Boy, is she a cutie…NOT! Hey, I am a celibate priest, and most days that seems pretty good by me. Yes, it would be nice to have some one bring me soup when sick, and my slippers, and cook, and clean, and do the laundry and…well, as my dear mother used to say, “I am sure glad you are a priest, no woman in her right mind would have you!” Probably true, but house-keepers are soooo expensive!
Here is a peculiar test I have put together, nothing scandalous, but about Catholic teachings on sex remarked about on this Blog before.
Remember I am prudish, but I try to teach ONLY what the Church actually teaches. Good luck!
What Does Catholicism Say About Sex?
It looks like the test that I put together has been erased.
I am sorry about this and here is a new version:
CATHOLIC SEX TEST
Feel free to read the comments below.
SPOILER FOR THE CATHOLIC SEX TEST
Do not read this until after taking the test…
2) Alone together on a desert island, can a Catholic man and woman marry?
d) yes, they can pledge their vows before God privately
The laws of the Church regarding canonical form (a priest and two witnesses) is only required if it is humanly possible. A couple on a desert island, cut off from the rest of the world, can still make their vows before God and if later rescued would be considered as husband and wife by the Church. If so desired, the ceremonials associated with the exchange of vows could be provided with a Mass at that time. Remember, the couple marry themselves. The priest witnesses it for the Church.
5) How does the Catholic Church judge divorce?
a) sometimes tolerated, divorce is technically a sin
Actually, divorce is tolerated, especially in cases of abuse or where the true character of the marriage is in doubt. An annulment cannot be acquired unless there is a prior divorce. However, divorce is forbidden by Jesus and those guilty of breaking up a true marriage commit sin.
7) Can a condom be used to prevent spreading HIV to an uninfected spouse?
c) no, condom use is always intrinsically evil
Okay, upon this one I grant some confusion because of recent news stories about a possible change in Church teaching; however, I do not consider dissenting theologians and liberal bishops to be credible authorities. There was some speculation recently that the Church might permit condom use in cases where a spouse was HIV positive and the other was uninfected. Even I thought that it might be permitted if the couple were elderly or infertile. Obviously, there would be no contraceptive intent. However, given the papal teachings we do have, the danger of watering down Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae, and the consensus of magisterial theologians like Msgr. Smith of Dunwoodie and Dr. William May of the JPII Marriage Institute, it is now my conviction that the current teaching of the Church will not be modified. Condom use is always intrinsically evil. I have a long post about it on my Blog. There is no fecundity with condom use. It feigns the marital act but is objectively something else.
I did not mean to embarass anyone. The questions here could easily be misunderstood.
I always speak honestly about what I believe…and I only hold what the Church claims as true. When and if the Church corrects me, I will always be a faithful and obedient son.
As a victim of a destroyed marriage due to the Catholic Church’s acceptance and encouragement of divorce, adultery and remarriage without an annulment(which is exactly the situation I face(d)) your question of divorce is invalid and shows that you really do not know what is going on in the Catholic Church.
I speak from experience.
I have seen tremendous evil and have begged for intervention at every level in the Catholic Church and only am ignored inspite of the FACTS!
Father Joe, the Church is a whore and the clergy are her pimps and none of them care to really understand the evil they are about.
With a broken heart, I say this is absolutely true and if the Pope had the COURAGE to give me a private audience, along with my adulterous wife, her lover and all of our children, he would be heartbroken if he opened his mind, which I think is beyond him. He would see what I have seen and see how my pleas for justice and for healing a Sacramental marriage have been ridiculed and ignored, while the adultery of my wife and her lover, in the face of two Roman Rotal decisions in favor of OUR SACRAMENT has been encouraged and supported for now over sixteen years!
Show some guts and get me a Papal audience, at the Church’s expense and the Pope will nevewr be the same about these issues if he could but open his mind and LISTEN.
For the record, such as this commentary is a scandal and should not be said, unless it IS true, before Jesus Christ I have stated herein what is the TRUTH and am very willing to be held accountable for it, but only by those capable of objective, truthful analysis and free from assailing by any legal entity or ecclesial entity. I know their blood thirst for vengeance.
You may be a nobody among priests,Father Joe, but what you have read here is the TRUTH. Ignore it or say it is the rant of a madman and your Savior will know what is in your heart.
You can also be assured that there are many others who have experienced what I have and know this but who are ignored by the Catholic Church.
We DO NOT NEED OR WANT kind words. We DO NOT WANT spiritual direction.
We want accoutability among the priests and bishops for what has been done to us. And we want it done publicly since publicly our marriage have been violated. We want JUSTICE, not VENGEANCE.
We want our SACRAMENTS RESPECTED AND SUPPORTED BY ACTIONS NOT WORDS AND FALSLELY PIOUS WORDS!
We want our marriage healed, which in cases like this can only be accomplished with Canonical sanctions – EXCOMMUNICATION.
Excommunication is supposed to be used to restore a person to the state of grace but instead nothing is done while our spouses are completely accepted by the Church as a couple, albeit not married in the Church, but nevertheless funtioning as a married couple, while usually deceiving all by saying the arraingements are “brother and sister”. All this with Rotal decisions stating just the opposite.
When was the last time brothers and sisters dated? or took a romantic vacation together…..?
I dare you to have the balls to preach about this scandal from your pulpit. I would come to hear you and answer questions if you had the guts and were willing to openly challenge the Bishops and the Pope.
I would like to hear what you think, but not waste my time with piety(I have heard so much bullxxxx empty words from priests…) or yours, if you are moved to believe that there is some truth in what I have told you. But I am passed being patient/understanding unless the person is willing to go to the wall with me on this issue.
You have no idea of the rage that this injustice breeds nor the guilt we feel for our rage and our desperate desire to get rid of all the anger, to heal our marriages to forgive and to be forgiven but not a single Bishop, at least in the US, cares enough to make this a prominant issue for the press, since the rest of the Church will do NOTHING.
Karl J Wengenroth
Dear Karl,
I am sorry about what happened to you in your marriage. Even the Holy See has offered subtle warnings and guidance about the large number of annulments in the United States. The response is usually that we have the largest number of canon lawyers in the world or that Americans are generally immature and have difficulty making true commitments. Along with you, I think there is rampant abuse in the system. However, just because divorce and remarriage seems easy in this nation, and I have only had two annulment cases out of countless ones submitted that were turned down, still the truth remains that Jesus hates divorce and it is labeled “sin”. Admittedly, there are priests who would disagree with me. Certainly the Separated and Divorced Catholics groups might find such a verdict painful; however, I find disturbing that such support groups often function as dating services for men and women who are not free to marry or even to have romantic relationships (adultery) .
Dear Karl, I know it is anger and frustration speaking when you label the Church “a whore” and all her clergy “pimps”. But remember, that no matter how sinful the membership (including the clergy), the Church is holy because Christ is holy. The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ. As for clergy, yes we have more than our share of rascals, but I would contend, from my own associations, that most of them are good men who love the Lord and sacrifice much in the service of his people. Good priests keep their promises, just as we want married couples to keep theirs.
It would seem that if the Roman Rota ruled in favor of the sacrament of marriage between you and your wife, that the Pope is actually already on your side. Unfortunately, it is a big Church and even papal universal jurisdiction has a hard time breeching the mechanizations of the local churches and the various bishops. One of the reasons that Rome insists that a second tribunal affirm or cancel the decision of the primary tribunal is to help insure justice.
I know a good man, and a devout Catholic, who suffers daily because his wife left him for another man. He fought the divorce and later he tried to stop the annulment. However, he failed. He still goes to Mass and often he weeps at prayer in loss for her and in distress about the Church. He is absolutely convinced, depite the verdict of the marriage tribunal, that she is still his wife. He spurns suggestions that he should date and marry again. That would be adultery, he tells everyone, and knowing him I would be inclined to agree with him. I never met his wife and cannot say what kind of person she is, but knowing her husband (or ex-husband) my impression of her is not good. Karl, I am not blind that such things are going on. But neither can I waterdown what has always been the official teaching of the Church, and a prohibition (against divorce) that comes from the very mouth of Jesus.
The difficulty is that there are some invalid and unlawful marriages.
If the groom sleeps with the maid of honor the night before the wedding, I would say there is something seriously wrong already with the necessary intention.
If the man is partially paralyzed and impotent, he cannot lawfully consummate the marriage.
If there is an absolute opposition to children and intercourse is always contraceptive, the marriage is negated by the rejection of its principal object or good.
If the girl’s pappy forced the boy to marry his daughter at the end of a shotgun, then coercion negates the authenticity of the bond.
I have even turned down weddings that other priests eventually witnessed, as when one or both of the parties is mentally deranged. I recall one lady who was a heavily medicated paranoid schizophrenic. The drugs that drowned out the invisible voices would deform any child conceived. I recommended that she keep a platonic friendship, but that God was not calling her to marriage. They went to another priest and he did the deed. She got pregnant and had to go off medication. They had to tie her to a bed and she was a screaming insane person for months. Her husband walked off, like I suspected he would. The child had all sorts of defects and was eventually taken away from her. It was a real mess. She was incapable of the responsibilities of marriage. And her spouse, was a lazy bum.
Prenuptial agreements are the big topic these days. They imply a level of doubt that invalidates the vows. Such contracts are forbidden to Catholics, but couples sometimes lie to priests.
These are real if extreme cases, but they represent some of the genuine areas where tribunals are “supposed” to judicate.
I have even had guys who were married before who tried to hide their previous bonds! One girl had gotten married by a bogus priest!
Another fellow had a vasectomy and failed to tell the bride. She wanted a big family and found out afterwards that all he wanted was to violate her virginity.
Karl, I have seen it all. I am not the proverbial ostrich with its head buried in the sand. And yet, I sympathize with you and share your concern about laxity in the annulment system.
I have never met the current Pope myself and so I am the last one to ask in getting you an audience with him. However, he is no fool, and I think he is aware of the abuses that are going on. Much is going on behind the scenes to improve things, but I suspect it will move too slowly to assist you. I am sorry for the pain you feel. I do not know about any “blood thirst for vengeance” and do not know the particulars in the case your wife brought against you. However, I can promise you my prayers and personal good will.
Yes, I suppose you could say that I am a “nobody among priests,” but every priest can forgive sins and confect the Eucharist, and so in this light I always feel especially privileged and blessed.
I beg you not to reject the compassion and spiritual direction and formation that the Church and good priests have to offer. You may not want kind words, but I suspect that Jesus would want me to extend them to you, all the same. As for direction, I must encourage you to stay close to the Church and to Jesus. Our Lord’s sacred heart knew what it meant to be betrayed and abandoned. Find solidarity with him in prayer and hope to live your life. We cannot often control what other people do. We do have some say about what we, individually, do. We all have crosses of some sort or another. Join yours to Christ’s. Life is not fair. People we want to respect disappoint us. The “happy ever after” ending of fairytales often does not materialize…at least not in this world.
It is right to want “accountability” among our priests and bishops, but as the Scriptures tell us, “vengeance” belongs to the Lord. God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is that great Tribunal before which we will all one day stand.
