If you can't get an annulment, what happens if you marry and then take communion in the Catholic Church?

-- David Neil (summertime@ns.sympatico.ca), August 15, 2003

Answers

If your previous marriage is valid, you cannot "marry" because you are already married. Therefore, if you have sexual relations with another person, with or without another "marriage" ceremony, you commit adultery. If you are in a state of serious sin like adultery, and receive the Eucharist, that act itself is an additional serious sin - a sin of sacrilege.

-- Paul (PaulCyp@cox.net), August 15, 2003.

you not only have the sin of adultery then, but you keep adding to it the sin of sacrilage each time you take communion. if you keep doing this unrepentently you are damning yourself...

-- paul (dontsendmemail@notanaddress.com), August 15, 2003.

I had this exact same issue. Once we found out the short answer...sex or Eucharist...we chose the Eucharist and practiced abstinence until we got things sorted out.

Actually, the abstinence proved to be a really healing and growing experience, believe it or not, HOWEVER it was only temporary for two months, until things were resolved.

If we could never have gotten things fixed and were choosing a lifetime of abstinence, I don't really know what we would've done. Still, IMHO, the good feeling of being obedient to God and sharing in His Body and Blood, is better than a few moments of guilty pleasure here and there. I'm a woman, though. So, maybe my husband's answer would be different, ha ha.

Is your situation permanent and unfixable...or is it just a matter of time before things can be resolved?

-- Victoria (tecdork99@pvfnet.com), August 15, 2003.

"If you can't get an annulment, what happens if you marry and then take communion in the Catholic Church?"

David,

Here is a link to a little something on the subject published by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith:

CONCERNING THE RECEPTION OF HOLY COMMUNION BY DIVORCED AND REMARRIED MEMBERS OF THE FAITHFUL

In a nutshell: Members of the faithful who live together as husband and wife with persons other than their legitimate spouses may not receive holy communion. IMHO I would go further for clarification based upon one precept, that -once married; any civil ceremony to another etc, just being together as pseudo spouse with another, dating another etc. are all just derivations on a theme -Adultery...

-- AND therefore; members of the faithful who are commiting adultery (even if sanctioned civilly and accepted delusionally) may not receive holy communion.

As to 'resolving' your issue... -reading the linked document you will see that the only way to resolve such an 'issue' is by external forum -any other resolution you may haphazardly possibly 'accquire' by pastoral 'helpers' is not proper and endangers your soul:

quote: "In inviting pastors to distinguish carefully the various situations of the divorced and remarried, the exhortation recalls the case of those who are subjectively certain in conscience that their previous marriage, irreparably broken, had never been valid. It must be discerned with certainty by means of the external forum established by the church whether there is objectively such a nullity of marriage."

Daniel

-- Daniel Hawkenberry (dlm@catholic.org), August 15, 2003.

Victoria,

You did not mention 'how' your issue was resolved -do you care to provide detail?

Daniel

-- Daniel Hawkenberry (dlm@catholic.org), August 15, 2003.

David, Why cant you get a Declaration of Nullity?

Please elaborate.

Some of us are pretty well versed in the tribunal process.

Email me directly if you want.

God bless,

-- john placette (jplacette@catholic.org), August 16, 2003.

It was a hypothetical question based upon the answers many Catholics have given me, in other words, they believe: "I am a good person, I will pick and choose what to believe in the Catholic Church (e.g. birth control pills, etc, etc), the Pope is in Rome and I don't have to listen to those guys, they are not with present reality. Hey, you all know people as I have described, how do you answer them?

-- David Neil (summertime@ns.sympatico.ca), August 16, 2003.

People who pick and choose which Catholic teachings they accept are not in fact Catholic. This approach to beliefs is precisely what defines Protestantism. All Protestants accept many Catholic beliefs. Otherwise, there is no way they could be Christian, since all true Christian beliefs were originally Catholic beliefs, and still are. Being "a good person" is not sufficient. There are plenty of pagans who are basically good people, from a humanitarian viewpoint. What they lack is truth, and God has said it is truth which sets us free (John 8:32); therefore these "good people" are still in spiritual bondage.

"Present reality" is still the same as it has been for 2,000 years - Jesus Christ founded one Church to be the pillar and foundation of truth and the channel of salvation for all men, and endowed that Church with the gift of true and authoritative teaching. That was reality in the first century, it is reality now, and it will be reality until the end of time. People who pick and choose the divine truths made available through the Church are not interested in reality, except where reality coincides with their personal desires. What they want to do is design their own alternate "reality", and live in it, and it may or may not include elements of God's reality, depending upon how conveniently His reality coincides with theirs. However, their final judgment will be very real indeed. It will occur precisely according to God's plan, not theirs, and at that time God will demand an accounting of their lives - a real acounting - the parts lived in accord with the reality God has provided through His Church, and the parts which were lived in fantasy, according to their own desires and preferences.

-- Paul (PaulCyp@cox.net), August 16, 2003.