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No change in communion ban for divorced Catholics

Posted on: Thursday, 13 October 2005, 08:43 CDT

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.

Source: REUTERS

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