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The prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has strongly affirmed the Catholic Church’s teaching that Communion for remarried divorcees is forbidden.
But Archbishop Gerhard L. Muller acknowledged that many Catholics’ first marriages might be invalid, and thus eligible for annulment, if spouses had been influenced by prevailing contemporary conceptions of marriage and did not fully understand it as a permanent, binding union.
“Today’s mentality is largely opposed to the Christian understanding of marriage, with regard to its indissolubility and its openness to children,” he wrote.
“Because many Christians are influenced by this, marriages nowadays are probably invalid more often than they were previously, because there is a lack of desire for marriage in accordance with Catholic teaching, and there is too little socialisation within an environment of faith.
“Therefore assessment of the validity of marriage is important and can help to solve problems,” he wrote.
Speculation about a change in practice has grown since Pope Francis told reporters on his plane back from Rio de Janeiro in July that the next Synod of Bishops would consider the eligibility of divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion.
In a 4600-word statement published in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, Archbishop Muller described the pastoral care for Catholics who are divorced and remarried as a matter of urgent pastoral priority.
But he ruled out the argument that “remarried divorcees should be allowed to decide for themselves, according to their conscience, whether or not to present themselves for holy Communion”.
“If remarried divorcees are subjectively convinced in their conscience that a previous marriage was invalid, this must be proven objectively by the competent marriage tribunals,” the archbishop wrote.
Catholics in such unions who try to understand Catholic teaching and abstain from Communion “provide their own testimony to the indissolubility of marriage”, he said.
His article also addressed the Eastern Orthodox practice of allowing second or third marriages, on the grounds of “pastoral leniency”, even when the first is sacramentally valid.
However, he said this practice “cannot be reconciled with God’s will” and “represents an ecumenical problem that is not to be underestimated”.
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Image: Father Julian’s Blog
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