Category: Canon Law

A reader writes:

Is it possible for a parent to un-do a godparent for a child? Here’s our scenario:

We asked a niece and a nephew (not siblings) to be godparents to our third daughter. My niece has responded nicely to being a godmother. She’s been faithful to the church and is an all-around good person. My nephew, on the other hand….

He’s turned out to be, well quite frankly, the southern end of a north-bound horse. He lives a lifestyle that is not becoming of what my wife and I agree with. Now, it’s not like we’re judgmental in the way other people act, I’m sure we have many faults, but the lifestyle he’s chosen is something we cannot condone. As much as I’d like to go into specifics, I realize you only have a few billion things to do and you don’t want our dirty laundry.

One of the biggest reasons I’m considering doing this, if possible, is the manner in which he treats his mother (my sister). Total disdain and disrespect. I don’t want my daughter to grow up and see her godfather treat his mother that way and think it’s okay.

If it’s possible to replace a godparent, what must we do?

Unfortunately, there is no canonical procedure for replacing a godparent or stripping him of his office. This is a little surprising since there have been lame, scandalous godparents ever since the institution was established.

In former days it was held that a spiritual relationship was established between the godparent and the godchild that was so strong and enduring that it served as an impediment to marriage, though this impediment no longer exists in canon law.

The fact that such a relationship was held to exist may be why no procedures for replacing godparents developed. If godparents are sufficiently understood on the model of actual parents then, just as you kinda gotta live with it if your actual parent is a dud then it might be inferred that you kinda gotta live with it if your godparent is a dud.

But even if godparents were understood as having relationships with their godchildren as unbreakable as those of parents, that does not mean that there is no way to address the situation, for when a parent proves fundamentally unable to care for his children then the children can be entrusted to another.

Thus it would be possible for you to tell the gentleman in question that until he shapes up he will not be able to function as the child’s godfather. You can then designate someone else to function as godfather and say, "Honey, Mr. Irresponsible isn’t able to serve as your godfather, so Mr. Responsible will be acting as your godfather instead."

I’d further note that I know that some current canonical opinion holds that, even though there is not a canonical procedure for replacing a godparent that it may be possible to go to the parish and have the baptismal registry annotated to reflect the new situation.

I’d like to have a more simple and definite answer for you on this one but, given the state of canon law on the subject, that’s a bit hard to do. At least there are ways to address the situation.

20

A reader writes:

My grandmother had altzheimer’s for several years before she died.  During that time, she went through a series of stages; first she started forgetting things, then she became deranged (trying to light a cigarette with a pen, etc), and finally, she became near catatonic.  When my grandfather looked into having Communion brought to her, it was denied because it was speculated that she no longer recognized the Holy Eucharist as the True Presence of Christ. When he told me this, I was horrified!  I can think of very few times when the administration of Holy Communion is more urgent.

In any event, when she died, it had been a period of several years since she had received Communion.

What justification can there possibly be for denying my grandmother Holy Communion, simply because she was very mentally ill?  The explanation given above is insufficient on theological grounds, since in the Byzantine rite, Holy Communion is given to infants, who do not recognize Christ’s presence in the Holy Eucharist.  How can communion, then, be denied in the Roman rite?

Please explain this to me …

What happened to your grandmother is reprehensible. I wish I’d known about it at the time, and I may have been able to point you in the right direction for getting the situation redressed.

Here are the facts:

While it is true that in the Latin Church there is a canonical requirement for people to be able to discern the Real Presence as a requirement for making their first Communion, there is NO REQUIREMENT that a person must retain this faculty in order to continue to be able to receive Communion.

The fact that the ability to discern the Real Presence is not an absolute requirement is illustrated by two things:

1) The Church’s practice (that you point out) of allowing infants to receive Communion in many of the Eastern Catholic Churches, and

2) The historic practice of the Latin Church itself in giving Communion–at least in the form of Viaticum–to people who have lost the use of reason due to illness or age.

The Church feels very strongly that the faithful receive Viaticum no matter what their circumstances, and it is normal to provide Viaticum even to people who are totally unconscious.

I know that if I’m rendered comatose on my deathbed, that’s what I want to happen (after I’m given the anointing of the sick)!

Even apart from Viaticum, though, the Church still make available Communion to those who are mentally handicapped.

