You might want to have this handy. I've found it helps.
The talk from Cardinal Kasper (he's baaaaa-aaaack!) to the cardinals at the weekend's consistory, the one that wasn't going to be published has been "obtained", as they say, by (surprise faces ready) our old pal Cindy Wooden at CNS.
Jesus' teaching on the indissolubility of sacramental marriage is clear, the retired German cardinal said, and it would harm individuals and the church to pretend otherwise. However, "after the shipwreck of sin, the shipwrecked person should not have a second boat at his or her disposal, but rather a life raft" in the form of the sacrament of Communion, he said.
Which my Baltic friend summed up as, "But how come I can't have the cookie? Everyone else gets the cookie!"
And Bishop Bergoglio has helped during another one of his helpful off-the-cuff homilies at D. S. Martha, with:
"As the Father had married the People of Israel, Christ married His people. This is the love story, this is the history of the masterpiece of Creation – and before this path of love, this icon, casuistry falls and becomes sorrowful. When, however, this leaving one’s father and mother, and joining oneself to a woman, and going forward... when this love fails – because many times it fails – we have to feel the pain of the failure, [we must] accompany those people who have had this failure in their love. Do not condemn. Walk with them – and don’t practice casuistry on their situation.”
Whhh...I don't.. I don't even...
Then we have the helpful water-carriers here, helpfully saying how "hopeful" it all is... though what, precisely, it is we are to be helpfully hoping for I'm not sure about.
And then the other people, the difficult people, saying, "But wait... Matthew 5... he who eats unworthily...eternal flames... gnashing... "
And all I can do is keep clicking that big red button, which is getting to be my last comfort.
~
Oh dear. Marriage is hard. Everyone used to know that. Almost everyone used to lump it and just carry on for the sake of each other, or the kids, or the neighbours or decency.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it is a fact that some people are coerced into marriage or lied to by their fiance or get married way too immature to be able to do the things they promise to do. And thus the Church, in her mercy, the Church who binds and unbinds, has this admittedly tough but doable procedure called AN ANNULMENT. Despite what people joke, it does not cost that much. Mine was cheaper than my divorce.
Knowing that otherwise, short of my ex-husband dying, I would never be allowed to marry again, I applied for an annulment and got one a year after my divorce. It was not a fun process. It sucked. It hurt--but it worked. The papers sat in a little box in my cupboard or on the desk until I handed them over, nearly ten years later, to the nervous parish priest in whose pretty church I wanted to marry my now-husband in.
Now it still can suck because today people make remarks about "rubber stamps" and "too many annulments". The fact is the culture doesn't raise marriagable adults anymore; it raises teenagers, and so it take a hella time longer to grow up. Nothing like a nasty divorce to help wit the maturation process. So instead of sneering at the so-called "rubber stamp annulment" people should encourage divorced Catholics to apply for an annulment pronto, while their witnesses are alive.
"Whhh...I don't.. I don't even..."
ReplyDeleteYeah... I agree.
Louise L
I also applied for and got an annulment. Yes the process sucks because it has to. Lots of unpleasant, personal questions to get at the truth. It didn't cost much and I was advised if I couldn't pay it wouldn't preclude me qualifying. Only if I wasn't entitled. I hear that some places they're rubber stamped. Not where I went. I double, triple checked. My annulment was granted because, at the time of my first "marriage" I was an idiot. Humiliating but true. I was alone with two children for 17 years. Had I not been granted an annulment, I would be alone still. Because it's right and just and merciful. Chloe
ReplyDeleteApropos of the above again. If you know someone whom is divorced please befriend them. Don't leave them isolated and alone. That can help drive them into sinful relationships from sheer loneliness. Friends often didn't invite me places because, well, it's awkward with single people. I was much blessed in having loving parents who gave me good grounding in my Faith. But even then, it's difficult. Chloe
ReplyDeleteCardinal Kasper - what a comedian!
ReplyDeleteSeriously though, who knew a German could come out with something so roflmao funny? And that Papa Bergoglio, with his "Kasper is a great theologian [bravo teologo]"! Stop it Jorge, you're killing me already, and you've not even been pontiff a year yet.
It all goes to show that God not only has a sense of humour, but that he writes straight with some seriously crooked lines.
Kasper's arguments for defection from Christ's teaching on marriage are almost as convincing as Ratzinger saying that he's still wearing his papal white because he doesn't have anything else to wear.
Next thing you know, someone will suggest that Paul VI get beatified; kudos for being bold with the comedy, but given how many souls have been lost, that sort of joke's in pretty poor taste.
I've got to get to bed before my sides split.