No change in communion ban for divorced Catholics

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – A senior Vatican cardinal
indicated on Thursday that the Catholic Church could not relax
a rule that bars divorced Catholics who remarry outside the
Church from receiving communion.

“We don’t see it as a law of the Church but as a law of
God,” said Cardinal Francis Arinze, responding to a question
about whether the Church could show more pity to people in such
situations.

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.

“Holy Communion is not something that we own and that we
can give out to whoever we want, to our friends, to those who
suffer,” Arinze told a news conference on the work of the
Vatican’s current synod of bishops.

“Bishop and priests are ministers and we have to answer to
God (for our decisions). That’s the problem,” said Arinze, who
heads the Vatican’s department that deals with the proper use
of the Church’s sacraments, including marriage and communion.

“They (divorced Catholics) remain members of the Church but
in that state they cannot, in truth, approach communion,” he
said.

More than 250 bishops from around the world are attending
the three-week synod, which ends on October 23, during which
they make recommendations to the Pope on church issues.

Last week Archbishop John Atcherly Dew of Wellington boldly
challenged the Church to re-think the rules concerning divorced
people who remarry outside the Church.

But Arinze’s unequivocal comments on the issue affecting
millions of Catholics indicated that the synod will not propose
any change to the Pope.

FURTHER STUDY

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.

Arinze said the Church had to have compassion for such
people “because they are unfortunately suffering” but if their
first marriages have not been annulled, the Church’s hands were
effectively tied.

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.

Pope Benedict told priests in July that the plight of the
divorced and remarried should undergo further study.