People argue for the censure of excommunication these days as if its imposition would cure everything. It does not restore a person to a state of grace. Indeed, it often hardens hearts and people walk away from the faith entirely. It does the opposite from what we might expect. The person is cut off from the Church, the sacrament of salvation. What we should not forget is that which is most basic in regard to rebellion, and that is plain old mortal sin. It does not have to be imposed, the person incurs it immediately and directly by enmity with God and the violation of his commandments. Clergy and other Church officials who do not take their responsibilities seriously, or who are hypocritical, will be punished by God. People who “knowingly” commit adultery will be punished as well. St. Paul says that adulterers, fornicators, and homosexuals will ahve no part in the kingdom of God. It does not get more serious than that. But Karl, please do not forget, that while righteous indignation is permissible, violent anger and seeking revenge are also serious sins. Jesus gave us the pattern of response, he forgave his murderers from the Cross.
I do not know about your case, but if your wife is “not married in the Church,” to someone else then they are not truly married. Are you saying that her annulment was rejected? Did she apply for one? You write: “…but nevertheless functioning as a married couple, while usually deceiving all by saying the arrangements are ‘brother and sister’.” You can send me a private email about this. There is a peculiar arrangement permitted by the Church where pastors can allow a couple not married in the Church to feign such a situation in the attempt to avoid scandal. It is called INTERNAL FORUM. However, the couple has to be elderly and the annulment has to be impossible to receive. They are forbidden to publicize the true nature of their relationship and they are forbidden to have any sexual congress. They must live as brother and sister. Is this what happened?
The trouble here is that the companionship and affection owed to the lawful spouse is still withheld.
Almost everyone in my parish is elderly. It is a small place. Over the years, however, I have spoken about the sacrament of marriage and the evil of divorce. A number of my priest friends have done the same. I am not sure this necessarily brings one into opposition with the Pope and every bishop, either. Archbishop Wuerl has said wonderful things about the indissolubility of marriage in his catechism and television program.
I would ask you to avoid vulgar words in commenting at my Blog. I censored “bullxxxx” from your observations. Karl, I am a priest and I belong to the Church. The question is not whether I will stand with you, but whether or not we will both stand with Jesus.
You do not want to hear pious talk, but honestly Karl, there are some wounds that cannot be healed in this world. Life is messy and we struggle in a society of sinners with too few saints. All God is asking of you and me is that we be faithful. We may never know success, but that is okay, as long as there is fidelity.
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
Peace,
Father Joe
Father Joe,
To me , although I believe you are sincere, your words are empty.
These are the word I have heard time and time again from those in positions to actually do things but who chose not to. This is what John Paul II did when he often spoke of the large numbers of annulments and his dissatisfation with them but he did nothing!
The Pope is the only person in the Church who has the power to unilaterally change Canon Law. He does not need the approval of his fellow bishops.
With his intellect he knew what was going on in the Tribunals in the United States and elsewhere but especially here. He knew marriages were targeted for annulment. They were not examined, they were targeted. Canonists who disagree are corrupt and do not have the integrity to admit it.
To investigate this is a simple, but comprehensive process involving employing statistical experts to study the annulment system and take statistically valid samples of annulment decisions throughout the U.S. and then to have these decisions and all the evidence(which the Catholic Church does retain) evaluated for each decision using a group of retired Rotal Judges.
This would allow comparison of what the final decisions were in the U.S. versus what the final decisions would have been using Rotal standards. But, control of the process cannot be held by the Church directly. This must be administered by independent people with the appropriate backgrounds, who are beyond ecclesial mal-influence but who are doggedly orthodox in their Catholicism.
Presently the only comparison we have is comparing the rate of Rotal overturning of American Tribunal decisions, which is about 90%
being overturned when the case has been appealed to Rome after the first instance decision has been decided in favor of annulment. This is a poor statistic but it is a clear sign that further investigation is
not just important but, if not done, is actually criminal negligence on whomever administers the worlds Tribunal system.
This is the Pope’s system and he should be accountable for it regardless of the fact that he is Pope. John Paul did nothing of the sort and this omission alone should automatically eliminate him from ever being considered for Sainthood. It is a staggering failure on his part when juxtaposed with his two decade history of spoken documented concern over the large numbers of annulments. He was all talk, no action! It is time for Benedict to take the bull by the horns and find out the facts. I believe more than one million annulments have been granted in the U.S. since the expanding of the ground began in the 70′s.
If the analysis determined the rates of annulment were comparable ithis would be strong evidence that the system, overall, could be said to follow the standards of the Rota. If not the entire U.S. system should be shut down and rebuilt. Either way it would give some direction where to look to improve it.
This will not happen because such action would be strenouosly opposed by the large majority of U.S. bishops who are committed to pushing for annulments by action, as evidenced by the annulment stats in nearly every diocese in the U.S., while paying only lip service to defense of marriage and the healing of hurting and broken marriage through every method available to them. As one of your other articles alluded to, by Cardinal Gagnon I think, the American Church is already in schism. We who have been abandoned by our Sacramental spouses have been left for dead and abandoned by the Catholic Church in its vain attempt to bridge this schism by appeasement rather than through enforced orthodoxy.
If such a comprehensive review of annulment cases were ever done and resulted in a statistic which showed that the Rotal standards are not being followed by the American Church in its Tribunals in black and white through valid statistical analysis, rank and file Catholics would never accept it, nor would the American Bishops and the schism would formalize and at last we would know who were and were not Catholic. I believe this will happen in time anyway. We should face it now in Orthodoxy rather than when it will no longer matter.
Were I a priest today I would preach this over and over from my pulpit and I would force my ordinary to agree or remove me from my parish and try to silence me. I challenge you to take this to Bishop Weurl, who on the surface appears to be somewhat Orthodox. If he does not agree that such an analysis is called for immediately, then he is not Catholic. He may have a different opinion about timing but the work needs to be done and anyone who disagrees is not concerned at all about Truth, which or rather WHO is Jesus Christ. Jesus requires the pursuit of Truth.
There is no more important issue facing the Church than the defense of marriage and the Church’s obligation to require Catholics to be faithful or to be out the door. We have a double standard where those living in adultery are accepted and not judged, as they continue to actively persecute their abandoned spouses who are under complete assault by the government and the Catholic Church, which only leads to deepening confusion among Catholics(and their young children who now have very confusing split loyalties) and is making the Catholic population much more Protestant than Catholic and actually just more like hedonistic pagans, holding on to the trappings(vestiges) of Catholicism for the sake of appearances or tradition.
The most sublime absurdity is that the Catholic Church requires divorce to initiate the annulment process. It forces spouses into a legal system so corrupt regaring marriage that all hope for reconciliation is destroyed. Just look at Bai MacFarlane. Her’s is not an unusual case. I lost everthing because I would not accept the jurisdiction of the court over our marriage until the Catholic Church decided about our marriage and its validity. I also could not defend our marriage in a no fault environment and in opposition to my wife who had resources enough to bury me while my attorney abandoned our case when my little money ran out. This is exactly what the Catholic Church knows and requires!!!! It is open HERESY. The Pope himself is guilty of not shutting this down. To me he is a HERETIC until this injustice is addressed and a public forgiveness is sought in person in the U.S. by the Pope to an audience of those unjustly divorced. I would tell the Pope to his face that he is a HERETIC and would ask him to repent.
No talk Father, Action. The stats demand further investigation, NOW.
Do not claim Orthodoxy if you do not see it immediately.
I am sorry, Karl, that you find my words empty. But they come with much conviction and from the heart.
You fault Pope John Paul II with doing nothing about the large number of annulments, but there were clarifications made to canon lawyers that forced a rethinking about what constituted mental incapacitation and lack of due discretion. It was also during his pontificate that the stress was made for a second tribunal to review and to affirm or disavow the findings of the previous tribunal court.
As for the Pope having the power to unilaterally change canon law, my response would be, yes and no. The Pope himself is under those canons that flow from from divine positive law and ancient tradition. Further, the Pope would not want to act in a way that violated or did damage to the collegiality he shares with the rest of the world episcopacy. He does not absolutely need the approval other bishops, but there is a maxim that a law that is not received and followed has no binding authority.
I am not a canon lawyer, but I am hard pressed to see how retired Rota judges could help in censuring liberal American canonists when they themselves are among the principal authors of the new code that you want overthrown. Which codes do you find objectionable? It was my understanding that the problem was not the code of canon law but false interpretations given to canons by certain experts and lawyers.
Back in January of 2000, Pope John Paul II had this to say to the Roman Rota:
“Certainly, ‘the Church, after an examination of the situation by the competent ecclesiastical tribunal, can declare the nullity of a marriage, i.e., that the marriage never existed’, and in this case the parties ‘are free to marry, provided the natural obligations of a previous union are discharged’ (CCC, n. 1629). However, declarations of nullity for the reasons established by the canonical norms, especially for the lack or defects of marital consent (cf. CIC, can. 1095-1107), cannot conflict with the principle of indissolubility.”
“No one can deny that the current mentality of the society in which we live has difficulty in accepting the indissolubility of the marital bond and the very concept of marriage as the ‘foedus, quo vir et mulier inter se totius vitae consortium constituunt’ (CIC, can. 1055, 1), whose essential properties are ‘unitas et indissolubilitas, quae in matrimonio christiano ratione sacramenti peculiarem obtinent firmitatem’ (CIC, can. 1056). But this real difficulty does not amount ‘sic et simpliciter’ to a concrete rejection of Christian marriage or of its essential properties. Still less does it justify the presumption, as it is unfortunately formulated at times by some tribunals, that the predominant intention of the contracting parties, in a secularized society pervaded by strong divorce currents, is to desire a dissoluble marriage so much that the existence of true consent must instead be proven.”
“In order to affirm the exclusion of an essential property or the denial of an essential end of marriage, canonical tradition and rotal jurisprudence have always required that this exclusion or denial occur through a positive act of will that goes beyond a habitual, generic will, an interpretive wish, amistaken opinion about the goodness of divorce in some cases, or a simple intention not to respect the obligations one has really assumed.”
“In conformity with the doctrine constantly professed by the Church, therefore, we must conclude that opinions opposed to the principle of indissolubility or attitudes contrary to it, but without the formal refusal to celebrate a sacramental marriage, do not exceed the limits of simple error concerning the indissolubility of marriage, which, according to canonical tradition and current legislation, does not vitiate marital consent (cf. CIC, can. 1099).”
“Nevertheless, in virtue of the principle that nothing can replace marital consent (cf. CIC, can. 1057), an error concerning indissolubility, by way of exception, can have an invalidating effect on consent if it positively determines the will of the contracting party to decide against the indissolubility of marriage (cf. CIC, can. 1099).”
“This can only occur when the erroneous judgement about the indissolubility of the bond has a determining influence on the will’s decision, because it is prompted by an inner conviction deeply rooted in the contractant’s mind and is decisively and stubbornly held by him.”
The kind of supervision you suggest by Rome would shut down the American tribunals overnight. Even now, a single appeal to the Rota can take months or years. What we need instead is people on the American tribunals that we can trust and bishops who will not allow a false compassion to cloud the truthfulness about annulment verdicts. Maybe the answer would be to censure or punish those on tribunals who regularly have their decisions overturned? They could be stripped of their mandate to sit on such trinunals and forbidden to write and teach commentary on the code. However, we would no want to go so far as to hurt good honest people working for the tribunals. Neither would we want to withhold annulments from those who deserve to receive them.
