Or, as I have written dozens of times, the Diabolical Inversion of Truth. I don’t know where this papacy is headed, but whatever it is, we are now sprinting towards it.
“the great majority of our sacramental marriages are null”
That’s right, the “great majority” of human beings are incapable of entering into a valid sacramental marriage. God created the sacred institution of marriage, created it specifically for humans, created it perfectly because He Himself is perfect, yet today the pope says the great majority of humans are incapable of contracting marriage. Because they don’t know what they are doing.
Where does one even begin?
I’m not attaching links, because I’m late to this and there has already been a lot of commentary. Frankly, I don’t have much to add to what I’ve already seen out there.
Note that he is specifically referring to “our sacramental marriages”. So he is excluding not only natural marriages, but also, it would seem, sacramental marriages outside the Church. He’s talking about Catholic marriages, possibly to include mixed marriages as well (one spouse Catholic, the other a baptized non-Catholic).
The distinction is important, because IMHO one could make a case today that many, many marriages in proddy world, and certainly in the civil realm, are very questionable for one simple reason: Divorce is on the table before the marriage is even consummated. Not just divorce, mind you, but so-called “no-fault” divorce. Walk away for any reason or no reason at all. Can someone really take their vow seriously, even as they are speaking it, when they know (or rather think) that divorce is a legitimate option from day one? I guess that is another topic.
Notice also the absolute concrete nature of what he said. He’s not proposing this as a possibility. He’s stating it as fact. “The great majority of our sacramental marriages are null.” Talk about having the humility and the ambition. It’s unbelievable. Of course, we all should have seen this coming, since the groundwork had already been laid with previous statements and Chapter Eight of AL.
There are such grave implications here.
- It means we need to presume at the outset that any particular marriage is null, then try to find evidence to the contrary
- It stands the tribunal process on its head
- It is a grave scandal to the spouses to encourage them to think it is more likely their union is null, discouraging them from sacrificing and striving for perfection
- Think of the harm this will cause children
- It makes the Church complicit, abrogates the sacrament itself, because why is She marrying this “great majority” of people She knows have impediments to marriage?!!
Not satisfied with overturning the Church’s millennial presumption of validity, Pope Francis goes full monty, or rather full diabolical inversion of truth, with his institution of the sacrament of cohabitation.
“I’ve seen a lot of fidelity in these cohabitations, and I am sure that this is a real marriage, they have the grace of a real marriage because of their fidelity”
So according to Francis, public fornication is full of grace and is a real marriage, but chances are your sacramental marriage is not real. This is straight from the pit of Hell.
Again, not a lot of nuance here. Not “maybe”, not “possibly.” No. “I am sure that this is a real marriage” and “They have the grace of a real marriage”. It is flat out heresy, to the point where you have to wonder if the man is so astonished at what he’s already gotten away with, he just can’t resist throwing out bigger and bigger heresies to see if anyone challenges him.
Well, red hats, when will you rise up?
I read one comment elsewhere that described him as a foolish, coarse and lewd old man. And that’s what he is. He himself is responsible for these comments, which we know are his from his track record in Argentina, where he actively discouraged people from marrying in the Church, but I’m sure Fernandez and Kasper have got his back.
What he is doing is a masterpiece for modernists. I don’t think he is foolish. He makes chaos, then have a break until people calm down and then the other chaotic bombshell pop up.
I’ve never been married, but I have been active in the pro-life movement for about twenty-five years. Just from my viewpoint, when the vast majority of Catholics in the U.S. enter into marriage, even in the Church, with absolutely no intention of abiding by Church teaching on family planning, I might have to agree that it seems that the vast majority of Catholic “marriages” are indeed shams. I would say such people are indeed incapable of entering into true marriage because they are unwilling to enter into true marriage. That would be as if a single Catholic like myself said I am a faithful Catholic truly called to the single vocation, I go to Church on Sunday and volunteer, but I have no intention of living by Church teaching on chastity for my state in life. I would willfully make myself incapable of living as a true Catholic because I would be unwilling to live as one. That’s the way I see it. I’m no professional theologian or philosopher so if my reasoning is off of inaccurate perhaps someone could correct it. Thank you.
