by Christopher A. Ferrara
July 31, 2017
No one, not even a Pope, can alter the constant teaching and integrally related discipline of the Church on the “intrinsic impossibility” of absolution and Holy Communion for public adulterers in “second marriages” who intend to continue their adulterous relations.
Recall what Pope Benedict XVI said about the function of the papacy in his first sermon as the newly elected Roman Pontiff:
“The Pope is not an absolute monarch whose thoughts and desires are law. On the contrary: the Pope’s ministry is a guarantee of obedience to Christ and to his Word. He must not proclaim his own ideas, but rather constantly bind himself and the Church to obedience to God’s Word, in the face of every attempt to adapt it or water it down, and every form of opportunism.”
Consider God’s word concerning divorce: “Every one that putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and he that marrieth her that is put away from her husband, commmitteth adultery.” (Luke 16:18)
Based on God’s word, and the constant teaching and discipline of the Church in obedience to it for 2,000 years, both John Paul II and Benedict XVI — acting as a Pope must — reaffirmed the Church’s bimillenial teaching that public adulterers, by the very fact of their state in life, cannot partake of the Blessed Sacrament.
But now, thanks solely to Amoris Laetitia (AL), we are told by the very prelate Pope Francis has put in charge of the John Paul II Pontifical Institute for the Study of Marriage and Family that this teaching has, in practice, been overthrown. Archbishop Vincenzio Paglia (of obscene mural infamy), openly declares in a recent interview that those living in “irregular” unions are now to be “integrated” into ecclesial life just as they are, with no prior amendment of life:
“Those who live in irregular situations, if they accept being accompanied in a shared faith journey in the Christian community (especially if the process is promoted and guided by the bishop), will be able to encounter various and gradual forms of integration, not excluding sacramental integration.”
The meaningless verbiage — “being accompanied in a shared faith journey in the Christian community… gradual forms of integration” — is merely a fig leaf that hides a naked permission for those living in various states of habitual and public adultery to receive Holy Communion without a prior amendment of life. And that is exactly what the bishops of Germany, Sicily, Malta and elsewhere have authorized, while bishops in other countries, such as Poland, continue to defend the Church’s bimillenial teaching and discipline, as did Francis’ two immediate predecessors on the Chair of Peter.
The headline at Life Site News says it all: “Vatican archbishop: Pope Francis opened Communion to adulterers.” And this is the prelate who has been made the head of John Paul II’s institute on marriage and family!
We are witnesses to a growing catastrophe. Willful blindness to the facts is not an option here. All we can do in the face of that reality is precisely what Our Lady of Fatima requested of all Catholics, which includes praying for the Pope. Pray as well for the divine resolution that will surely follow upon the Consecration of Russia to Mary’s Immaculate Heart.
Our Lady of Fatima, intercede for us!