Church Blessing For Divorced Remarried Couples

[Fr. Bruno]

[quote name='Apotheoun' post='1609904' date='Jul 27 2008, 07:48 PM']A Catholic parish in Pleasanton CA had same-sex "friendship" blessings throughout the 1990s under its previous pastor.

[url="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/01/13/MN52623.DTL"][u]Priest Taken to Task Over Gay Marriage[/u][/url][/quote]


Indeed, that's another thing becoming more and more frequent...

[picchick]

[quote name='friendofJPII' post='1609964' date='Jul 27 2008, 02:16 PM']He's talking about people who are divorced w/o an annullment and want to marry other people. If a divorced couple wants to marry each other again they don't need to get remarried in the Church because the Church never recognized the divorce. Although on a happy note, my parish priest blessed a couple recently who was divorced for 10 years, had a conversion, and reconciled. It was so beautiful.[/quote]

Yes, sorry, I meant blessing not marriage. Sorry. Yes, i think that it is beautiful.

[Fr. Bruno]

I forgot to mention one thing.
I've often heard that this kind of practice is frequent in the Eastern Churches. However, there are different views about whether they really consider it as a real marriage or not. Recently, I talked to a Roman Catholic who is divorced and got his second marriage blessed by a byzantine priest. Now he thinks that he's sacrementally married...
Does anybody know more about this ?
I wonder how they can justifiy this kind of thing...

Edited July 27, 2008 by Fr. Bruno

[Ash Wednesday]

My brother and his wife wanted an outdoor wedding and apparently as the church doesn't usually do those, so they got some former Catholic priest to marry them (this priest is somehow married now, not sure what that was all about as far as how laicized he was) But apparently he did some kind of "rite of marriage" and I guess it didn't occur to my brother and his wife that the marriage was NOT validly recognized by the Church. I'm hoping that they will eventually get their marriage blessed. I am optimistic that they will with enough nudges, but I ask your prayers.

Edited July 27, 2008 by Ash Wednesday

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Fr. Bruno' post='1610046' date='Jul 27 2008, 02:54 PM']I forgot to mention one thing.
I've often heard that this kind of practice is frequent in the Eastern Churches. However, there are different views about whether they really consider it as a real marriage or not. Recently, I talked to a Roman Catholic who is divorced and got his second marriage blessed by a byzantine priest. Now he thinks that he's sacrementally married...
Does anybody know more about this ?
I wonder how they can justifiy this kind of thing...[/quote]
That is a disputed question in Eastern theology. That said, the majority of the Eastern Fathers and Byzantine theologians would say that the second marriage, while penitential in its ritual enactment, is nonetheless sacramental for the innocent party.

Click the links below for more information:

[url="http://wanweihsien.wordpress.com/2008/06/14/the-eastern-churches-and-the-indissolubility-of-marriage-part-1-of-2/"][u]The Eastern Churches and the Indissolubility of Marriage (Part 1 of 2)[/u][/url]

[url="http://wanweihsien.wordpress.com/2008/06/16/the-eastern-churches-and-the-indissolubility-of-marriage-part-2-of-2/"][u]The Eastern Churches and the Indissolubility of Marriage (Part 2 of 2)[/u][/url]

[Dave]

[quote name='Apotheoun' post='1610110' date='Jul 27 2008, 07:29 PM']That is a disputed question in Eastern theology. That said, the majority of the Eastern Fathers and Byzantine theologians would say that the second marriage, while penitential in its ritual enactment, is nonetheless sacramental for the innocent party.

Click the links below for more information:

[url="http://wanweihsien.wordpress.com/2008/06/14/the-eastern-churches-and-the-indissolubility-of-marriage-part-1-of-2/"][u]The Eastern Churches and the Indissolubility of Marriage (Part 1 of 2)[/u][/url]

[url="http://wanweihsien.wordpress.com/2008/06/16/the-eastern-churches-and-the-indissolubility-of-marriage-part-2-of-2/"][u]The Eastern Churches and the Indissolubility of Marriage (Part 2 of 2)[/u][/url][/quote]

I thought it was only the Orthodox who allowed remarriage after divorce, not Eastern-rite Catholics.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Dave' post='1610114' date='Jul 27 2008, 04:35 PM']I thought it was only the Orthodox who allowed remarriage after divorce, not Eastern-rite Catholics.[/quote]
The Eastern Catholic Churches were forced to adopt the Western annulment system at the end of the 19th century, even though that system has no support in the Byzantine doctrinal tradition, which holds that the priest -- not the couple -- is the minister of the mystery of crowning.

[Dave]

[quote name='Apotheoun' post='1610123' date='Jul 27 2008, 07:48 PM']The Eastern Catholic Churches were forced to adopt the Western annulment system at the end of the 19th century, even though that system has no support in the Byzantine doctrinal tradition, which holds that the priest -- not the couple -- is the minister of the mystery of crowning.[/quote]

But if marriage is indissoluble, then wouldn't having 2nd marriages without an annulment be, in effect, a lie? I mean, the idea that it's the couple who administers the sacrament to each other is official Catholic teaching, but I don't understand what remarrying without an annulment would have to do with that.

Edited July 28, 2008 by Dave

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Dave' post='1610225' date='Jul 27 2008, 07:02 PM']But if marriage is indissoluble, then wouldn't having 2nd marriages without an annulment be, in effect, a lie? I mean, the idea that it's the couple who administers the sacrament to each other is official Catholic teaching, but I don't understand what remarrying without an annulment would have to do with that.[/quote]
Have you read Melkite Catholic Archbishop Zoghby's article that I posted? He answers your questions.

As far as annulments are concerned, based upon the unanimous teaching of the Eastern Fathers going back to the first millennium, I do not believe that they are even possible.

[Fr. Bruno]

Thanks for those two links. Interesting, but :

The pastoral situation that Archbishop Zoghby deals with seems quite different from that we usually face today. He's talking about an innocent partner who was abandoned by the other. But who are we to judge that one of partners is completely innocent of what happened, the other one the only guilty one ? First, you would have to hear both of them, to make a sound judgment : but this seems quite difficult in most cases.
I read both of his articles, but there is still one question I did not find any answer to:
if somebody remarries with the Church's blessing, does that mean he/she is no longer married to the first partner ? If so, can we still consider marriage indissoluble ?