The Roman Rota itself has addressed the problem again and again:
“The continually, daily increasing number of marriage cases especially in some regions of the world in which the ground is defect of discretion of judgment and/or incapacity to assume and fulfill the essential obligations of marriage due to causes of a psychic nature constitutes a grave problem for the Catholic Church regarding the sanctity and stability of the matrimonial bond. Although this phenomenon is to be placed most especially in modern times both in a more profound investigation of anthropology and in a more perfect knowledge of the doctrine about the nature of marriage, there is no one who does not see that ‘cases of the nullity of marriage because of the above mentioned grounds are to be handled with the greatest of caution,’ as the jurisprudence of our forum advises. The Supreme Pontiff has recalled all this to the mind of all who offer their services in tribunals in the administration of justice, with the purpose and plan that any shadow of arbitrariness in the handling of these kinds of cases should promptly vanish (cf. 1987 allocution, no. 7.”1).”
It is not for a priest to preach and act in such a way that he would force his bishop to revove and silence him. Every pastor must be committed to proclaim the truth, but always with charity. A priest takes a solemn vow or promise of obedience, not to God directly, but rather to his bishop. Failure to obey the Ordinary is understood by the Church as a grevious sin. This means that priests are not their own men. They surrender something of their own self-determination by the acceptance of holy orders. A priest is obliged to follow even the poor decisions of his bishop; although, no priest or lay Christian, can ever be obliged to commit an act that is clearly and objectively evil or wrong.
Karl, I must be honest with you, calling Pope Benedict XVI a “heretic” is not something I can easily stomach. It is the same charge brought by fundamentalist anti-Catholics and sede vacante latin traditionalists. I came close to deleting your comment, but the discussion was important.
Note, however, such slurs against the Holy Father mean that any future comments will be moderated first.
Given that your wife will not return to you, I again suggest that you turn to prayer and embrace celibate love as the only recourse open to you. Lobby in a respectful way for orthodoxy in the tribunal courts and against the evil of no-fault divorce from the civil ones.
God bless!
To Father Joe andn Father Lone Ranger,
It is sad that men like you are in such a minority in the Catholic Church.
I have and remain faithful to my vows.
But the “silent” scandal of the annulment/divorce/remarriage/adultery
problem in the Catholic Church is a cancer that I do not think will go away with the incremental approach that has been followed heretofore. This approach sacrifices innocent men and women and children on the altar of false charity and make their crosses, which we all who are or at least were Catholic understand and do our best to embrace, a lifetime of lonliness and painful unwarranted suffering, for the sake of preventing a schism which already is destroying the Catholic Church.
I sat in the back of the Byzantine Rite Catholic Church, I was Latin Rite and married in the Latin Rite, during the Baptism of my grandson while his grandmother(my wife) and her lover, who are prominant members of the congregation were openly and a large part of the ceremony. I was disgusted and hated every single momentI I spent there. I attended for love of my children and grandson. But I have no respect for the Eparch of the Byzantine Rite who is fully aware of the situation and the priest who officiated, who is completely aware of the situation and embraces and encourages it.
And I have no Canonical recourse to any type of justice, in spite of two rulings by Papal Courts that witness to the embrace of adultery and all the crimes which support it by the Catholic Church and all the clerics who are illicit ministers by virtue of their crimes against a Sacramental marriage.
This is institutionalized persecution of faithful Catholics by the Catholic Church itself. I do not know what to call it other than Heresy.
Perhaps Apostacy is another word that is appropriate.
Forgive me but go ahead and censor this. I am not the scandal. I am a victim of the scandal and you are a part of it if you do censor this.
I am that lost sheep that the Pope should reach out to even if all his brother Bishops walk away from him. Since he does not, he already brings judgement upon himself.
Please do pray for me, my wife and for the clergy to see that what they are practicing is not true charity but a short-sighted secular appeasement that mercilessly punishes the innocent and that is self- perpetuatingly encouraging the destruction of others through the violation of Saramental marriages on a huge scale.
I sympathize with your pain, although not being in your shoes, I cannot begin to imagine the hurt you have gone through. I am particularly cognizant of the deep discomfort you must have felt at your grandchild’s baptism. As a priest I have felt something of such moral quandaries when around family members married outside the Church. It is very upsetting.
As hard as the baptism experience must have been, you can at least take some comfort that your grandson has received the first of his sacraments. Praise God for that, and I hope he will he receive his other sacraments and formation in the Church.
Again, I am not aware of the particulars in your case, and this is not the forum to go into them and breech privacy. It is my perspective that there are increasing efforts to correct abuses regarding marriage cases in the Church, albeit, admittedly, quite slowly. The late Pope John Paul II seemed to share many of your concerns, but as with the current Holy Father, the moral authority of popes is often stripped of teeth and fails to be absolutely compelling in an age where there is wholesale doctrinal dissent and ethical passivity.
You are talking to a priest who has spent some time in the “figurative” dog house for strong stands that seem to fall on deaf ears, like with the wrongful admission to holy communion of politicians who legislate on behalf of anti-life policies and enable abortionists to murder babies.
Karl, I will keep you in my prayers. Please, in return, keep me in yours.
Dear Fr. Joe,
Thank you. I just wish that people who “hit” on your site and who are faithful Catholics would bring this issue up with their priests and ordinaries.
Like you, I know there are instances of invalid marriages which do rightly need to be attended to by the Church both canonically and pastorally. It would be the other side of the injustice coin to refuse to
investigate and act on such unions. I would never want to be associated with that injustice.
What is so frustrating for someone like myself who has a background in science as well as in certain legal matters is to be confronted, as I have been, with mostly men who although well educated are closed-minded on a subject which is supposed to be decided with moral certainty (which in my opinion should always lead to the same decision by people adequately educated in law, its interpretation and application) yet who are perfectly comfortable and accepting of the certainty of their being “correct” when in they know the statistics I quoted before in my earlier post and they are aware that Rotal Jurisprudence in these instances stands directly in opposition to their position, is a Papal decision by virtue of its place in the Church and as such carries with it the requirement to be accepted as setting the “standard” for judgement/application of Canon Law and yet thay are perfectly comfortable with the huge diparity of “morally certain” conclusions and do not ever question themselves seriously.
When a layman such as myself voices these concerns even faithful Catholics usually close ranks around these priest, bishops, theologians and canonists to accept absurdity as being consitant with
logic and with Catholic teaching, esecially in the Papal allocutions before the rota which are published on the Vatican website(these are loaded with truth that is precise and taught by the Pope himself). For me this is the arrogance or ignorance particularly from educated clergy and laymen.
In other words, how can all be right with the world when my moral certainty disagrees with your moral certainty based upon the same set of facts and laws. We are not talking the “preponderance of evidence” standard here or even the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard. We are talking about extremely little margin for error and about a decision that decides the existance of a valid marriage or not.
With just my background, if I were to judge a case like one of these and reach a different conclusion than the court which sits at the apex of the Church legal system regarding normal marriage cases, I would be shaken to my core and be forced, by my own ethical and moral standards to find out how I could be of such a divergent opinion becasue I woould be treading on Holy Ground dealing with possibly “invalidating” a Sacramental marriage wrongly. That is exactly what we are dealing with here, the possible wholesale sacrilege of perhaps violating hundreds of thousands of Sacramental marriages.
The Catholic Church remains in torment to this day over perhaps maybe a thousand cases of child abuse. But the ultimate of child abuse, the violation of the Sacramental marriages which each child has A RIGHT TO UNDER CATHOLIC TEACHING on perhaps an unimaginable scale,replacement of a fathyer or Mother with another person is not of sufficient interest to seriously investigate to ensure that truth is sought and found in every case.
This oxymoronic situation literally causes me to seethe with anger that
I am morally certain is righteous. And when I present these arguments to well educated people and their simple conclusion is to
accept the status quo I cannot not bear such apathy.
Most of these marriages involve multiple children. The child abuse scandal is miniscule compared to this and the damage done by unjust annulments is far worse because there is NO LEGAL RECOURSE before the state or the Catholic Church. To say that there is is intellectually, horrendously dishonest. At least criminally abused children can fight for their rights. Our children cannot, nor can I.
But very, very few care except for those of us respondents who have been destroyed by this system and the very few, like you, who will even listen.
I am sorry for going on and on father but it is the prison I have been in since 1990 and there is not even DNA, which can help prove my innocense and set me free.
I would rather have been abused by a priest as a child, or been put to death in a merciful manner than to have lived and continue to live
underthe circumstances I have for so, so long. yet, when I cry out in agony, even some of our children, who themselves cannot be free of this prison other than to live with it as it perverts their every choice in life, are cruel and tell me to give it a rest.
Prayer does not work, sacrifice does not work, endless attempts to forgive do not work. There is no Demerol for me, no Morphine. The cure is so simple – justice but that is a price that my soul is not worth to the Catholic Church. I read the Episle of James, the one Luther called “so much straw” and I ache when I see how dead in faith the Catholic Church really is. I need food and it will not give me any. I need clothing and it will not give me any. I am cold and it has no heat for me.
There is no room at this Inn for me. I will wait in the animals’ stall until
my Church remembers me. But I cannot live with my Church, she is far too unfaithful and cruel. When she repents and requires repentence from my wife I will return to both. That, justly, is all I want. It is what our children need. It is what my wife, Donna, needs.
It must suffice that I remain faithful to my vows, loving to our children and willing to forgive(or at least keep trying to).
God bless you, Father Joe.
I have made a close follow up on this dialogue closely and it seems to me that this is a complex problem.
But one thing is clear: Just as we African Catholics are, so too American Catholics such as Donna, Rose and the Clergy who told Donna to divorce Karl J Wengenroth “because she would get an annulment” do not believe in the doctrine of marriage as a total gift of self.
This is the main challenge to the Holy See today. And should this doctrine be wrong, divorce must be a part and parcel of the Catholic Doctrine of Marriage, which I think Karl J Wengenroth is pushing for on the premise that the so called “Internal Forum” Arrangement as mentioned by fr. Joe violates this doctrine.
Can the American Church, or rather the Pontifical Council for the Family if not the Holy See, explain what is happening to the doctrine of marriage as a total gift of self today?
That is, is it still a valid doctrine or it has expired? I think this is the core of the matter at issue here.
I sympathise with Karl J Wengenroth in his agony of male “solitude”, which God saw as not good, “in the beginning”!
I sympathise with Holly, Mary, Margaret, Monica and Karl Michael who are missing a motherly care.
And finally I wish to ask: When Christ Comes Back will he find Catholic Religion on earth?
The doctrine about the indissolubility of marriage cannot expire. Men and women might be unfaithful and sometimes they may enter relationships that are not true marriages…but God is the author or marriage and he insists that it is “until death do we part”.
Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI are part of the problem? I do not think so. They have sought to address the problem of invalid annulments, but many canonists will not listen to them. The Holy Father has wanted to prevent scandal and so there is a great deal of communication that is never made privy to the general public. The issue is and was, extensive dissent, not simply among ragtag theologians, but wholesale among bishops and chancery clergy.
Why does the problem remain? Liberal theologians are also often canonists and the same passivity that the Church exhibits towards politicians and morals is also revealed when facing destraught divorced people who want to erase a mistake and marry again. For all practical purposes, the Church is involved with a silent schism and the Pope knows that if he pushes too hard, the bulk of the American Church will defect, bishops and all. It will be England and Henry VIII revisited with a vengeance.