This subject was touched on at the recent Synod of Bishops on the Holy Eucharist. The Propositions that the synod fathers wrote for the consideration of Pope Benedict contain the following:

Proposition 44

The Eucharist and the Sick

We consider it of utmost importance to favor Eucharistic celebration for the sick, through an appropriate catechesis on active participation in the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ. A special significance of the Eucharist, as summit of Christian life, is enclosed in its reception as Holy Viaticum. Given that it opens paschal fullness to the sick person, it is recommended that its practice be intensified.

It is especially requested that Eucharistic Communion be provided to baptized and confirmed mentally disabled persons: The latter receive Communion in the faith of the family and of the community that support them.

The impossibility of knowing the effective sensitivity proper to certain types of sick people is not sufficient reason not to give them all the sacramental supports of which the Church disposes. It is important that those who suffer from disability may be recognized as members of the Church in all aspects, and have their just place in her.

It is desirable, moreover, that the architectural functionality of churches facilitates their participation in celebrations.

I need to point out that the Propositions released by the synod fathers are not a legally binding document, but they are illustrative of the attitude taken by the Church toward the interpretation of its law on these points, and the law simply does not prevent someone in your grandmother’s condition form receiving Communion.

Period.

20

A bunch of folks have e-mailed me about a situation occurring in the Diocese of Orange (California) in which a number of parishioners have been "invited" to "leave" their parish and the diocese.

According to some, the reason for this is that they insist on kneeling after the Agnus Dei when the local bishop has determined otherwise.

Now, for those who may not be aware, the determination that there will not be kneeling after the Agnus Dei is a determination that liturgical law empowers a bishop to make in this country. He’s within his rights to do that. Section 43 of the U.S. version of the GIRM provides:

In the dioceses of the United States of America, they [the faithful] should kneel beginning after the singing or recitation of the Sanctus until after the Amen of the Eucharistic Prayer, except when prevented on occasion by reasons of health, lack of space, the large number of people present, or some other good reason. Those who do not kneel ought to make a profound bow when the priest genuflects after the consecration. The faithful kneel after the Agnus Dei unless the Diocesan Bishop determines otherwise.

Now: I don’t know whether this is the real issue in the parish in question or not. I’ve had people e-mail me links to a bunch of stories that give the parishioners’ side of what is going on, but that’s the problem: It’s the parishioners’ side of things. I don’t have a full account of what the other side of the story is.

I’ve seen the text of the letter in which the priest invites them to leave, but this document only makes summary allegations (e.g., that the parishioners have distributed literature that made false allegations against the diocese and the priest). It doesn’t get into the specifics underlying these charges (e.g., what was it specifically that the parishioners said that was false?).

In the absence of further information, I can’t make any judgment one way or the other about this situation.

But I would comment on one thing: What the priest said in his letter is . . . odd, canonically speaking.

Here’s the relevant passage:

With full responsibility, authority and faculties of an Administrator of St. Mary’s by the Sea, appointed by Bishop Brown, for the sake of the common good of the Church, the parish and the diocese, with the approval of the Bishop, I (very sadly) officially invite you To leave the parish St. Mary’s by the Sea and the diocese of Orange.

You will be welcomed back only with your sincere heart-felt repentance/conversion on these issues mentioned above.

What is one to make of this?

It is certainly not a decree of excommunication. That’s obvious on its face. So the parishioners aren’t excommunicated.

What is meant by inviting them "to leave"? This obviously isn’t an old fashioned "Get out of Dodge" request. The priest isn’t expecting them to physically move out of the Diocese of Orange (or I assume he’s not).

Is he suggesting that they formally defect from the Church? If so, then Rome is going to take a very dim view of that. Formal defection from the Church is an intrinsically evil act, and priests should not be in the business of recommending that people commit intrinsically evil acts.

Is he just inviting them to not attend church in the diocese until they shape up? Maybe. That’s something that could arguably be within the authority of a bishop.

I mean, there may be individuals in a diocese who are so disruptive–even though they haven’t committed the canonical crimes that would ordinarily result in excommunication–that it is reasonable to request their non-attendance until they shape up.

I suspect that there would be a way for the bishop to handle this via the Code’s "just penalty" provisions, without going all the way up to an excommunication. But we don’t have a decree imposing a penalty here.

We may, in fact, have a translation problem. The priest’s last name is "Tran," which I assume means that he is of Vietnamese extraction, so English may not be his first language. That could play a role either in the way he articulates himself in the letter or in what he understood the bishop to be authorizing him to do.

I suspect we’ll be hearing more about this in the future.

You may have heard about a case in the Diocese of Phoenix in which there is controversy over a 10-year old autistic boy’s ability to receive Communion.

The boy’s autism apparently causes him to spit out things with certain textures, and a typical Host has such a texture. Neither can he swallow the Precious Blood, according to his father.

The solution that the family has arrived at is for their son to receive Communion in the form of the Host and, after a few seconds, for the boy’s father to take the Host and consume it himself.

The family argues that this practice was approved by the diocese in Pennsylvania when they lived there, though this is disputed.

The matter was referred by the pastor of their current parish in Arizona to the bishop, who indicated that the family’s current practice could  not be approved but that the diocese wanted to work with the family to find a solution that would allow their son to receive Communion, perhaps using differently shaped Hosts.

Now the family is up in arms and the media has got the story.

GET THE STORY.

Fortunately,

ED PETERS OFFERS SOME CANONICAL COMMENTARY ON THE SITUATION.

This issue involves the intersection of three related fields: canon law, liturgical law, and sacramental theology.

I don’t have a solution on this one about what the law or theology definitely requires. It seems to me that the law is not designed to address this kind of situation and the matter may ultimately have to be decided by Rome if a mutally agreeable solution cannot be found on the diocesan level.

But let’s examine some of the relevant considerations that the involved parties (including potentially Rome) would want to consider.

Ed covers the canonical aspect, which centers on the boy’s presumptive (but not absolute) right to receive Communion and the bishop’s responsibility to enforce liturgical law and regulate the liturgical life of the parishes in his diocese.

Liturgical law is engaged on the subject of how Communion is distributed. Thus the General Instruction of the Roman Missal provides:

161. If Communion is given only under the species of bread, the priest raises the host slightly and shows it to each, saying, Corpus Christi (The Body of Christ). The communicant replies, Amen, and receives the Sacrament either on the tongue or, where this is allowed and if the communicant so chooses, in the hand. As soon as the communicant receives the host, he or she consumes it entirely.

And the instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum provides:

[92.] Although each of the faithful always has the right to receive Holy Communion on the tongue, at his choice, if any communicant should wish to receive the Sacrament in the hand, in areas where the Bishops’ Conference with the recognitio of the Apostolic See has given permission, the sacred host is to be administered to him or her. However, special care should be taken to ensure that the host is consumed by the communicant in the presence of the minister, so that no one goes away carrying the Eucharistic species in his hand. If there is a risk of profanation, then Holy Communion should not be given in the hand to the faithful.

The Diocese of Phoenix has apparently appealed to these two documents in explaining the bishop’s decision, and these seem to be the two relevant passages.

You will note that the passage from Redemptionis Sacramentumdoes not specifically address the situation of the boy’s family. Since the father consumes the Host before leaving the presence of the priest "no one goes away carrying the Eucharistic species in his hand." However this passage may contain a principle that the bishop is attempting to unearth and apply pastorally. (Or I may have the wrong passage; or the diocesan representative may have misspoken in referring to this document.)

The GIRM passage, however, does address the situation assuming that the word "consumes" has its usual signification, which would include not just placing something in one’s mouth but swallowing it as well.

But is that what is meant in this passage? It seems that a case can be made that what the text means is that the communicant is to put the sacred species entirely into his mouth. It doesn’t mean that he has to swallow it immediately after receiving it. If he allows it to dissolve in his mouth, or if he waits to chew and swallow until the host is softened and he is back in his seat, that is permitted (it could be argued) by this passage. So "consume" may not entail swallowing in this passage.

Certainly, by parallel, the passage in Redemptionis Sacramentum does not mean that the communicant must swallow the sacred species in the presence of the priest. It just means he has to put them in his mouth.

There’s also a dimension of this that goes beyond the law and engages sacramental theology:

What does it mean to receive Communion?

Jesus told the apostles to "take and eat" the species, and eating normally involves swallowing. But is swallowing the species necessary to receive Communion in all circumstances?

What about the widespread practice of individuals who allow the Host to disolve in their mouths before they swallow it. Since the process of letting the Host dissolve means that it no longer has the appearance of bread, this would mean that the Real Presence has ceased by the time they swallow. Yet the Church has not traditionally said that such people have not received Communion.

Further, what about people who are medically unable to receive more than a few drops of the Precious Blood? In the case of their reception of Communion, the Real Presence may also cease before they swallow as the sacred species are corrupted by the saliva in their mouths. Yet the Church does not deny these people Communion or say that they have not received Communion in these situations.

Whenever anyone receives Communion, the Real Presence ceases at some point when the action of their bodies sufficiently corrupts the species that the appearances of bread and wine are no longer present. In some people’s cases this happens in the stomach, and in some people’s cases it happens in the mouth. Where it happens does not seem to be determinative of whether the person has received Communion.

Further, the process of digestion actually begins in the mouth, as the saliva starts to soften the food we eat and our enzymes start working to decompose it. (Chewing also softens the food.) So even though a person hasn’t swallowed the food while it’s still in his mouth, anthropologically the process of consumption or eating has been initiated.

In the boy’s case the process of digestion is not carried through to completion, but then the Real Presence vanishes from everyone before the process is carried through to completion since the species never survive long enough as the body breaks them down.

A case can be made that what Communion fundamentally involves the oral ingestion of elements containing the Real Presence. If one has done that then, regardless of what happens afterward, one has received Communion. It isn’t necessary for the elements to be swallowed or fully digested.

Indeed, if–immediately after you received Communion–someone went into your stomach and retrieved the elements while they still had the Real Presence then we would not say that you had not received Communion. We would say that after you received Communion that someone took the elements before the Real Presence ceased.

That’s the closest analog to what is happening here, except that it’s occurring while the elements are still in the boy’s mouth rather than in his stomach.

A case thus can be made that the boy is receiving Communion in a fashion that would be recognized by sacramental theology as a reception of Communion, even if his father is then taking the elements and re-consuming them.

This, it seems to me, is where the real issue may lie. It may not be a question of "Is the boy receiving Communion even though he doesn’t swallow the elements?" A good case can be made that he is, as with people who are comatose and receive a few drops of the precious blood without swallowing them.

The question may be: Does the Church’s liturgical praxis allow–to prevent the desecration of the elements (by being spit out)–another person to re-consume the sacred species after they have been received by someone else?

I can’t recall a clear answer to that from canon or liturgical law. If there isn’t one already established then Rome may need to weigh in on this issue if the family and the diocese cannot come to a mutual agreement.

Let’s hope the latter happens.

A reader writes:

My friend is an awesome convert, and is in RCIA, but being denied the rites and Sacrament because he is divored without an annulment.  He is not remarried or engaged or even in a relationship.  He is eligible for RCIA, is he not?  How can I prove this to the gal who runs the program?  She denied him the rite of election today.

First, that’s horrible. Your friend may be devastated by this, and you should do all in your power to console him and to set this straight.

Assuming that the RCIA director is clear on the fact that your friend is not married or planning to marry in the near future (you should verify that she knows this), the most expedient way to do set things straight may be to talk to the pastor of the parish, who presumably is better informed on this point than the RCIA director.

The Church makes no requirement that people who are divorced get an annulment before they can join the Church. That is nowhere in canon law, and the burden of proof is on the lady to show where it is. (It ain’t there.)

The reason that people need annulments after divorce is to prove that they are free to remarry, not to prove that they can join the Church. As long as your friend is not remarried (or engaged or in a relationship) then he has no pressing need for an annulment.

It may be advisable for him to pursue one in case he wants to remarry in the future, but the fact is that annulments are NOT a prerequisite for joining the Church. All kinds of divorced people join the Church without annulments. You only need one if you want to remarry.

I mean: Suppose that there is a divorced person who’s marriage to his wife is valid, so that he is bound to her and not free to marry someone else. Okay, fine. He can’t marry anyone else. But that has NOTHING to do with whether he can join the Church.

God is not in the business of keeping people out of his Church just because they are divorced. There can be very good reasons why a civil divorce may be necessary–even when the marriage is valid–and the Church acknowledges this (cf. CCC 2383).

Now, if it becomes necessary to get into the canonical details of this case (which it shouldn’t be if you talk to the pastor), here is where to start:

Can.  843 §1. Sacred ministers cannot deny the sacraments to those who seek them at appropriate times, are properly disposed, and are not prohibited by law from receiving them.

§2. Pastors of souls and other members of the Christian faithful, according to their respective ecclesiastical function, have the duty to take care that those who seek the sacraments are prepared to receive them by proper evangelization and catechetical instruction, attentive to the norms issued by competent authority.

The clauses in blue indicate that if your friend is to be denied the sacraments of initiation on the grounds that he lacks an annulment that they’re going to have to cough up a law that prohibits such persons from receiving them, and there ain’t on such law.

You’ll also note that section 2 of this canon mentions precisely NOTHING about needing an annulment.

Further,

Can. 18 Laws which
establish a penalty, restrict the free exercise of rights, or contain an
exception from the law are subject to strict interpretation.

Here the blue text tells us that in order to bar your friend from exercising his right to freely embrace the Catholic faith, they’re going to have to come up with a law that unambiguously denies him the exercise of that right because of his lack of an annulment. The law has to be clearly do this in order to meet the strict interpretation test, so no trying to bend ambiguous clauses to come up with the solution the RCIA director wants.

Now let’s suppose that your friend is not baptized. What are the requirements of baptism for adults?

Can.  864 Every person not yet baptized and only such a person is capable of baptism.

Can.  865 §1. For an adult to be baptized, the person must have manifested the intention to receive baptism, have been instructed sufficiently about the truths of the faith and Christian obligations, and have been tested in the Christian life through the catechumenate. The adult is also to be urged to have sorrow for personal sins.

Ain’t nothing in there about an annulment if you’re divorced and not remarried.

Okay, so suppose your friend is already baptized and needs to be confirmed? What are the requirements for that?

Can.  889 §1. Every baptized person not yet confirmed and only such a person is capable of receiving confirmation.

§2. To receive confirmation licitly outside the danger of death requires that a person who has the use of reason be suitably instructed, properly disposed, and able to renew the baptismal promises.

Again: Nothing about nedding an annulment if you’re divorced and not remarried.

The burden is therefore entirely on the RCIA director to cough up a law that says people are to be barred from being initiated into the Church for this reason–and it has to be a clear law whose requirements stand up to strict interpretation.

Rather than hash all that out with her, though, the simplest thing is likely to be to talk to the pastor.

Please reassure your friend–who may well be devastated by this turn of events–that the Church cares for him and wants to facilitate his joining it and that the woman who denied him rite of election on these grounds is an idiot.

She is, however, an idiot who is trying to do what is right as she understands it, and that’s a good thing, so he should try to understand that as he prays for her to get smartened up.

20

We get a lot of questions at work from Catholics who got
married outside the Church and want to know if they need an annulment. The
answer is that they do.

Catholics are bound to observe the Catholic form of marriage or to get a
dispensation from it in order for their marriages to be valid. For a Catholic
to "marry outside the Church" without a dispensation thus results in
an invalid marriage, and for such a person to remarry, he needs the Church to
look at his first marriage and officially establish that it was invalid and
that he is thus free to marry someone else.

This process is commonly known as "getting an annulment." The fact
that the annulment is an open-and-shut thing in this case doesn’t mean that the
person doesn’t need one. The Church needs to look at anything that appears to
be a marriage to see if it was before it can give a person permission to marry
someone else.

But what if that doesn’t happen?

Sometimes we get people who say, "Well, our priest said that we didn’t
need an annulment because we were married outside the Church, and he went ahead
and married us anyway. Does that mean our current marriage is invalid?"

Fortunately, no it doesn’t.

The thing that determine the validity of the marriage in this case is whether
the parties were genuinely free to marry each other. If they were bound to
prior partners then they were not free and the marriage is invalid. But if they
were free then, even though they didn’t get the annulment they should have
gotten, the marriage will be valid.

Here’s how the canon law on that works: The Code of Canon Law provides as
follows,

Can.  1085
§1. A person bound by the bond of a prior marriage, even if it was not
consummated, invalidly attempts marriage.

§2. Even if the prior marriage is invalid or dissolved for any reason, it is
not on that account permitted to
contract another before the nullity. . .  of the prior marriage is
established legitimately and certainly.

The first part of this canon deals with those who are bound
by a prior bond and says that they invalidly attempt marriage.

The second part deals with those who are not bound to a prior partner, and it
says they are not permitted to attempt marriage until they receive an
annulment.

But permission only addresses the subject of liceity (conformity with the law),
not validity (objective reality). You need an annulment to get permission to
marry someone else, but if you don’t have permission, that doesn’t mean that
the new union is invalid. It means that it was illicit (not conducted in accord
with the law), but it can still be valid (objectively real).

The situation is the same as it would be if a priest celebrating the Mass fails
to say a required preface to the Eucharistic prayer. He doesn’t have permission
to omit that, and as a result his celebration of the Mass will be out of
conformity with the law and thus illicit. But the consecration of the
elements will still be valid because it isn’t the preface but the words
of consecration that bring about the consecration.

In the same way, in celebrating the sacrament of holy matrimony, under current
law it isn’t the parties having of an annulment that fundamentally determines
their ability to marry each other. It’s their objective freedom to marry.

Thus the green CLSA commentary on the Code of Canon Law notes:

If a Catholic [whose previous marriage was null] re-marries according to the canonical form after a divorce but before a declaration of nullity is granted, the marriage is illicit but valid and need not be convalidated after the previous marriage is declared null [p. 1287].

So in cases where a priest erroneously told a couple they didn’t need an
annulment and went ahead and married the parties, they will be validly married
as long as they had the freedom to marry each other.

A reader writes:

I am a convert to the Catholic faith.  I was married for many years, but our marriage hit its 5th or 6th really rough spot and I bailed.  It had been her before that, but we always got back together, because we thought of the vows and somewhere we did love each other.

I had been reading the early Church Fathers while with her and watching Marcus Grodi.  I knew that God wanted me in the Catholic Church.  I had found my high school sweetheart by that time.  I proceeded to get an Annulment and started RCIA.  I received the Annulment and our marriage was blessed in the Catholic Church the same Sunday I was received into the Church. 

My current wife says she does not love me and I am not what she wanted in a husband.

My ex-wife really does not want me back due to the annulment.  She never understood it and the fact that I have been married is a turn off to her.

I have been listening to apologists on Catholic Radio concerning annulment.  I am convinced that there should really be any such animal, especially after a long period of time.  I heard one say the other day on a Catholic radio show, that you never get the other one out of your heart if it was a sacramental marriage.

Well there are the facts.  Question.  Am I living in adultery, and could the Marriage Tribunal been wrong in granting the annulment?  I am not willing to give up on the current marriage, but if I was not free to marry and I did, I know it will never work.  What does the Church say?

First, let me say that I am very sorry to hear about your situation, and I encourage readers to pray for you and your wife.

I also did not hear what was said on the radio, so I cannot comment directly on it, but if that is what was said then it was a really dumb thing to say. The Church does not teach that valid marriages lead to inseparable emotional bonds. However romantic that idea might be, saying it in public is bound to induce scrupulosity in precisely the kind of people who are in your situation.

The fact is that there can be valid marriages which then break up and one or both of the partners severs all emotional ties with the person to whom they are validly married. Imagine, for example, the case of a person who suffers a bout of mental illness that leaves them severely psychotic and unable to have normal human emotions for anybody, including the spouse.

People also form enduring emotional bonds with all kinds of people, including those they were never married to in the first place. (E.g., two long-term lovers.) The mere fact that there is a continuing emotional bond on some level does not mean that a prior marriage was valid. Emotional bonds do not a marriage make, and it is really dumb to suggest that in public because it is just going to lead people to scruple, as it has in this case.

Conversely, it also is not true that people who were validly married before cannot invalidly remarry and have the new, invalid marriage "work." People who aren’t even married to each other (e.g., two long-term lovers) can have their relationship "work" without marriage even entering into it. Two people who are unwittingly in an invalid union certainly can.

Our culture has a very romanticized view of marriage compared to many cultures, especially historically. In most cultures in world history, romance was something that grew between the spouses after they were married, not something that precededs it and is regarded as its basis. While it’s wonderful for people to fall in love before they are married, there is a danger here of thinking of romance as the basis of a marriage, and when the romance goes away for a while, it can cause the spouses to call their marriage into question needlessly.

The fact that you have an emotional bond on some level to your prior wife does not mean that your marriage to her was valid, and the fact that you are currently having a constrained emotional relationship with your new wife does not mean that you are not validly married to her.

Emotions are simply not determinative of marriage bonds, and thinking that they are leads to needless worries and anxieties.

Nor does the length of time between a marriage and an annulment have anything to do with whether the marriage was valid. Whether the marriage was valid is determined at the moment the parties attempt to contract marriage. How long or short a time they wait before seeking an annulment is not determinative of whether the marriage was valid at the time it was contracted.

The fact of your situation is this: The Catholic Church–the Bride of Christ–looked into your first marriage and, despite giving it the presumption of validity and despite all the safeguards it has in place to prevent declarations of nullity in the case of valid marriages, it found that there were compelling reasons that it was invalid.

While it is true that tribunals are not infallible, it is also true that those who are non-experts in an area have a duty to yield to those who are experts. You are not as expert in these matters as the Church is, and so you are obliged to yield to its judgment in such matters and regard yourself as free to have contracted marriage to your current spouse.

The Church then put its seal of approval on your new marriage–and until such time as you might (God forbid) divorce and receive a new annulment–you are obligated in conscience to regard yourself as a married man and to act accordingly.

You therefore have a duty to put aside your worries (which themselves are a hindrance to fixing your current marital situation), and fulfill your duties as a loving husband to the best of your ability, knowing that God will honor your efforts to do so.

This means that if you need marriage counselling to help your marriage, you go get it. Go to Retrouvaille or talk to a local marriage counselor–whatever it takes. Do all that a husband would be expect to do to save his marriage–and only if it breaks up anyway do you proceed to the question of nullity.

That is not a question that is on the table at this point.

Your obligation is to your very best to keep it from getting onto the table.

20

As a way of building up to questions about the validity of the administration of confirmation in SSPX chapels, a reader writes:

1) Does a schismatic bishop administer Confirmation validly, even if illicitly, when there is no danger of death?

Yes. Bishops can always confirm validly, regardless of whether they are in the Catholic Church or not. Bishops are the ordinary ministers of this sacrament and so they do not need to have faculties delegated to them in order to perform it validly. The ability to do this sacrament is one of the powers that is conferred on a bishop in his ordination.

2) Does a schismatic priest administer Confirmation validly, even if illicitly, when there is no danger of death?

The law is not entirely clear on this point. There are clearly at least some circumstances in which a priest who is not a member of the Catholic Church can confirm validly. Specifically: If he is part of a non-Catholic church (in the proper sense of the term "church" with a valid episcopacy) and that church authorizes him to perform confirmations then he can do so validly. Thus Eastern Orthodox priests confirm validly.

It is not clear, however, whether a priest can confirm validly on his own, without doing so under the auspices of a church, properly so-called.

3) Does a schismatic priest administer Confirmation validly, even if illicitly, when there is no danger of death and he has no faculties from his bishop?

This is not clear. The law does not presently address this point.

4) How would the anser to #3 apply to Lefebvrist priests, who technically do not have Ordinaries?

Let’s leave aside the question of whether the Lefebvrist bishops count as "ordinaries." They are not ordinaries in the sense of persons in authority approved by Rome, but in terms of their function within the society that term may be applicable to them (even if they would disavow it).

The real question is whether the SSPX is a church or not. If they are a church and if they empower their priests to perform confirmations apart from the danger of death then these confirmations would be valid. If they are not a church then it is unclear whether the confirmations would be valid.

The SSPX, presumably, would deny that it is a church and argue that it is a priestly society. Perhaps. But schismatics typically deny that they are in schism and that they are starting a new church. Refusing to own the title "church" does not mean that you aren’t one. If the Patriarch of Constantinople decided to stop referring to the church he heads as a church then that would not make it less a church, not would it makes its confirmations invalid.

It’s that whole "a rose by any other name" thing, y’know?

So what is required for there to be a church? Some light is shed on this by the CDF’s Note On The Expression "Sister Churches" and by the Catechism.

The Note notes that "in the proper sense sister churches are exclusively particular churches (or groupings of particular churches; for example, the patriarchates or metropolitan provinces) among themselves" (10). This points toward regarding as a church outside the Catholic Church any particular church or group of particular churches.

The importance of this for the present discussion is that EITHER a single, independent particular church OR a group of particular churches is sufficient for validity of the sacraments in it. The only grouping of particular churches that is of divine origin is the Catholic Church, which these groups are outside.

As a result of the non-divine origin of groupings of particular churches outside the Catholic Church, the power of valid confirmations cannot rest in them. Thus the power of validly confirming must rest in particular churches. You don’t need a whole group of them before this power is present. Thus, for example, if somehow all the Eastern Orthodox churches EXCEPT the particular church of the Russian Orthodox of Moscow suddenly vanished then it would not cause confirmations administered in the Moscow church to be invalid just because there were no other Orthodox for them to be in communion with.

This means that if the Lefebvrists meet the qualifications for being a single particular church are met then they would have the ability to authorize their priests to do confirmations validly.

(Sorry if that seemed like a digression, but I wanted to close off a potential objection that the SSPX isn’t part of a big communion of churches like the Eastern Orthodox.)

So what do you need to be a particular church? The Catechism says:

833 The phrase "particular church," which is the diocese (or eparchy), refers to a community of the Christian faithful in communion of faith and sacraments with their bishop ordained in apostolic succession. These particular Churches "are constituted after the model of the universal Church; it is in these and formed out of them that the one and unique Catholic Church exists."

Now, the Lefebvrist bishops are ordained in apostolic succession, and if they are "in communion of faith and sacraments" with "a community of the Christian faithful" then they would seem to count as a particular church even if they don’t use this title for themselves–at least according to the definition offered by the Catechism.

