I posted on this back in January, but given the post on civil divorcees being FINISHED with any romantic relationships, it certainly bears repeating and expanding upon.
Cardinal Burke advocates an approach whereby a couple who are not actually married to each other may publicly receive Holy Communion IF they live together as “brother and sister”, meaning they continue to cohabit and publicly present as a married couple, but stop having sex.
Nope. That dog won’t hunt, and here’s why:
The universal presumption is that every married couple engages in the marital act, that is, sexual intercourse. And this assumption is exactly as it should be. The PRIMARY point of marriage is the procreation and raising of children, period. The unitive aspect between the spouses is SECONDARY. Since all non-divine people are conceived through sexual intercourse, of course sexual intercourse is ASSUMED between all couples who present themselves as “married”.
Here is the truth of how this situation worked before the infiltration and attack on The Church concurrent with the dumpster fire that is called the failed Second Vatican Council.
When two people who were civilly “remarried” after a civil divorce reverted to Catholicism and could not separate (generally due to having minor children), and necessarily stopped having sex with each other because they fully acknowledged the truth that they were NOT married to each other and that any conjugal contact would be mortally sinful, even then, these people would NEVER receive Holy Communion publicly (they would receive privately, generally in the sacristy, by appointment), or if they did receive publicly, it would be in a parish very far away where they were totally unknown.
Think about it. Everyone assumes that married couples have sex with each other. Do we honestly believe that The Church would want people to PUBLICLY ANNOUNCE AND ADVERTISE their sexual activity (or lack thereof)? Of course not. So, what Cardinal Burke is advocating is for people who are “living as brother and sister” to do by receiving Holy Communion publicly is either:
A.) Continue to scandalize the faithful who justly assume that all “married” couples have sex with each other, OR
B.) Require the “married” couple to publicly announce on a continual basis that they are not having sex.
This is insane.
There should be NO PUBLIC RECEPTION OF HOLY COMMUNION by people who are living as a married couple with anyone other than their true spouse. Period. The concession of permitting people to continue to cohabit in continence for the sake of rearing children is already a massive, massive concession. But there is simply no way that such “brother-and-sister” couples can receive Holy Communion publicly, or in a parish in which they are known, because scandal is the byproduct either way, either by the just assumption of the community of the couple’s sexual activity, OR the couples’ persistent public discussion of their sex life, which is a scandal unto itself.
Nope. Sorry. This whole discussion is actually built on a false premise to begin with. Even Cardinal Burke is unsound, which really isn’t surprising, considering that he believes that the failed Second Vatican Council is anything other than the satanic dumpster fire that it so obviously is. The logical progression is simple, PLUS we have the tradition of The Church and the clear historical precedent for dealing with these situations right in front of us. And yet, even one of the “greatest minds” in the Church today discards both in favor of an illogical and unprecedented non-solution solution.
Oh, and he also thinks Bergoglio is the pope. Or, at least that is what he says in public. That is another clue.
Man, if I were a reporter and I could interview Cardinal Burke, I’d put this fairly simple logical corollary to him and not let him weasel his way out of it. Enough of this effeminate “third way” crap. Enough.
Folks, our sins have consequences. Sometimes extremely serious consequences that last for the rest of our lives. Grow up. Face reality. Deal with the consequences of your own actions and poor decisions. And teach your children and grandchildren the TRUTH, namely that marriage is forever, and maybe then your children and grandchildren will not make the dumb@$$ decisions that you made, and will think twice about marrying a person who does not believe what The Church teaches, whole and entire.
Stop trying to pretend that people have absolutely no comprehension of the plain sense of simple words in their mother tongue.
“‘Til death do us part.”
“As long as you both shall live.”
“Those whom God has joined together, let no man put asunder.”
Crystal, crystal, crystal clear.
And you don’t need a Ph.D. in sacramental theology to “understand” marriage. That is another transparent lie that is being peddled today. Up until not too terribly long ago, consider that most people were illiterate. And yet, they all understood with complete clarity and facility that marriage is indissoluble.
If you love your kids, you will teach them to not screw up their lives in the first place, rather than lyingly telling them that if they screw up, there is a bee-ess “free do-over card”, which deep down, we all know doesn’t really exist. We all know that marriage is indissoluble because marriage is so utterly essential to human society that it is a domain of the Natural Law, which is why every human society on earth has a form of marriage, and why if even the pagans in the deepest darkest jungles enter into marriage, utterly and completely unchurched, The Church recognizes that marriage as a Natural Marriage.
The indissolubility of marriage is written on the heart of every human being. As with revulsion to sodomy, it has to be specifically inculcated out by the constant attack of scandal. To argue against this truth is to argue that men are beasts – which is exactly what satan wants humanity to believe about itself.
If you have children, one thing you can do to teach your children a fundamental respect for Holy Matrimony, for themselves and for those of the opposite sex from their earliest days, is to pray for their future spouse in their bedtime prayers.