Dear God,
We ask you to bring healing to Karl and justice to the cause that he feels so deeply. Easy divorce is a violation that attacks at the heart of the marriage bond. Vows are made and should be kept. Marriages are not ended by judicial decree or even by Church courts, but by the death of a spouse. Then and only then is a true marriage ended, and yet, even here, there is no end to the love that a husband and wife share. Bless Karl in his life, and watch over and protect his five children. The fruit of married love is real and everlasting (Holly, Mary, Margaret, Monica and Karl Michael). May the good Lord envelop Karl in his loving embrace and give him peace. Amen.
Sign the petitition against No-Fault Divorce:
http://www.catholicmarriagepetition.org/index.htm
That photo reminds me of my ex-mother-in-law, while having a few words with her about not ruining my infant son’s life!!! Hang in there men, things do get better. Neat site Father Joe, I am looking forward to reading and learning more about your fruitful site.
Many of us have been abandoned by our spouses. Life is tough, Karl. But we are not living for joy & happiness on this earth. We are trying to get to HEAVEN …. There is justice after this life if not during. This is why we pray & pray for conversion in our unfaithful spouses so that their hearts will be softened and they return to Christ before their death and be able to obtain heaven. And we pray and pray for ourselves …for the grace to be faithful to God’s Law (especially that of living a chaste life, which is so very lonely) and the grace to imitate Christ in His meek carrying of His cross. And we pray for our children that their hearts not be hardened by the pain of loss they suffer or by being witnesses to bad example (most likely) from both parents.
No, Karl, life is not fair. I also lost a son in a car accident. Does this give me the right to rage against God at the injustice??? To rage against others who have not lost children simple because they do not share this particular cross?? To ignore my surviving children, and my other duties because of my pain? My answer to these questions has been NO! You might be surprised how others answer these questions….peek in on a support group for bereaved parents you may be shocked. As sad as these situations may be or should I say as sad as the sufferings we all face in life may be, we must be willing to do what we can to correct injustice on this earth without going against God’s Law (because the end never justifies the means). Then we must accept our fate as God’s Will for us and continue to serve Him in love.
Mary McDonald
Thank you Mary for sharing – it is so important that we all share our FAITH. Again Thank you so much and my prayers are with you and your family.
Sean
I missed this last August. It is nearly a year since written, and although I do not fight in the same way or anger as Karl does, I have to agree with him on nearly everything he has said about the lack of help/assistance for those of us who believe/KNOW that we ARE in a Valid Marriage no matter what a civil divorce court has said, or the world has said… OR Tribunals have said.
I have been told to “Trust the Holy Spirit” and petition the Tribunals, with the additional statements that the alcoholism is a clear indication of NULLITY, and would be adequate grounds to a Null Decision.
Point One: I do not believe alcoholism (sickness and heath, better or worse, good times and bad) are grounds for determining that our marriage was NULL on the day we appeared before God and Man and pledged our vows “all the days of my life”.
Point Two: I am not able to sign the basic forms that are needed to petition due to the fact that I must state that I believe my Marriage to have been Null from the beginning. I do NOT believe that.
Point Three: In a Church which teaches/has always taught that ALL marriages are VALID until proven beyond doubt that they were not, before a Tribunal, I cannot buy into the fact that the Tribunals are being led by the Holy Spirit when the first contact with Respondents is to call my spouse my “FORMER SPOUSE”. Sorry, but the Civil Law means nothing, and my spouse is still my spouse regardless of that decree. CIVILLY he may not be, but in my Church, he is! To me, and to many other faithful spouses who live their vows regardless of what MAN says, in obedience to what GOD says (Jesus Himself 4 times in the Gospel, as well as Church teachings)–this is a slap in the face, and a clear indication where ‘the spirit’ lies… and discernment can lead one to believe that it may well be a ‘false spirit of compassion’ that rules the day in our US Tribunals that seems to favor those who destroy the marriage, often by adultery/divorce/civil marriage to the ‘lover’/and finally, a petition to annul the first marriage in favor of the second, which was based on adultery to begin with.
Point Four: Sites with an appealing name such as “Save Our Sacrament” are not pointed out to be dissident. ‘Internal Forum’ is blatantly featured, in spite of the fact that it is NOT to be used for Marriage/Divorce, and no one in the hierarchy calls them on it publicly. No one preaches the Truth on Internal Forum in the local parishes where it is ‘taught’ by priests, etc. It is allowed to stay online for years (as in St Anthony Messengers article by Fr John Catoir on the topic). THIS is SCANDAL.
http://www.saveoursacrament.org/
S.O.S. is a member of Catholic Organizations for Renewal (COR).
http://www.cta-usa.org/COR.html#list
Yet, the very cry of most of us who do NOT want NULL verdicts, but the TRUTH of the VALIDITY of our marriages is corrupted by this website. What is promoted there is not saving the Sacrament, Fr Joe. It is watering down Truth to fit society’s plunge into the Pit. It is, essentially, what Henry VIII said/taught after Rome refused to grant a NULL verdict about his marriage to Catherine of Arragon.
I do love my Church, and there is no place else I would go. I could not leave Him (The Eucharist) any more than I can quit my vows. To do so would be doing to HIM what my spouse did to ME so long ago. Desertion. Forced unilateral divorce. Attempting to say that something that EXISTS never really did in the first place.
Yet my Church, who used to defend those of us who remain faithful til death vehemently… has done this to us by allowing the US Tribunals to grant so many NULL verdicts and tell us that this is ‘right’ and ‘true’ and ‘spirit-led’.
If there is a schism here in the US, it will ONLY be a VISIBLE evidence of what is already happening! “My people PERISH for lack of KNOWLEDGE!”… of TRUTH. Truth needs to be preached, and to be acted on, or ‘the spirit of compassion’ (which I firmly believe is a False spirit) will continue to overtake Truth. While the Gates of Hell will not prevail against His Church–many of the members of that Church may end up on the other side of those very Gates.
In our situation, civil wife KNOWS the Truth, and told our children that they (civil wife and my spouse) cannot go to Communion because according to the Church, they are living in sin–her words in the very beginning of that ‘marriage’.
Another in our family, an in-law, was told by her priest-friend that as long as SHE knew in her heart that the first marriage wasn’t valid, she could avoid the Tribunal and still receive Communion…and she does on the rare occasion she attends Mass.
No one refutes this from any pulpit in our area (and I would be willing to bet, in few nationally). In fact, I have heard only ONE sermon on Jesus’ words on divorce (I believe they show up once every three years in the Gospel readings of Sunday Mass, though it MAY be twice) in all the years since our separation in the early 80′s!! And that was watered down…
Karl has very valid points. His anger is, in many ways, justified.
Too many are willing to compromise to ‘protect the feelings’ of those in the pews who may need to hear Truth in order to save their very souls, Fr. Joe. It is Truth that sets us free, not compromise, not justifying Sin and condoning it with an official ‘verdict’ that is based on today’s psychiatric diagnoses…
His People Perish For Lack of Knowledge… and Hell is for Eternity.
The bit about “sickness and heath, better or worse, good times and bad” are not in reference to things that would invalidate a marriage in the present. If you become a drunk after you are married, there are no grounds for invalidation. If you develop psychosis after marriage, you are still married. If a man has a fishing accident with a hook while on honeymoon and castrates himself, as long as there has been a consummation, he is truly married. But, if any of these things happen prior to the marriage day, then the couple are out of luck. Annulments are granted because people conceal problems from the priest and sometimes try to do so even from themselves. An annulment means they should NEVER have gotten married in the first place and that the sacrament or natural bond is not really present. There is a legal union (both in the Church and in civil society) and for that reason children remain legitimate even after an annulment.
Alcoholism can vary by degrees, however, a person who is grossly incapable of dealing with his own life can hardly make a marital commitment to another. Like paralysis, certain maladies can make the fulfillment of marital duties impossible or highly improbable. If such is the case before the vows are taken and on the appointed day for a marriage, the bond could indeed be invalidated. Indeed, if priests are aware of a problem like alcoholism, we are forbidden to marry the couple. I ask about addictions and diseases prior to witnessing marriages. If they lie to me that deceit can also invalidate the marriage. People have a natural right to marriage, but some like myself freely renounce that right and others are incapable of it because of either faulty intention, dishonesty, impotence, addiction, hatred of children, physical incapacitation, sexual corruption, or mental aberration.
A person who is HIV positive cannot be married lawfully in the Church to a non-infected person because non-contraceptive intercourse required for consummation is possibly deadly to the spouse. A paralyzed man cannot engage in the marital act and get married, with the possible exception of those with artificial intervention to restore potency. Couples who are sterilized are routinely required to attempt surgical reversals in order to have a sacramental wedding. People who are mentally deranged and/or who take drugs for mental diseases are not normally able to marry. Medication to control various mental illnesses would deform a fetus. Alcoholism or any other kind of serious drug addiction invalidates the marriage vows and bond. A heroin fiend cannot truly fulfill his vows and is lying to his beloved and the priest. The same goes for alcoholism. It is a sickness, but there is a moral element related to it. I knew a man who was an active alcoholic who had his prior bond annulled on the grounds that his addiction made him incapable of marriage. He then wanted to get married again but a “monitum” prohibited any priest or deacon from marrying him until a doctor certified that he had found sobriety. He remained a drunk and so he could not marry again. The last time I saw him, he was begging for money on the streets.
You write: “I am not able to sign the basic forms that are needed to petition due to the fact that I must state that I believe my Marriage to have been Null from the beginning. I do NOT believe that.” Fine and good, you should not sign them if you disagree. Indeed, if such is your conviction, you should never remarry even if the spouse does so, in or out of the Church. Marriage is a one-time sacrament. I cannot say that the Tribunals are always right about these things. The culpability is more upon them than any individuals they mislead. However, the process, while imperfect, is an attempt to protect the indissolubility of marriage while being compassionate to those who might have grounds for nullity.
I am not familiar with the website SAVE OUR SACRAMENT although I am familiar with internal forum between couples (usually elderly) and the pastor. They are required to live as brother and sister and they are not to advertise the nature of their relationship so as to avoid scandal. I worked with just such a couple many years ago who were in their 90′s. They have since passed away.
If your husband has civilly remarried, he is not in good standing with the Church. He is still required to go to Sunday Mass and to make sure that any children receive the sacraments. However, as long as he cohabitates with this other woman, the status is regarded as adultery, and no personal sentiment or feeling on his part would allow him to receive communion. Indeed, he cannot receive absolution from a priest, either. He is apparently in a state of mortal sin. His in-laws are grievously wrong to tell him otherwise. They are numbing his conscience and that of his civil-wife to the fact that their eternal salvation is at stake.
I cannot speak about your case because I do not know the particulars. Since there is a civil marriage, I take it that no annulment was granted. If you felt that the first marriage was the valid one, then you are right to oppose the annulment, although they are sometimes granted dispite opposition. If your husband and his civil-wife were really good Catholics, they would not want to live in an adulterous relationship. If you really loved someone, would you do something that would deprive them of the eucharist and maybe even cost them their salvation in Christ? I asked this of a priest who left and attempted marriage. He said he loved the girl. I argued that he did not love her enough and that he was selfish. Better for a priest to suffer in his loneliness than to cost another the gift of sanctifying grace and the blessed sacrament. He did not know what to say. He knew I was right. He said he would get laicized. But at that time he was still married to the Church and what if she should die before lacization was granted? He would have to live with the terrible possibility that he sent to hell the person he most loved in the whole world.
I preach upon this subject of divorce and annulments, as well as upon the crisis of premarital sex and cohabitation. Not all priests are silent. I am sorry about your pain. You can pray for him and continue to witness to your vows. We all want joy, but often what we get is the Cross.
Fr Joe, I have reconciled myself to living my vows alone til one of us dies. Our civil forced divorce was way back in 85, and I have long been able to praise Him and to forgive my spouse. I pray for him and for civil wife all the time. (She and I have spoken, she has been praying for my health recently, much to the chagrin of dh…grin). My primary desire is his salvation and sobriety, as well as mine. Hers is secondary. Reconciliation at this stage is totally up to God Himself.
Yes, it is MY understanding also that prior to marriage, and the wedding day itself that is what counts, not what is diagnosed 10 plus years after marriage. But that isn’t what happens in our area, and it isn’t what I have been told by at least three priests. It has been me telling THEM this fact.
I can believe that you do teach on the subject, Fr Joe, because you are one of the rare ones who speaks of this topic ONLINE, too. But in most places, it is avoided like the plague.
Civil divorce is taken as proof that the marriage was not a marriage most of the time now, or ‘it would not have ended up in the divorce courts’. But this is not true.
We are still a very forgotten group of very Faithful Catholics, most often looked upon as pitiable, rigid, angry, bitter… even ‘pus-filled’. I assure you, most of us are not. When WE plead “save our Sacrament’, WE mean stand with us regarding the validity of our marriages. We are not looking for a ‘way out’, but help to work toward reconciliation, healing, and maintaining the validity and permanency that Jesus Himself told us is fact.
As for Internal Forum, I cannot begin to claim the education others have, but I have spent the past 25 years learning as much as possible. One source:
*** Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Cardinal Prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), elsewhere writes forcefully on the subject of the indissolubility of marriage. He concludes with a quote from the International Theological Commission’s “Propositions on the Doctrine of Christian Marriage”:
I would underscore that what is at stake in respect to the teaching of the indissolubility of marriage is nothing less than the Church’s fidelity to the radicalism of the Gospel. “The severity does not derive from a purely disciplinary law or from a type of legalism. It is rather a judgment pronounced by Jesus Himself (Mk 10:6ff). Understood in this way, this severe norm is a prophetic witness to the irreversible fidelity of love that binds Christ to His Church. It shows also that the spouses’ love is incorporated into the very love of Christ (Eph. 5:23-32).”[6]
In short, because marriage is an irrevocable covenant established by God, it is not a mere personal and private act. Marriage consent pertains to the common good and directly effects the Church. Subsequently, a mere personal and private act cannot substitute for a judgement of marriage nullity. In determining such a grave matter, only the Church herself, acting in the name of Christ, has competence to pass judgement. ***
http://www.cuf.org/Faithfacts/details_view.asp?ffID=54
God bless, Fr Joe! (I can still understand Karl’s anger and frustration.)
Hang in there, WI Catholic,
Good luck at the new assignment, Father Joe.
I do love the Catholic Church, just can’t live with her.
Karl
Thank you, Karl. And Fr Joe, I wish you the same at the new assignment! God bless you both!
Fr Joe. I am engagd in a heated discussion on a global Catholic site. Some of those on this site are arguing that oral andanal intercourse are NOT against the teachings on chastity in marriage, and I and others are vigorously arguing against this tissue of lies, but are unable ot find doctrinal substance to back ourselves up.
What, exactly, does the Church say on this most distasteful matter?
My view is that it is NOT permissable even as foreplay, nor morally supportable, as it is “recreational” by nature. Ditto the use of “toys”/bondage/S&M etc. I believe these have NO place in a Catholic marriage.
Your support, please.
God Bless you,
Heather.
If two people Love each other and want to have sex I can’t see how it could be wrong.
If it is true Love and not Lust I think it is pretty bogus for someone to make a rule saying that you have to get a priest’s permission or a marriage license. And then have to pay for the marriage license on top of that!
The only reason I am legally married now is so my “husband” could put me on his health insurance.
We loved each other before we were “married” and we had already committed ourselves to each other. The church has some real nerve to go and make a rule like that and I personally think the church needs to stay out of people’s bedrooms!
I know I am a good person and I have a good heart. And only God can judge me.
And I cannot see him sending a soul to hell just because they weren’t married on papers! Love is Love. What’s the problem?
GENUS: So basically what you are saying is, the only reason women are getting married is to safeguard themselves so their husband won’t leave them. It seems kind of selfish to me for a woman to “trap” a man when anything could happen in the future. Why do you think so many Catholics are divorced?
FATHER JOE: Women have a right to permanency. If a man has sexual relations with a woman, he should intend a lasting bond or relationship with her. I believe that reflects how human beings are wired. Anything less is to misrepresent this great sexual power as simply a taste for candy or as idle recreation. It is not selfish for a woman to want a man with whom she has emotionally and physically bonded to remain faithful to her. As for divorce, Catholic marriages break up for the same reasons that other marriages fail: emotional immaturity, selfishness, deceit, lack of dedication to promises, failure to sacrifice, infidelity, lust and sexual addiction, immorality, loss of trust in God and in one another, etc.
GENUS: The bible was written by men and men are infallible. Just because its written in the bible doesn’t make it true. If God is so Loving and understanding and caring for us why doesn’t he come to us himself and tell us what’s right or wrong? Times have changed.
FATHER JOE: As a Christian I believe that the Bible is the Word of God which men composed under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Catholic teaching is based upon Scripture, living Tradition and natural law. We believe that the Bible teaches infallible salvation truths (as interpreted by the Magisterium). God has communicated to us both through divine positive law and through natural law. Times change but human nature does not. Right and wrong are also constant. What you embrace is a secular humanism that promotes the cult of man (his selfishness) and epistemological relativism.
GENUS: The Bible also says you are allowed to stone a woman if she is not proven to be a virgin on her wedding night. And it also says if you are born to an unwed mother that you are not allowed to go to church. That stuff might have been okay thousands of years ago but time have changed and it ridiculous for our Loving and Understanding, and Forgiving God to expect us to follow whatever is written in the Bible and half of it doesn’t even make sense!
FATHER JOE: Not everything taught in the Bible has the same authority. Some disciplines were changeable; indeed, various elements were illustrated as mutable even within the Scriptures: like the transition from circumcision (Jewish) to baptism (Christian) as the great rite of initiation. Especially when Christians were banned from the synagogues, the Christian commemoration of the Lord’s Day (Sunday) would displace the Hebrew Sabbath (Saturday). The economy of images is another discipline that changes because of the Incarnation. The ancient law of the Jews allowed stoning of a woman who defiled the wedding bed; however, in practice this censure disappeared on its own. It was quite rare and disavowed from the beginning by the Church. They knew that fornication and adultery were sins (they still are); however, the element of punishment was mutable. As for not allowing illegitimate children to go to church, where do you find this? There was once a dispensation required for holy orders, but the Church would not close her doors to people who suffer such a stigma. As for others, we should not allow divine justice to be collapsed by an exaggerated appreciation of divine mercy. And what should you care about a “loving”, “forgiving” and “understanding” God when you apparently mock the existence of a deity?
GENUS: If God wants us to follow these rules why doesn’t he show us he’s even real? Where is he when all these little babies are being aborted? And according to the bible the innocent babies can’t even go to heaven because they weren’t baptized! Why does he let innocent people become victims and let such horrible things happen to people?
FATHER JOE: Many of us believe that God has shown his face. Philosophers offer proofs based upon reason and objective reality. Theologians contend that faith is a gift from God about which we should be open. The fact that you reject God may say more about you than the Almighty. The Bible is silent about the fate of unbaptized children; some contend that the incident where Jesus calls the children to himself and says do not hinder them is a cause for optimism. Such hope is reflected in the current universal catechism. As for why bad things happen to good people; we need to remember that all have fallen short of the glory of God. Sin and death came into the world because of the primordial rebellion. We deserve nothing and left to ourselves cannot merit salvation. But such is God’s gift to us in Jesus Christ. Further, the passion and death of Christ shows God’s solidarity with fallen mankind. He will use the price of sin itself (suffering and death) to make possible our redemption. God seeks to heal the damage we caused; however, this healing of our woundedness does not happen all at one time.
GENUS: Where is God? because he hasn’t showed me any physical proof that he loves me or is even real, considering everything I have been through. He wasn’t there for me when I was very young and lost my whole family now was he? Why would he let that happen to a child if he is so Awesome?
FATHER JOE: Why would the Father send his divine Son into the world to suffer and die for you? Why would he want to bring you healing and forgiveness? What have you done to deserve a place in his kingdom? There is proof all around you that an Intelligent Designer has been at work. The trouble is that you do not have the eyes to see it.
GENUS: And I know you are probably going to start talking about its “free will” Well if God can do anything and he created the “fallen angels” why can’t he take them away? Because he could if he wanted to, and spare all the heartache of evil things. Sounds like he’s playing games with us. There is no good without evil and no evil without good so why doesn’t he just take it all away and make everything neutral? He really could do that if he wanted to because he is so powerful an Almighty.
FATHER JOE: Human freedom is undeniably part of the equation. But while God created men and angels, both fallen men and angels are the result of defiance. God does not simply dismiss the consequences of our actions; rather, he offers us the opportunity for change. Men who die in the grips of evil will join fallen angels in the hell of their own fashioning. If God made you as a perfect robot, the notion of love itself would be compromised. You could not freely respond to God. Indeed, you would not be able to write this comment which repudiates him. Do you really want to be a slave? God may be all powerful and perfect, but we are not.
GENUS: Since God knows everything we are going to do in our lives and he knows when we are going to die, then he already knows if we are going to heaven or hell! So what’s the point of even living our lives when our fate is already decided. Sounds like a big game to me. And a waste of time. God must be bored up there to come up with something like that.
FATHER JOE: God knows everything as present— as one who is outside time. Everything about you and your life is played out before him in a moment. You are judging the futility of God’s plan in your life as one who lives at a moving point in human chronology. You lack the virtue of hope. Who knows? Before you die, you may come to know and have faith in God. Would it be a waste of time, then?
GENUS: If I was a God I would tell my people that I am the only God you cannot have strange God’s before me because I am a jealous God. What God wouldn’t say that? The bible does not say he is the only God.
FATHER JOE: Here is the crux of the problem for you, you are NOT God. The high priest tears his cloak because he cannot appreciate the emerging revelation of the Trinity. He cries out, rightly nonetheless, “The Lord your God is one!” You need to study your Scripture, because God does say he is a jealous God. The early Jews believed in God but were not absolute monotheists. They came to appreciate that the other so-called deities were FALSE GODS. As the Scriptures clearly noted, these gods could not save them. The early Church would interpret the pagan deities as demonic. Here is a Scripture verse of interest to you: “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God…” (EXODUS 20:4-5). God will not share us with empty and lifeless idols!
GENUS: And is God really as powerful as everyone says he is because if he is so powerful and hates evil then he should just get rid of it. Because he can do what ever he wants right? He shouldn’t have created it in the first place because he knew it was going to turn evil because he knows EVERYTHING!
FATHER JOE: You are arguing not only against freedom but against creation, itself. Everything you say is an expression of existential despair. You judge everything by a passing world and give no notice to the prospect of a world to come and eternity. We are not promised perfect happiness in this world, but the saints have every cause to look forward with joy to the next. Divine justice demands that there be an afterlife. In this world, sometimes the evil flourish and the innocent suffer. There can be joy here, but we must be realists, too. We are not abandoned by God. He shares our in our human condition and stands in solidarity with us, both in our pain and in death. But, he also offers us a share in eternal life. God exists and he is not a monster.
GENUS: P.S. I am not pagan. I was raised Catholic but now that I see how this world is nothing but lies I don’t know what to believe because nothing makes sense anymore. Maybe one day God will show up and clarify things for us.
FATHER JOE: I hear so many contradictions. You seem to deny God’s existence but then you tell him his business and wonder if God might someday clarify the confusion. There are lies all around us and I would suggest that you have fallen for some of them. We have to turn our minds and hearts toward God if we hope to find him. He is not far away. We find him in God’s Word, in the Church, in one another and in the wonders of his creation. Jesus is the Emmanuel of the Advent and Christmas season. God is with us. Our Lord is present in the Mass and feeds us with his very self. We are not alone. We are not abandoned. His paschal mystery was all accomplished on our behalf. He is the Way and the Truth and the Life. I will pray that God will give you the gift of faith. God bless!
Genus said: “I am not pagan. I was raised Catholic but now that I see how this world is nothing but lies I don’t know what to believe because nothing makes sense anymore. Maybe one day God will show up and clarify things for us.”
Well, Genus, what should the world be like? If the world is nothing but lies as it is now, how is it all really supposed to be?
genus_lilium, you seem to have a lot of pain, and anger directed at God. I am sorry about that, but I do understand it…. Sometimes it can help to remember that it often seems that God’s favorite game is “hide-n-seek.” Sometimes we are trying to hide from Him, but perhaps more often, it seems that He is hiding from us… This “hiding” is an illusion. Our hearts, and minds, often seem clouded in a fog, or blinded by smoke.
In the Gospels there are many stories of the blind being healed and made to see. To me this blindness is more than physical blindness, or impairment of sight – it is a spiritual blindness…. Please take my advice, and pray. Pray in whatever way that you can… It may even be a kind of “sad & angry longing” for God.
Peace+
By any and all means, pray! Even if you get, as I usually do, a recording: “All of our Saints are busy assisting other supplicants; please stay on your knees, and your prayer will be answered in the order it was received.”
Amen!
Father Joe said: “If God made you as a perfect robot, the notion of love itself would be compromised. You could not freely respond to God. Indeed, you would not be able to write this comment which repudiates him. Do you really want to be a slave? God may be all powerful and perfect, but we are not.”
If the penalty for not loving God is eternal hellfire, then you’re really no freer than the robot. Any love you offer up under those terms is extracted from you by threat of unending torture. That is not a free choice.
Father Joe said: “Given that the worst punishment of hell is alienation or loss of God; the notion of fire is like a pebble in the shoe, an annoyance, that at best might distract us slightly from the real pain we suffer. In that sense, fire might be God’s last gift to his children (who were made for him; who are incomplete without him; and yet who hate him).”
MADALEN: Sorry, that does not compute. Because I know two things from personal experience. First, being without a god is not painful. Accepting Existence on its own terms gives me peace of mind.
FATHER JOE: I would not expect the answer to make sense to you Madalen, given that you deny God’s existence. Many people, if not most, find little peace of mind in the possibility that they are doomed to oblivion. I would contend that your experience, while not unique, is not representative. Indeed, I suspect that certain temporal elements are given heightened meaning to bring some satisfaction in the face of a godless universe. Others dull the pain behind transitory satisfactions. I do not share such a view of course. Further, if I am right, neither will you when you close your eyes for the last time in this world and find yourself awakened in another world. What you know now cannot suffice for what you will experience in the life to come. Surprise! There will be no more hiding from the truth behind the fantasies of an absolute materialism. If I am wrong, then there will be no such shock, just a little unconscious meat for worms and parasites to feed upon. But I am convinced that I am not wrong.
MADALEN: Secondly, fire hurts! Spending eternity in a state of conscious immolation is far, far worse than never meeting a god. (What could you possibly say to an omniscient being, anyhow? Nothing it didn’t already know. Better to stay out of its way.)
FATHER JOE: Clothed in mortality, fire does indeed burn and consumes us. In the life to come, we will be who we are but also different. Not knowing the precise nature of this fire or of our new bodies, you really cannot say that such punishment is unjust. It is enough to know that we will each receive what we deserve. God is viewed by Christians as both just and merciful. I will repeat, however, the greatest pain of hell is that of loss of God, an existential pain, you might say. We were created to know, to love and to serve God in this life and to give him glory forever in the next. That is our purpose. If we circumvent that purpose at all, we begin to fashion our own incompleteness, our own hell.
MADALEN: Besides, even just knowing that someone was being tortured somewhere would make heavenly bliss impossible, don’t you think? Such knowledge would make heaven exactly like Earth, where you can never forget that pain is the context of all delight, and that delight and suffering seem to bring about each other.
FATHER JOE: Some theologians argue that the saints no longer remember the damned. I am not sure about that. It may be that the joy that comes with the beatific vision is so incredible that it makes lasting sorrow for the damned impossible. All of us have the opportunity for holiness. God will not withhold his grace from anyone who seeks it. John Cardinal Newman wrote about this subject. While we are dealing with mysteries, God is not a monster. Newman writes that a deity who delighted in the pain of his children would be a monster, unworthy of our love and obedience. Such is not the face of God revealed to us in Jesus Christ. The Church teaches that there is a hell. But, she does not say who is there. The late street preacher and Catholic writer Frank Sheed (husband of Maisie Ward) said that we can hope that the devil is lonely in his hell. Yes, we can pray for the vast salvation of souls even as we leave all such judgment to God.
MADALEN: No, actually, heaven would have to be ~worse~ than Earth, because no matter what you witness or endure here, you can always tell yourself that even the most obscene suffering cannot last forever.
FATHER JOE: Is that why you reject God and the notion of forever? Is there a part of you afraid that if Christians were right, you would suffer endless fire? Fire comes not only for the damned but also for the saints. Does this surprise you? The fire torments the damned because they are enemies of the Jesus, the Light of the World. This Light is the blazing fire of God’s LOVE. The souls in purgation endure this fire and are perfected as gold in the furnace. They are made ready for their entry into heaven. The souls of heaven bask in this fire. There is no impurity, nothing left that does not belong to God, nothing remaining that can be burned away. They become part of the Light.
Father Joe said: “Indeed, I suspect that certain temporal elements are given heightened meaning to bring some satisfaction in the face of a godless universe.”
Not sure what you mean, exactly. The universe produced me, and so I’m drawn to the prospect of understanding it. That seems natural.
As far as Pascal’s wager is concerned, yes, if you’re right then I’m toast.
But what if you’re not right? Is it really true that there are no consequences for you here and now if you’re wrong?
A religious person — a Christian — must suffer in ways that I do not: Am I damned? Are the people I love damned? Is God angry with me? Am I being punished? Are there babies in hell, like St. Augustine said? Why can’t I control my blasphemous thoughts? Why can’t I conquer doubt? Why do I feel like a charlatan at prayer? Why can’t I sincerely love God all the time? Why do I look at Jesus on the cross and not feel what I should feel?
Of course, I don’t like everything that goes on in my own head, either, but I don’t worry that any of it might mark me as damned. Having my mind to myself is a good thing: I wouldn’t want to share it with other beings with the power to listen in against my will.
Furthermore, if you’re wrong, what else does misunderstanding Existence cost you? Every part of the universe is theoretically discoverable, although given our human limitations, we will always be confounded by mysteries, misapprehensions, and dead ends.
Peace of mind comes from continually enlarging our understanding of Existence as far as we’re capable; witnessing its many aspects of beauty, horror, and strangeness; and finally accepting that the universe — and our own ephemerality within it — is fundamentally the way its supposed to be. If you’ve wagered wrong, then how can you not be at war with your own ephemeral nature? And how can that struggle not tend to spoil the small amount of time you do have to be a conscious element of Existence?
Father Joe said: “Is that why you reject God and the notion of forever? Is there a part of you afraid that if Christians were right, you would suffer endless fire? Fire comes not only for the damned but also for the saints. Does this surprise you?”
I reject the God hypothesis because there is no evidence for it; additionally, I simply lack a belief in it, just as both of us lack a belief in Vishnu. I’ve noticed that many believers seem to be under the impression that an atheist is “angry” at God, and therefore rejects him “to his face”, as it were. Such a person would seem to be more of an alienated theist, or a believing antitheist, than an atheist. What I’ve read regarding Christianity leads me to feel that it’s probably fortunate that God does not exist, but that’s really not the same thing.
Yes, about the fire of hell being Divine Love, I think I’ve heard this idea before. It’s similar to something in Zoroastrian scripture, in which it is taught that when the savior returns at the end of the world, all of the metals of the earth will melt in the heat of purgation and flow down from the mountains in glowing torrents. This seething flood will be gentle as bathwater to the righteous, and scalding agony to the wicked in an equal degree to their own wickedness. This trial will last for three days, and then subside.
At the end of the three days, even the wickedest will have become pure and holy, because wickedness is comparatively ephemeral and can be burnt to nothing while in the same furnace the substance of good is not destroyed but perfected. Then the judgement will be complete, and the new world will be established as an eternal paradise for all.
Three things, quickly…
Father Joe said: “Doubts about certain matters come to us all. But do you believe in God? How would you expect to love one in whom you place no real existence?”
When I said that believers must suffer in ways that I don’t, that is something that I picked up from reading. In some previous thread, you said to someone else, “beware scrupulosity,” or words to that effect. And I was like, “what’s scrupulosity?” So I looked into it on my own.
And it seems that many Christians are tormented with blasphemous thoughts and an inability to maintain the appropriate attitude toward God. This apparently makes them feel damned. For instance, one atheist commentator — the guy at Secular Planet — speaks of having been a traditional Catholic, and of not having known a moment’s peace until he renounced religion.
Re the question of atheist anger at God, Father Joe said: “If you are not angry, than I am puzzled by your language which sometimes seems decidedly so.”
I seem angry? Maybe to some degree in political discussions, but otherwise? I don’t feel hostile.
Father Joe also said: “In any case, I have neither the time nor the inclination to get into the God debate with you.”
That’s fine. That particular sort of debate is usually fruitless and is not really what I come here for, anyway.
And thanks for letting me stick around!
:)
Dear LG,
Have you read, Introduction to Christianity, by Joseph Ratzinger?
Father Joe, when you say that “all of reality is tapped and nothing escapes the mind of God,”…
… do you mean that you believe that God actually ~experiences~ our mental states and emotions with us as they occur, or only that he is aware of them?
No, Anon, I haven’t read Introduction To Christianity. Do you recommend it?
Karl J Wengenroth,
You are the only person responsible for the well being of your eternal soul. If you allow bitterness and hate into your heart you are risking spending eternity in hell without God. No matter the cirucmstances and difficulties of your past life you are the only person responsible for cutting yourself off from the Church, and thus the means of salvation. Repent of your bitterness and hardness of heart, go to confession, and allow Christ to heal you through his mercy toward you and everyone who has ever harmned you. Forgive as Christ forgave. Love as Christ loved. Carry your cross as Christ demands for He carried the Cross for your salvation. If you dont do this you risk, at the moment of death, not being able to accept the loving and most merciful gaze of Christ. If you have accepted bitterness and hate you will turn away and hate God at the moment of death and suffer eternal death.
In Christ,
Christian
I am not a catholic but I was confused as to how the catholic church views abortion as wrong. I understand you think of it as murder because you are preventing a life from happening, but if you say that is murder you also have to say having a menstrual cycle is murder because the egg is put out of the body without being fertilized and therefore preventing life. Also do you feel it is a sin to have sex if you are infertile because you are doing it for pleasure and not to create a life; and is it also a sin because of the sperm ( that could have become a child) is wasted on someone that cannot produce a child. If abortion is wrong, where is the line drawn?
If you felt that I came to “mock and belittle”, then why did you bother to answer any of the questions I posed?
I did not come to “mock and belittle” the blog. My questions were indeed serious. If I lack some in understanding of the human body (specifically, sperm, which you seem to have some sort of issue with) and the workings of gametes, it does not mean I come to mock and belittle. In fact, it is answers such as yours that have prevented me from learning such things in the past.
Now I understand why people have issue with religion and those who pretend to be open and understanding (like yourself) in answering honest questions of those who attempt to understand.
Perhaps next time someone asks legitimate questions, your answer could be such that it doesn’t appear that you’ve felt threatened by the question. Just food for thought.
Thank you for all the time you spent on my questions that “mock and belittle” your blog.
I now understand your point of view. Thank you for re- phrasing your answer in a way that I could understand and in a way that was not insulting to me. I apologies if the way I asked my question made you feel like I was trying to make fun of your beliefs. I sincerely wasn’t, I just did not understand your views. Again, thank you.
Impotent men CAN get married. It is NOT a church requirement.
http://fatherjoe.wordpress.com/instructions/catechesis/questions/impotence-marriage/
Dear Father Joe,
I was born and raised Catholic, I praise God every day for that. That I didn’t have to find my way to salvation, but I just need to get with the program. I recently just became more and more active-meaning, not just receiving my sacraments but living the word… word for word. I guess my concern is that like any other person with free will, I’m in desolation because I can’t seem to get pass my doubts. I believe, and so are many others in but one Almighty but in different forms of religion, some has done more than others in terms of practice, propagating faith, evangelizing, perseverance, sacrifice just to name a few. If there’s but one way to enter the kingdom of God I want to make sure I’m in that program. I can’t help but wonder if I’m in the right path, what does it mean for others who aren’t with me? More importantly, which one is right? I read the Bible and I understand why there are several interpretations, because I too understand it differently. Will there be an exclusive heaven for each particular religion? Or is it ok to say that one belief is going to heaven and the rest are condemned to hell? The more I learn about the responsibilities and what is required of me to be a true Catholic the harder it is for me to accept that there are other religions out there and people who will be saved just as well for having known and done less. Because of the knowledge, I created envy in me. There’s so much to give up now that I thought was ok before or that people of other religious background find acceptable or even good. I’m a man in my early 30′s, married with children(young and they don’t understand) and I have a hard time spending less and less time with them because I feel I have a greater obligation to my spiritual growth. How do you say no to God? We as a couple found ourselves saying yes to God in almost every invitations we receive. I’d like to think and feel it’s a great thing and what really matters most-the preparation for the life after earth(heaven). This life is short and now I feel guilty of living it up. I don’t want to feel bad when i’m having fun with my friends and family when I could be praying instead. I don’t want to have the feeling that I should only kiss my wife if we want to have another baby. I don’t like having to feel bad because I have more than others. I don’t cling on them because I don’t need them in heaven but I don’t want to feel guilty of having them. I’m very confused now as to where i should stand and where I’m happy. As the head of the household, I’m being asked to save my family and give up everything else we’re used to having. It’s all so fast and I can’t keep up.
I just stumbled on this subject as it happens to be very much on my mind lately. While not having read all the posts, my own experience is that the exception frequently proves the rule. For starters my parents got an “annulment” back in 1969 with the complicity of the parish priest who honestly believed every bad thing my mother had to say about my father. In hindisight, even though there may have been kernels of truth in what she said, everything was wildly exaggerated and intended to elicit pity.
These days counseling would have been more of an option. So much of conflict is based on misunderstanding, that is, concerning those who try to show their love but do it in a confused manner that puts people off, but nevertheless the ONLY way they know how. Untangling the knotted threads would have been salubrious for the whole extended family. Instead, there is hardly anything but bitterness and the next generation repeating the mistakes of the former.
This so-called dissolution of the ties that bind freed up my mother to play the field again with everyone twisting themselves into pretzels to accomodate it. As for myself, I hated the institution of family being the witness and umpire to the raucous fights going on around me, and being convinced (only to a certain point) that “separation” was the only option.
Actually, I do think my father remained celibate for the rest of his life. One of my close family members decided go the way of the Church, in fact would throw up to everyone’s faces how holy he was, except that he actually married a woman who was divorced quite a few years after his first wife tragically died. This union turned out to be extremely troublesome and even more so regarding the two first children.
Recently I happened to be reading the incidence of abuse and even murder by step parents joined to a biological parent is extremely high. There is even a name for it, the Cinderella syndrome.
But what I really wanted to say, in fact, broadcast from the rooftops, that I was really cheated out of a healthy environment that would have saved me from the disastrous experiences in store for me.
One has to do with popular culture and pushing kids into relationships, dating and all that garbage. This was pressed upon me in my very home by parents who couldn’t wait (literally) until I got knocked up. It wasn’t anything I particularly wanted. I really hated those so-called dances where I felt isolated and left out. Yet, the nuns who had to clean the hall the day before Mass (before there was a proper church building) would complain and look to the parents to blame.
The Church was allowing all that to happen on its own property. Funny thing, I met a woman almost 40 years later, a Protestant, who said that her family forbade her to go to the dance at the “Catholic” school back then.
But as I look back, it was a picnic compared to what kids are subjected to nowadays. Popular culture makes one think there are no consequences to successive relationships. All you need is “feeling” but emotions are notoriously unreliable. This of course is the justification used for same sex relationships.
I can only talk about this now with some objectivity because I did make a decision to forgive the worst harm that can be done to a person, i.e., leading him or her down the path to self-destruction.
I apologize that I have gone on a rant, but most of this stuff goes back to the Church in my community that didn’t stick to the rules.
in response to all the confusion and mistrust and anger we are burdened with in our daily lives,
I like to meditate on the words of Marcus Aurelius -
“Say to yourself the first thing in the morning thus: Today I shall meet people who are meddling, ungrateful, aggressive,treacherous,malicious,unsocial. All this has has afflicted them through their ignorance of true good and true evil. But I have seen the nature of what is good and what is right,and the nature of evil and what is wrong; and I have reflected on the nature of the offender himself is akin to my own – not a kinship of blood or seed, but a sharing in the same mind, the same fragment of divinity. Therefore I can not be harmed by any of them, as non will inflict me with any of their harm. Nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate them. We were born for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like rows of upper and lower teeth. So to work in opposition to one another is against nature: and anger or rejection is opposition”
My Goodness! If a man who never knew Christ can come to this conclusion, this tenderness and love and compassion and understanding of one another, how much more lucky are we for having known Christ in our lives, for having born the affliction and contempt and strife and misunderstandings in our life within sight of Heaven and God’s love and mercy, with knowledge of Christ’s salvation and his deliverance (to us) from (these) evil(s)?!
hi father joe
after 60 years in the desert i have found god and i am really happy.i am a recovering alcoholic addict with 5 years sobriety.i am going to classes each week to become a catholic.i have been divorced twice and i now am going out with a widow i have known for 20 years.i know i can never get married in the catholic church as i have been married twice already.
my lady and i see each other 3 times a week.we dont live together or sleep together but we enjoy intimate moments together.do i have to end this relationship to become a catholic.my friend and me are close and it would really hurt her if i finish this relationship.
To Father Joe,
I am married in the church and this year following an ACTS retreat have begun to move from being a Lax catholic to a devout one.
God blessed me with my wife and the chance for both of us to celebrate the sacrament of marriage as Virgins unto our Consummation, we both believe we owe it to follow suit.
As it awkward as it may have been I confessed to Masturbation, Condoms, and Pornography to my priest and have since given them up.
My wife supports my decision to the point she often jokes about taking out my right or chopping off my right hand if she thinks I might be tempted.
We have put the command of life back in the hands of god and no longer use condoms or birth control for he has blessed us with life to this point, who are we to deny his blessings or for that matter his Will?
Lastly I say my wife is not a Catholic, but for me not only did she agree to a Writ of…( Forgot what it is called, starts with a D I think…still a pretty lazy Catholic ) she joins me in church, and is taken with our traditions to the point she prays the daily rosary with me.
To me being a Devout Catholic means observing the laws and traditions not simply out of duty but also with a faithful heart, and to share it with all brothers and sisters of our Catholic Community.
As I hope to soon give back as an ACTS team member, so do I also hope for me and my wife to give back to fellow couples at the same Retreat center where we made our Engaged Encounter.
To my brothers and sister of the faith, and of God I pray that this world no matter how pleasurable or rewarding it may seem is for even the most successful and over indulged person, only material.
What God has to give you truly will last forever, be not afraid. I Give the lord Thanks and Praise, and Love to the people of the world.
Dear Father,
I have read through your comments and i thank you for standing up for the truth no matter how unpopular it is. I am a Catholic, born and bred and practicing all my life, i’m now 37.
As a young man i felt desperately lonely at times and dreamed of having a lovely wife. I waited, i was patient and i didn’t sleep with various girlfriends all through my 20′s. At the age of 30yrs i became despondent, angry and frustrated. i thought “Why am i playing the good Catholic boy and missing out on all the fun?” So i went off the rails intentionally and pursued a life of hedonism, drink, drugs and sex. I found this lifestyle soul destroying and in the midst of it i met the woman of my dreams. I loved her and she loved me and we decided to wait until we were married before having sex. Now let me tell you what happened next. We went on our honeymoon for 2 weeks and didn’t have sex. I found this really unusual. She felt no desire for me and i felt none for her. This continued and we slept with each other maybe 10 times in the first 3 years. She then conceived and had our beautiful son, now 3 years old. We have had sex 3 times since he was born, the last time she conceived our daughter, now just 3 months old. Although i love my children it is not natural to live in a marriage where there is no physical union. You probably think i’m evil for saying this but i wish i had slept with her before we got married and i’m sure we would not have got married. I don’t think it’s all about love, i now think there is such a thing as sexual compatability and chemistry.
