We all know that there are many people who come up for Holy Communion while ill-disposed for the sacrament. This is a deeper question than the plight of divorced-and-remarried Catholics. There is regular scandal about pro-abortion politicians taking the sacrament. All hell broke loose when a priest denied the Eucharist to a lesbian woman at her mother’s funeral. This does not even take into account the many communicants (unknown to the priest) who are ill-disposed by various mortal sins and lack of prayerful preparation. There is also the question of non-Catholic participation, and their sense of alienation and not being welcome when Holy Communion is distributed. Given these many scenarios, it seems that part of the special synod must be on the nature of the Eucharist, its reception and how we might deal with the growing tension.
Outside of Mass attendance, the special synod will necessarily have to discuss the evolving changes in the makeup of family units: one-spouse homes, broken families, children raised by grandparents, foster and adoptive parents, families with unmarried couples and illegitimate children and same-sex unions. There are even bizarre situations, as when I had two women and a man come see me to prepare for the baptism of two children. One belonged to the man’s wife and the other to his girlfriend or mistress. They all lived under the same roof. These things are less and less rare. They make my head hurt. How can it be fixed? Must we live with the messiness?
Filed under: Divorce, Eucharist, Faith, Family, Holy Communion, Homosexuality, Magisterium, Marriage, Pope, Sexuality, Sin |
Blogger Priest 
If we are true to confess all of our sins but tend to fall back into sin, even serious sin, does God ever hold back a request for our healing? Or is He the God who forgives our sins and heals our illnesses? Signed, heartily sorry and so desperate to become well again and live in the grace of Him Who made me.
If you think the world, or even the church, may be tidied up from its messiness, would you please tell me how?
Do you think such tidiness could be achieved immediately, or might it need some effort, a time when the work was being done but was incomplete?
The points you make and the issues presented in your latest post, are valid, prescient, and painfully relevant. However, the reality of the situation to which our current cultural decline has led us had better not cause the Church to weaken Her doctrine or compromise Truth. The Church had better stand firm lest She be evangelized by the world. Once Truths are compromised, they can never be affirmed.
KARL:
Your first paragraph struck me as very good.
BUT, you must come to understand that, even in black and white cases, no action is taken even though all the “damning” evidence is in the public view and specifics are in the testimony and documentary evidence which sits, only God knows where, in the possession of the Church.
I can only imagine the circumstances you have seen as a priest “on the ground.” I am certain nothing rational will come from the Church.
FATHER JOE:
KARL:
The Rorate revelation was not news to those of us living in purgatory already. As with my wife, so it will be, it seems, with the Church….no reconciliation through death.
FATHER JOE:
KARL:
I do not believe that God will turn me away under the circumstances I am living, at my particular judgment. I am separated from both adulterers, not joined to another.
FATHER JOE:
KARL:
Were I to take the next step and to marry another woman, with what I know (even if nullity is found), or were I to “join” an adulteress sect like any protestant denomination or WORSE, I doubt eternity would be pleasant.
FATHER JOE:
KARL:
The mess is the result of many factors but the loss of a Christian cultural context will render recovery impossible over the whole earth or even on whole continents. The Catholic Church will survive on a much smaller scale, likely through the SSPX and traditional Catholics.
FATHER JOE:
KARL:
Secular attempts to address ISLAM are doomed. The outcome will be a secular “ISLAM” of misguided socialist tyranny with laws that say nice things and practices that are arbitrary. This is exactly what will come from these two synods as the “Catholic” version of the same nightmare. This will be integral to the coming “remnantization” of Catholicism. Kyrie eleison.
FATHER JOE: