Note: We were asked to promote the following text and prayer with you, our readers, and ask you and other media to please share it far and wide. It was written by Tomash Peta, Metropolitan Archbishop of the archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana; Jan Pawel Lenga, Archbishop-Bishop emeritus of Karaganda; and Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of the archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana:
Following the publication of the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris laetitia, in some particular
churches there were published norms for its application and interpretations
whereby the divorced who have attempted civil marriage with a new partner,
notwithstanding the sacramental bond by which they are joined to their legitimate
spouse, are admitted to the sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist without
fulfilling the duty, established by God, of ceasing to violate the bond of
their existing sacramental marriage.
Cohabitation more uxorio with
a person who is not one's legitimate spouse represents, at the same time, an
offense to the Covenant of Salvation, of which sacramental marriage is a sign
(cf. Catechism of the Catholic
Church, 2384), and an offense to the nuptial character of the Eucharistic
mystery itself. Pope Benedict XVI revealed such a correlation when he wrote:
"The Eucharist inexhaustibly strengthens the indissoluble unity and love
of every Christian marriage. By the power of the sacrament, the marriage bond is
intrinsically linked to the Eucharistic unity of Christ the Bridegroom and his
Bride, the Church (cf. Eph. 5:31-32)" (Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum caritatis, 27).
Pastors of the Church who tolerate or authorize, even in individual or
exceptional cases, the reception of the sacrament of the Eucharist
by the divorced and so-called "remarried,” without their being clothed in
the "wedding garment," despite the fact that God himself has
prescribed it in Sacred Scripture (cf. Matt. 22:11 and 1 Cor. 11:28-29) as the
necessary requirement for worthy participation in the nuptial Eucharistic
supper, such pastors are complicit in this way with a continual offense against
the sacramental bond of marriage, the nuptial bond between Christ and the
Church and the nuptial bond between Christ and the individual soul who receives
his Eucharistic Body.
Several particular Churches have issued or recommended pastoral
guidelines with this or a similar formulation: "If then this choice [of
living in continence] is difficult to practice for the stability of the
couple, Amoris laetitia does
not exclude the possibility of access to Penance and the Eucharist. That
signifies something of an openness, as in the case where there is
a moral certainty that the first marriage was null, but there are not the
necessary proofs for demonstrating such in the judicial process. Therefore,
there is no reason why the confessor, at a certain point, in his own
conscience, after much prayer and reflection, should not assume the
responsibility before God and the penitent asking that the sacraments be
received in a discreet manner."
The previously mentioned pastoral guidelines contradict the
universal tradition of the Catholic Church, which by means of an uninterrupted
Petrine Ministry of the Sovereign Pontiffs has always been faithfully kept,
without any shadow of doubt or of ambiguity, either in its doctrine or its
praxis, in that which concerns the indissolubility of marriage.
The norms mentioned and pastoral guidelines contradict moreover in
practice the following truths and doctrines that the Catholic Church has
continually taught as being sure:
