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Review communion ban for divorced, bishop says

Posted on: Wednesday, 5 October 2005, 06:39 CDT

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - A Roman Catholic prelate at a Vatican synod advising the Pope has boldly challenged his Church to re-think its rule that bars divorced Catholics who remarry from receiving communion.

Archbishop John Atcherly Dew of Wellington, New Zealand compared the plight of Catholics who wanted to receive communion but were barred from it to hunger in the world. Dew spoke on Tuesday evening and the Vatican released the text on Wednesday.

The Church does not recognize civil divorce and only allows annulments, rulings by Church courts that say a marriage never existed because it lacked prerequisites such as free will or psychological maturity by one or both partners.

Millions of Catholics around the world who have divorced in civil courts and remarried outside the Church still consider themselves good Catholics.

But they are banned from receiving communion, which the Church teaches is the body and blood of Christ, because they are considered to be living in sin.

"As bishops, we have a pastoral duty and an obligation before God to discuss and debate the difficulties burdening so many of our people," Dew told the synod of more than 250 bishops who will draft final recommendations to the Pope at the end of their three-week meeting.

"Our Church would be enriched if we were able to invite dedicated Catholics, currently excluded from the Eucharist, to return to the Lord's table," he argued.

"There are those whose first marriages ended in sadness; they have never abandoned the Church but are currently excluded from the Eucharist," he said.

BENEDICT HINTS AT CHANGE

There are up to seven million divorced and remarried Catholics in the United States alone.

In Germany, another country where the problem is often discussed, the bishops asked the Vatican in 1994 to consider a reform, but were rebuffed by Benedict, who as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was then the Church's top doctrinal authority.

"This synod must be pastoral in approach. We must look for ways to include those who are hungering for the bread of life," Dew said. "The scandal of those hungering for Eucharistic food need to be addressed, just as the scandal of physical hunger needs to be addressed."

How to deal with their plight has been one of the most persistently debated issues in the Church in recent years.

Under current rules, those who remarry outside the Church can only receive communion if they abstain from sexual relations with their new partner because the Church considers their first marriage still valid.

While the late Pope John Paul was firm on their exclusion from the Eucharist, Pope Benedict has indicated that he might be more flexible.

He told priests in July that the plight of the divorced and remarried should undergo further "study" because theirs was "a particularly painful situation."

The Pope said at the time that such Catholics should be welcomed into parishes even if they could not receive communion.

Source: REUTERS

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