I had this romantic, Catholic view about sex which had brought me nothing but frustration and misery. I feel angry but i don’t regret my children. Both their conceptions were brought about by acts of sheer frustration. I believe in the Catholic teachings, we never used contraception. We tried to abstain and ended up being a mockery of a marriage. I tried to do it the right way and it’s ended up being the biggest mistake of my life as regards to my own needs and fulfillment.
Oh! but that’s me being selfish. You can’t win, i have fallen out with God, and i no longer go to mass as i have done for the past 36 years. I want an annulment but that’s almost impossible. Rules Regulations Commandments Laws. Thank you God, Thank you Holy Roman Catholic Church. I followed it to the letter and now i’m in prison.
I still believe in ALL the Church’s teachings but is a recipe for misery for many who follow it. There’s no choice, no way out. It’s a life sentence and an eternal death to those who don’t follow it.
Happy New Year to all those who can persevere in marriage and God Bless you too Father for addressing these issues. Thank you.
Hello Fr Joe,
I found some of the items on your site interesting especially the stuff about annulments. It is not just the US that has incompetent or malicious tribunals.
In my case here in the UK two tribunals granted an annulment against my wife for lack of due discretion. The decision was based on her conduct and religious differences between us that occurred 14 years into the marriage.
They concluded she made the wrong choice to marry and also that she was capable of making a valid choice. That decision I believe exceeds the bounds of their authority because if there is no defect of consent, and no other grounds, the marriage is valid.
They also failed to follow the correct trial procedures. I spoke to the defender of the bond about a year after the trial (I didn’t know who he was until after the first sentence was published) and discovered that he had never heard of Dignitas Conubii, even though it had been in force 5 years at the time.
The tribunals aren’t interested in my objections. They ignored all my complaints. They even carried on with the case after my wife had renounced the trial.
Unlike the US, canon lawyers are not common here, so I had to get a book and learn the law myself, but it made no difference. Just like Karl J Wengenroth, I didn’t get justice either
Father Joe,
My wife and I have been married for 24 years. After our second child 18 years ago, I had a vasectomey at the age of 32. I now realize that was wrong but I can’t aford a surgery to reverse it. My question is, since it’s not possible to procreate, is it a sin every time we have sex?
What about oral sex, is it a sin too, even though we can’t procreate anyway, or would that be a “double-sin”?
The quiz gets stuck after question 10 (before score is shown) when using Adobe Flash Player 10. The message is that a script is taking too long to run – abort? I’ve tried it in both IE and Firefox.
I just wanted to let you know that you are wrong about the condoms, they are not always used in a sinful manner and are not always the embodiment of evil. Condoms are often used for medical purposes after the birth of a child. They are filled with water, frozen and inserted in to the vigina of the woman who just gave birth to reduce swelling as well as pain. This also increases the healing process if the woman had a tear during the birthing process. For those women that have used them they have been a great blessing.
God Bless and may graces be showered on you.
Hello and God be with you Father Joe,
I am confused to the point of panic Father. I have come to a point in my life that all I desire is to please our Lord Jesus Christ in all ways. God has granted me many graces and I have refused them throughout the years but as of late, I have become aware of my faults and how very sinful I have been. It has come to me this realization that God loves us so very much. That he suffers for us everyday. I did not know this. I thought that He was beyond this but oh…how wrong I was. My beloved suffers still. I do not wish to be a thorn in his crown but coolness to his brow. I am falling deeper in love to the point of suffering. I welcome this suffering but, with this suffering comes worry. I am married to a good man. I have been with him for the past 25 years. We have four children and have a happy home. My main goal is to teach and infuse the truth of our Lord God into my family and self. Recently my husband pursued me love making which made me feel as If I was betraying my love and heart Jesus. I can not understand this. I am married and love my husband but my husband could never take the place my God has in my heart and soul. What do I do? I am confused and hurt. I also have expressed to my husband that I am worried for our souls because he (please forgive my forwardness) has his release outside. I’d rather not go into further explanation. My husband states that it is not a sin and that he learned this by a priest. I on the other hand have looked into this and have learned that it is. This is extremely sad for me. I need to know the truth once and for all. My husband is worried for me because my last two pregnancies have been very difficult and my baby and I almost lost our lives because of my weakness. My Doctor urged me to have my tubes tied saying that my body can not take on another pregnancy. So I ask you Father Joe, what do I do? If it is a sin to do as my husband does do I refrain from love making and if so do I not break my marriage vows? Help me dear Father Joe. May God in His mercy grant you the grace to speak to me through you I pray.
Thank you
May The Divine Merciful Jesus be with you, in you and you in Him eternally.
With love
Aimee V.
Father Joe: I admire you and I thank you for being a priest. I came to this site looking for something to share with my teenager regarding sexual purity.
I am divorced and I never married my teenager’s father. Since the birth of my child, I have made a commitment to live my life according to my Catholic faith and my Lord’s will.
Some of the people posting seem to be seething with anger and hurt.
I believe that the first step is admitting our own fault in the situations we face. Then just like you can’t put your arm back on one it has been severed from your body (excluding the possiblity of being in a modern medical facility with the most techologically advanced medicial team), one must learn to live with the impact of the lost arm.
I was so disturbed by the posts , that I digressed from my original question.
How/Where can I find CATHOLIC teaching for TEENS regarding Sexuality?
Thank you in advance, for your answers to our requests and thank you for your faithful ministry
Recommend two bibles:
Prove It: Catholic Teen Bible (Prove It!) by Amy Welborn
The Catholic Youth Bible® Revised by Brian Singer-Towns
A trustworthy catechism for older youth:
Father McBride’s Teen Catechism Teacher Guide: Based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church by Alfred McBride and O. Praem
Unfortunately, the youth stand-alone version of this book appears to be out of print.
Sexuality and relationships:
A good book written by a fellow priest of the Archdiocese of Washington…
Christian Courtship In An Oversexed World: A Guide For Catholics by T. G. Morrow
I have not personally seen it, but am told that the following DVD series is quite good…
Theology Of The Body For Teens DVDs ~ Brian Butler and Jason and Crystalina Evert
Hello Father Joe
I have a question about sexual activities…
My boyfriend and I, we are both 23. We only know each other for couple months, but on the first day we met, we felt that we knew each other long time ago. We talked a lot, and even about our future. We planned to get marry in 4 more years, and how many kids we are going to have..etc..
Let me just get to the point, he and I, we are both interested in sex. We did have sexual intercourses for few times, and I went to confession after that. However, after that we didn’t have sex, but, we can’t keep our hands to ourselves. Certain times, he and I both want to “do it,” but I don’t want to commit mortal sin, therefore, we masturbated each other. Am I committing a mortal sin by doing that? And I want to know what certain things that I can do and cannot do?
Thanks Father
Please reply because I’m really confused
What if you married a total [deleted] and you find out the love she has for you is possessive love.
Like Grimma Wormtongue’s for Eomer in Lord of the Rings.
If you didn’t know, he loved her so much he aimed to destroy all her family, all of her people and everything she loved so being helpless, she would have no choice but to depend on him.
My wife uses alot of drugs and she is trying to get me addicted to heroine, in my opinion so as a slave to it I wouldn’t be able to leave without so much outside help it’d be impossible.
Some of the best words i have ever heard from a priest. I wish u were at my parish giving homilies !
May God Bless you and my Our Mother Mary wrap you
in the protection of her mantle.
Totus Tuus.
Father Joe,
Please help us. We are an elderly married couple with 4 children. We still have sexual urges toward each other even though, of course, we can no longer conceive a child. Is this OK? Does the Church allow us to continue to have intimate relations (of course, we do not use contraception). Please advise us. We do not want to be sinning in the eyes of the Church.
Thank you, Otis
PAUL: The Catholic Church has made so many “rules” that do not even exist in the Bible.
PAUL: Since when do “men” speak for God or Christ?
PAUL: Where in the Bible does it say one should confess sins to another man, say a few Hail Marys, Our Fathers (and of course put some $$$ in the box!) to be forgiven? PLEASE show me this. IT does not exist.
PAUL: What good does it do me to pray to Mary? She cannot save ANYONE. Only Christ can forgive your sins. Pray to him, not some guy in a fancy box who will then give you his recommended “Penance.” How ridiculous!
PAUL: Catholics need to read their own Bible and quit making up their own human rules!
PAUL: Please tell me where in the Bible sins are labeled as “mortal”? — MORE Catholic rubbish.
PAUL: Just step into our church, sit down and let us read you a few verses, then we’ll pass the basket around again for a few more of your hard earned dollars… I have been to Rome and viewed all the wealth the Catholic Church has managed to gather from “devout Catholics.”
PAUL: My wife was refused entry into the famous “Vatican” because her shoulders were not completely covered. Christ said bring ALL sinners, He has no Dress Code for his house! I found it very funny how a young girl in line ahead of us (most likely 8 years of age and obviously a virgin) was allowed in without her shoulders covered at all, yet a married woman was not! MORE Catholic B.S.!
PAUL: NO ONE could ever convince me that this cult called Catholicism is true followers of Christ. The weak minded will believe ANYTHING these “men” tell them and empty their pockets if they are convinced it will get them to Heaven.
PAUL: All people really need to do is READ THE BIBLE THEMSELVES and understand that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL!
PAUL: Just because some guy wears a fancy robe (and a KKK hat) doesn’t make him (or her) any “holier” than anyone else on this planet. Nor does it give him (them) the divinity to make some “new heavenly rules”!
PAUL: Personally I follow the guidance delivered by The Bible, not a bunch of men and women who think they are “cleaner than the rest” because they supposedly don’t have sex (let’s not talk about the altar boy molestation that has occurred time and time again and mostly hidden or covered up by the Great Catholics!)
PAUL: Jesus said it is good if a man CAN abstain, he never said you MUST abstain to spread his word, another Catholic “invention.”
PAUL: I have also never seen anything in the Bible that said masturbation is a “Mortal Sin.” Wow! I guess this means that about 99% of all men will rot in Hell— ANOTHER Catholic rumor.
PAUL: I am sorry, but the God I believe in would rather a man touch himself then take advantage of another.
PAUL: All the Catholic Church wants is MORE Money. You have to make your monthly payment to get to their heaven…
PAUL: I went to Catholic school for the first five years of my education. It finally reached a point where my mother could not afford the tuition. She was told by the clergy that she would go to hell because she removed my sister and I from the school… Pretty cool huh? What a bunch of sickos….
PAUL: Oh and one more thing (sorry, I forgot!). The God I believe in would rather a couple use a condom to prevent the spread of disease and an unwanted child. There are enough sick people and starving children on this planet.
PAUL: Sex is a wonderful experience shared between two people in love. But according the Catholic’s way of thinking you need to have a newborn at least once a year because birth control is a MORTAL SIN… How stupid is that?! They just want MORE Catholics to send them more money!
PAUL: I pity you all for being so brainwashed. But then again look at the other cults of the world (including the one run by Jim Jones) who have convinced weak minded individuals to follow them!
PAUL: Stand up for yourselves people and pray. God WILL listen to you. Some people do need a little guidance along the way but NEVER believe things “men” speak of. There is no need to obey rules made up by a cult intent on controlling your life. Read your Bible and you will learn what GODS will is, not some guys making up the rules as they go…. Catholicism = The Earth’s Greatest Cult (good luck with that!)
Hi all
I would like to elicit comments and wisdom on my blog, link below:
[LINK DELETED]