The use of contraception, while gravely sinful, does not nullify a marriage. As long as the couple is open to children, some number of children, the marriage is valid.
BTW… as I just remarked to someone, the Pope didn’t change the Code of Canon Law or anything else for that matter via off-the-cuff remarks to a layman during Q&A at a conference. What he said may be confusing, and we can use his words as a stimulus to do a better job of marriage prep, but his words change nothing: the Church’s pernnenial teaching and law are today what they were the day before yesterday.
Don’t have a spittle-flecked nutty. Just shake your head with a smile as you flip to another page and say, “Bless him, he sure likes to gab with people, doesn’t he!”
That was Fr. Z. treating the putative pope as though he were an 11 y.o. boy on a playground.
Wel, if one does not infantilise him, one would be required to note his habitual heterodoxy and that would require making a judgment, wouldn’t it?
Maybe some priests are more interested in what fabulous meal they will have tonight of where his readers will send him next by buying him tickets…
I don’t believe better “marriage prep” is the issue, these young kids have every intention of contracepting from the beginning and have the unspoken agreement amongst themselves that if it doesn’t work out, no problem! They know what they need to say in order to pass the classes, and they say it, it’s just too high a % of them have NO INTENTION, from the beginning, of living by it., They are, in a real sense, COMMITTING PERJURY before God in their marriage vows. And in that case the Pope is right, it’s a sham.
Father Z was trying to walk the tightrope between obedience to Truth and loyalty to the Pope. Your reference to his culinary enthusiasms is unbecoming. It suggests you are more Martha than Mary-Judas Iscariot would be going too far.
Every week the nightmare that is Francis’ papacy continues and worsens everything in the Church. Please God help us!
I am a senior citizen. In the first days of francis’ papacy, My son, (who I live with)
was appalled by his remarks. My son said, “I am no longer a Catholic.”
I attended St. Patrick Cathedral School, in Newark, N. J. The Mass was sung
in Latin, the responses given by the seminarians, who sat in the choir loft.
It was beautiful.
I suggest frances becomes an atheist.
ALL of the things he has done so far will be as invisible compared to what he will do when he travels to Lund, Sweden when he celebrates the protestant revolution later this year in a joint Lutheran-Catholic prayer service in a Cathedral stolen by the Lutherans from the Catholic Church.
That evil act be the initial public act inaugurating the new world wide church of indifference.
Just wait until you see the photos of him bowing down before a Lesbian bishop blessing him and that lesbian bishop is married to another lesbian bishop and if you STILL think he is pope after that, they you will be as hopeless then as ABS is Popeless now.
“Pope” Francis seems to think the sacrament of marriage
isn’t really a sacrament that confers dissoluble union.
He also seems to think the sacrament isn’t what makes
a marriage.
These two statements are antithetical to everything I was
taught as a Catholic.
the local parish in my area recently gave
parishoners a handbook on annulments. I found it interesting
that expectations of a certain level of income are grounds for annulment !
Here is a .pdf of the pamphlet:
https://www.osv.com/Shop/PDFs/P111_web.pdf
Sad times in the Catholic church.
Sedevacantists are looking more and more attractive.
As contraception was mentioned in the above comments, let me just say that the Catholic Church puts married Catholics in a double bind. How? If you use artificial contraception (even non-abortifacient methods or regimens) you are wrong to do so. The Church encourages the married to use NFP rather than artificial or unnatural methods. But, when marrieds do this (use NFP or natural birth regulation), the Church tells them that they cannot do so for selfish reasons, only for “serious” reasons.
The fact is that sex within marriage is not just for making babies. The Church men do not truly understand the unitive function of sexual love.
No, it’s you who doesn’t understand. The unitive function of the marital act is subordinated to the generative function. Every act needs to be open to the possibility of life not only to fulfill the true nature of the act as created by God, but even the unitive act you speak so highly of is substantially diminished when direct contraception is involved. Don’t take my word for it, take the leap of faith and try it. And please read Humanae Vitae.