If we turn to other documents, like Pius XII’s encyclical Mystici Corporis and look at what he says about the Catholic Church, we might come up with an extra criterion. In that encyclical he identifies there are being three bonds that fully unite one to the Catholic Church: faith, sacraments, and governance. If that is what is needed to be united to the Catholic Church then presumably any other body that had a common faith, valid sacraments (including the episcopacy), and a common governance would also be a church.

These the Lefebvrists seem to have. They have the Catholic faith, they have a valid episcopacy allowing for the valid exercise of all the other sacraments in at least some cases (e.g., when an SSPX bishop himself confirms), and they have their own internal governance.

So they’re looking pretty church-like, even though (I assume) they would deny this title to themselves.

Thus if they are a church and they empower their priests to confirm outside of danger of death then these confirmations will be valid.

If they’re not a church then it is unclear whether their priestly confirmations would be valid.

5) Do Confirmed Lefebvrists have to be re-Confirmed?

Pending further clarification from Rome, it is unclear whether confirmations done by SSPX priests are valid and, in the presence of the doubtful administration of a sacrament that can be administered only once, the pastorally prudent thing to do would be to administer conditional confirmations to such people.

If Rome clarifies (perhaps as part of regularization of the SSPX)  and says, "No, the first confirmations were valid" then we go with that.

6) If Levebvrist Confirmations are not valid, then why are those done by Eastern Orthodox and other schismatic Christians? (Ditto with Marriages and Confessions?)

If Lefebvrist priestly confirmations are not valid then it is because SSPX priests do not have faculties because they have not been granted them by a particular church. Eastern Orthodox and other, similar groups do have particular churches that have empowered their priets to confirm (and perform marriages and hear confessions) and so their validity would not be in doubt.

A reader writes:

I have another question about tithing in the Catholic Church?  Is there any teaching of the Church or in Canon Law, that recommends how much Catholics are to give financially out of their income, to support the Church?  Take for example, if one makes 45,000/year, what would be a reasonable amount to give in terms of every Sunday at collection?

Okay, first let me clear away a potential linguistic issue.

Tithing is a word that many people abuse, using it to refer to regular giving to the Church in any amount. That’s not what tithing is. Tithing is giving ten percent of something. That’s what the word "tithe" means–a tenth. So if a person isn’t giving ten percent of something then he’s not tithing. He’s giving, but he’s not tithing.

Now, tithing was required under the Old Law, and the Old Testament laws regarding tithing were rather complex (and somewhat unclear, at least from our latter-day perspective).

We, however, are not under the Old Law, and Christ chose not to repeat the law of tithing as part of the New Law. Instead, we are simply encouraged to give according to our means.

How much we are to give is not something that canon law presently specifies. It’s very general on this question, saying:

Can. 1262 The
faithful are to give support to the Church by responding to appeals and
according to the norms issued by the conference of bishops.

The U.S. conference of bishops also didn’t get any more specific on this. This relevant complementary norm says:

The National Conference of Catholic Bishops authorizes diocesan bishops
to establish norms for Church support by the faithful for their own
dioceses [SOURCE].

And my impression is that most bishops leave it pretty general, too, though I have heard suggested guidelines like giving one or two percent of your annual income for most parishioners, perhaps in the form of one percent ot the Church and one percent to other charities.

That level is calibrated to be within the reach of almost everyone. Many people will be able to give much more than that.

It’s really hard to give a one-size-fits-all rule here, because the economic conditions of different people vary widely. A family with several children and medical bills is likely not as able to give the same percent of their income as a single person with no children, good health, and a good-paying job.

What God is ultimately concerned about is whether we are cultivating the virtue of generosity with our giving, and generosity involves some degree of going out of our way to do something to help others. This suggests that, whatever level is appropriate for us to give, it should be a level where we feel its financial impact in some way. We shouldn’t give so much that we harm our selves or those to whom we have obligations (e.g., by giving so much that we fail to provide a decent education for our children and a decent retirement for ourselves if we have the ability to afford these things), but it should be enough that we in some way feel the financial impact.

Another piece of advice here is to start small and ratchet up the amount you give. You might want to start with a one percent figure and then adjust it upward over time until you find a good level that fits your overall finances.

You may also wish to talk to your diocese’s stewardship office (every diocese has one, and there’s likely a stewardship page on your diocesan web site) to see if your bishop has further guidelines.

So: Wish I could give you a specific number, but I hope this helps!