The Synod, Viewed From the Right | National Catholic Reporter

The Synod, Viewed From the Right | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: I am all for the Church using its offices to make sure that mental and addictive health care and adequate incomes are available to singles and families alike.  It might decrease divorces or it might not.  There will still be people who leave marriages because they don't feel happy, in love or all those things that are essentially giving up.  Should these people be allowed to marry again in the Church?  Only if the spouse that was left behind consents.  We keep thinking that this matter is somehow a sin against God.  Far from it, unless your God is like Edmund Burke, a bit priggish.  Even in those cases, to find love in a second marriage cannot be considered sinful - what Christ condemned, if you look at the text, was a family breaking up their child's marriage so they can marry again into higher status (a variation of telling a child who is unhappy in marriage to leave instead love).  It is the scheming of the parents that is condemned.  (I am not sure I have forgiven my in-laws).  Regardless, does getting married again constitute a serious sin?  Depends.  If you were being beaten, were married to a drunk or were abandonned by someone seeking greener pastures, I would say no.  These are not once size fits all matters and their reality does not fit into the Annullment model, so we should quit trying to make it and realize divorce is legitimate and remarriage is not sinful for the wronged party.



Then there is the matter of Communion.  There are some sins that demand the person be considered unworthy to recieve.  Murder comes to mind, as does abortion if one simply did not feel like having a kid.  Adultery?  When women property there was a case for it - but not now (and drop the rest of the sexual sins, which are venial - its what venial means - of the flesh.  Depriving employees of wages they earned at they level of their productivity?  Serious sin, including if the Church secretary is not making enough to live on.  So, maybe what is needed is not mercy, but a re-examination of which sins really do exclude someone from Communion.  I think that is what we are getting to and its more honesty than mercy.