Marriage, Divorce, Remarriage, Controversy, Canon Law

Ed Peters has a new piece on his blog regarding a dustup that has apparently occurred in some quarters regarding remarks made by Cardinal Mario Pompedda.

As Ed points out, it isn’t altogether clear precisely what the Cardinal said.

Unfortunately, it looks like some may be spinning what the Cardinal said to support unrestricted access to Communion for divorced and remarried couples.

HERE’S A STORY GIVING SOME SENSE OF THAT.

Based on what I’ve seen Cardinal Pompedda reported as saying, he didn’t say anything like that.

What he is reported as saying is that civil divorce is not automatically sinful (it’s not) and Catholics who have been civilly divorced and civilly remarried are not excommunicated (they’re not)–so he’s right on both counts.

But these facts alone do not mean that one is qualified to receive Communion. There’s a difference between being excommunicated (a canonical censure applied by the Church for a handful of grave offenses against faith and morals) and being unqualified to receive Communion (which any ol’ mortal sin causes). The mere fact that one is not excommunicated thus does not mean that one has a right to receive Communion.

Civilly divorcing may or may not be mortally sinful (it depends on the individual case) but for Catholics to remarry in an invalid civil ceremony and then having conjugal relations is a gravely sinful act that will disqualify one from being able to receive Communion, even if it does not trigger the canonical censure of excommunication.

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