to articulate that distinction is now. Earlier ecclesiastical documents on this issue, striving (correctly!) to avoid any semblance of support for the idea of ‘same-sex marriage’, rejected same-sex unions in terms that admit of no toleration in the secular arena and indeed, if taken literally, demand sacrifices by Catholics that the Church should, in any age, be loathe to impose. Besides this important clarification of categories, the practical issues occasioned by having faithful in same-sex unions or ‘marriages’ (chiefly in regard to their admission to the sacraments and participation in Catholic public affairs) need systematic elucidation.

Bispesynoden i Vatikanet i høst skal ta opp flere aspekter ved ekteskapet, men fokuset har vært neste bare på om gjengifte (utenfor Kirken) skal få lov til å motta kommunion (noe de ikke har lov til i dag). Sandro Magister skriver om dette:

Pope Francis doesn’t like the discussion in view of the upcoming synod being focused only on communion for the divorced and remarried. He said so to journalists during the flight back to Rome from the Holy Land. His preference is decidedly for a «holistic,» global reflection on the family.

But what focused everyone’s attention on that controversial point was precisely the presentation with which Cardinal Walter Kasper introduced the consistory last February. A presentation that Francis immediately passed with flying colors, telling the cardinals he had found it theologically «profound,» «serene,» thought out «on [his] knees,» and that the Argentine Jesuit Juan Carlos Scannone, the theology professor of the young Jorge Mario Bergoglio, has praised even more highly in the latest issue of «La Civiltà Cattolica.»

The fact is that since that consistory the controversy over communion for the remarried has rocked the Church even at the highest levels. …

I denne artikkelen presnterer Magister noe kardinal Brandmüller har sagt i denne diskusjonen:

As the Church historian that he is – and as president for more than twenty years of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences – Brandmüller has presented in this essay the clash between Pope Nicholas I and Lothair II, king of Lotharingia, in the ninth century.

Lothair first had a mistress named Waldrada, then married the noble Teutberga for the sake of political interests, and later separated from her and married his previous companion, wanting at all costs that the pope should recognize the validity of his second marriage.

But in spite of the fact that Lothair enjoyed the backing of the bishops of his region and the support of Emperor Louis II, who even invaded Rome with his army at one point, Pope Nicholas I – now venerated as a saint – did not give in to his claims and never recognized his second marriage as legitimate. …

I denne artikkelen siterer Magister også noe (nyttig og interessant) som Martin Grichting sier om holdningen til kommunion mer generelt:

The upcoming synod, and in particular the question of the divorced who have «remarried» in a civil ceremony, could be an opportunity for new reflection on the conditions that make sacramental communion fruitful and on the frequency of receiving this sacrament.

The Council of Trent did not prescribe any particular frequency. Then the precept of receiving communion at least once a year was established. [. . .] Although afterward many spiritual authors recommended frequent communion, it was only with the decree «Sacra Tridentina Synodus,» issued by the sacred congregation of the council on December 20, 1905, that the turning point came.

This document, promulgated at the initiative of Pope Pius X, stated that frequent and even daily communion was highly commendable, and invited the faithful to receive it often.

Pius X, however, laid down a few conditions for frequent communion. The faithful must not receive it out of habit, for the sake of vanity or human respect. Above all they must be free from grave sin and have the intention of sinning no more, according to the word of Saint Paul: Let each one recognize the body of the Lord and not eat and drink his condemnation by receiving it unworthily (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:27-29).

Even back then, therefore, one could not think of a general and unrestricted invitation to receive sacramental communion, especially since the rules for Eucharistic fasting were much more restrictive than they are today. In many cases, in fact, communion was distributed only during the first Sunday morning Mass.

But unfortunately the conditions for receiving sacramental communion, which at the time of Pius X were still considered obvious, have practically been ignored by the Church in recent decades. In practice, what remains of the guidelines of Pius X today is only the invitation to frequent communion, which is even interpreted as an invitation extended to all present at the celebration. Today sacramental communion is seen as an obligatory part of the rite of the Mass, like making the sign of the cross with holy water or the exchange of the sign of peace.

So what is needed for those «remarried» in a civil ceremony – but not only them – is a change of mentality. If the conditions mentioned by Pope Pius X for approaching sacramental communion were still applied in pastoral practice, the question concerning sacramental communion for those «remarried» in a civil ceremony would be situated in a broader context more favorable to them. These faithful would no longer be the only black sheep discriminated against, since of course there is not only the sixth commandment but also the rest of the ten.

Moreover, the problem concerning sacramental communion for those «remarried» in a civil ceremony has been getting more serious in recent decades because of the liturgical impoverishment of ecclesial life. In some parishes the liturgy is reduced solely to the Eucharistic celebration. The various forms of popular piety, the different religious functions, Eucharistic adoration, the common recitation of the rosary or the breviary have been ever more marginalized.

Without a doubt, the Eucharist is «the fount and apex of the whole Christian life» (Lumen Gentium, 11). But the thinning out of the forms that prepare for and lead to this apex accentuates the difficult situation of those who, for whatever reason, are unable to approach this fount of Christian life because the personal conditions of their lives do not permit them to do so. …