From: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2013
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste reader from New York who has requested that we hide her identity writes: “Sir, I have read your article on German bishops and I fully support them that divorced and remarried Catholics should be allowed to receive Holy Communion.
Even here in USA the divorce cases are high. I have been divorced for 9 years now and got married to another man but our Pastor here insists I cannot be allowed to wed in the church again or receive the Communion because during our first wedding we vowed that only death can separate us.
I filed the divorce case and the court allowed us to divorce. We have formalized our marriage civilly but the Pastor says the Catholic Church maintains that our first marriage is still valid and therefore cannot be allowed to wed with this man in the church.
I am fed up and sometimes I just regret why I became a Catholic. Sir I am deeply stressed and confused, yet I desire to continue receiving the Holy Communion. Otherwise thank you very much for raising this issue. Please I request you hide my identity”.
The sentiments of this lady from New York are the same with many divorced and remarried Catholics. Many would like to be allowed to receive the Communion. This is not possible because while the Catholic Church teaches that divorced Catholics can receive the sacraments, Catholics who have been divorced and remarried civilly cannot.
In the Catholic Church we do not talk of divorce but an annulment. Divorce and annulment is not the same thing; they differ in two ways: First, divorce is a civil law decree from the state, whereas an annulment is a canon law decree from the Church.
In other words, the state issues a marriage license; and the state issues a divorce decree while the Church celebrates the Sacrament of Matrimony; and only the Church can issue a Decree of Nullity (otherwise known as an annulment). This is because the Church does not believe in divorce.
The main reason for getting an annulment is that the sacrament of marriage wasn’t valid. Unlike divorce, an annulment is usually retroactive, meaning that an annulled marriage is considered to be invalid from the beginning almost as if it had never taken place.
Most annulments are based on canon 1095. It gives three conditions that would make a person unable to contract marriage from mental incapacity: (1) who lack the sufficient use of reason; (2) who suffer from grave lack of discretion of judgment concerning essential matrimonial rights and duties which are to be mutually given and accepted;
(3) who are not capable of assuming the essential obligations of matrimony due to causes of a psychic nature.
Canon 1096 further states thus: 1. For matrimonial consent to be valid it is necessary that the contracting parties at least not be ignorant that marriage is a permanent consortium between a man and a woman which is ordered toward the procreation of offspring by means of some sexual cooperation.
Error concerning the person also renders marriage invalid (Canon 1097). For example, a man may marry believing the woman to be the mother of his child, a fact which later proves erroneous. If that was the direct and primary reason he married her then his consent was conditioned by that quality.
Or, a woman may believe she is marrying into a certain family, and that quality of her fiancé is the principal and direct reason for marrying him. The motive may be specious, but it determines her consent.
Marriage based on a condition concerning the future can also not be contracted validly (Canon 1102) A condition can also be made based on past and present behavior, even though it concerns the future. For example, a man marries a woman with a past drinking problem based on her promise to live soberly.
A marriage is also invalid if it is entered into due to force or grave fear inflicted from outside the person, even when inflicted unintentionally, which is of such a type that the person is compelled to choose matrimony in order to be free from it (Canon 1103)
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, offenses against the dignity of marriage included adultery (Cat. 2380). Adultery refers to marital infidelity. This is when two partners, of whom at least one is married to another party, have sexual relations – even transient ones – they commit adultery.
Adultery is an injustice (Cat. 2381). This is because he who commits adultery fails in his commitment. He does injury to the sign of the covenant which the marriage bond is, transgresses the rights of the other spouse, and undermines the institution of marriage by breaking the contract on which it is based.
On divorce, since the Lord Jesus insisted on the original intention of the Creator who willed that marriage be indissoluble (Cat. 2382), it explains why Catholic teaching is against the divorce.
It explains further, why divorce is a grave offense against the natural law (Cat. 2384). Divorce claims to break the contract, to which the spouses freely consented, to live with each other till death.
Divorce is immoral also because it introduces disorder into the family and into society (Cat. 2385). This disorder brings grave harm to the deserted spouse, to children traumatized by the separation of their parents and often torn between them, and because of its contagious effect which makes it truly a plague on society.
Pastors must know that, for the sake of truth, they are obliged to exercise careful discernment of situations and should not act rigidly. Where the Pastor cannot solve it is always advisable he refers the matter to the canonists.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
Tel +254 7350 14559/+254 722 623 578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.com
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Twitter-@8000accomole
Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.
-Anne Montgomery, RSCJ
UN Disarmament
Conference, 2002