Families and single moms are a must @ the synod - unmarried men(priests) are lacking direct experience, or family life is a real life experience of two people, is not an abstract taught in the seminary.

RodH,

We are not speaking the same language so it is best to let it go. I do not want to fight or argue. God bless you.

ETA:  Or should we just model our doctrine after the Protestants and their “marvelous” record marriage?
Just accept it!  Praise God!  Cookies and coffee in the fellowship hall!
No.  This life is a spiritual war and it is about time Catholics put on the armor of faith and take up the Sword of the Word in allegiance to the teaching of the Church instead of looking for ever-more creative ways to Surrender to every enemy that approaches the gate.

Karl:

Your posts are all over the map. 
What you are now describing is violation of the confessional.  Such abuse occurs not exclusively in relation to the topic of marriage and is in no way restricted to it.  This and any other sacrilege and/or violation of orders and vows of priests broadens the topic far beyond the issue of marriage and it, too should have its “day in court”.  But your ramblings about the Church’s dismal record on marriage still fails to observe that the dismal record on marriage starts with the divorced.  ANY discussion of the topic must remain grounded there.
Jesus relates this quite well indeed in dealing with the “woman caught in adultery”.  As we know, under Hebrew Law BOTH adulterers should have been executed.  But alas, the “setup” did not include both adulterers.  His judgment was therefore absolutely supportable under the Law.  But let’s go on…
Note how Jesus did not, in His comments on marriage, ever expound into a legal theory of how to go about determining who was right. 
Why?  He makes clear that there are much greater issues than merely who is right at stake in examining the effect of failed marriages.  He makes this clear enough in what He DOES say about marriage.  Jesus leaves us with little more than the short answer to be inferred that both parties have failed in a valid marriage that fails. It is not an issue merely to be finagled in court, with a “winner” and a “loser”.
Now that divorce is standard fare for our culture, note how folks so flippantly “go through a divorce”.  No.  They choose to divorce because they have failed in their relationship.  Our whole culture is being destroyed by those who fail in marriage.  That destruction is not the exclusive fault of just the Protestants, the gays, the pagans and the Courts. It isn’t even truly limited to the one who {finally} breaks the marriage contract by the act of adultery. It is caused by all the many little day to day decisions made by both parties leading to the final act.  It is easy to see and observe. 
And then, this, too is easy to see, after failing, so many go on to blame the Church for this or that that had nothing to do with the fact that they failed in their marriage.
My mother once taught me; “Don’t blame somebody else when you sin. No one causes you to sin.  YOU do.” Instead, our culture now looks for opportunities to go sin and blame it all on someone else or at least spread the misery around. 
This is what concerns many of us when we har of a new Synod.  Simply because the overwhelming push in society today is for the Church to simply roll over and accept the Mosaic cop-out of a modern version of “issue her a letter of writ” and “move on” because….there’s evangelization to be done!
I pray the Church didn’t bring on the staff of the Crystal Cathedral when they bought the building…
That you had a bad priest and bishop in the way they handled your failed marriage may indeed be true, and if that is the case do not cease fighting to see them taken to task.  But to put marriage as an institution on the block for your failures is exactly what is so common today.  In my observations this is common stuff for Catholics all over the country.  Take heart…IIRC the number of divorcees now exceeds the number of those who have made marriages work. 
What the Church needs to do on the issue of marriage is teach;  Teach about what makes a good marriage.  Teach the Scriptures and the Tradition.  If that is what comes out of a new Synod, a new emphasis on teaching the GOOD, praise God.  It is needed by the many who are actually working it out and making it work.  You know, the ones in the trenches.  The married need to be encouraged, not further belittled by those who fail at marriage and then get the Church to whitewash their sepulcher. 
I still do not know exactly the entire point of any of your posts, but the innuendo handing blame for your failed marriage to the Church is obvious enough.

Sorry for the poor editing job. I accidentally posted my comment just as I was about to edit it. Oh well, the point was made albeit rather sloppily.

RodH.

What these men have done is in encourage adultery, divorce….

They have NOT tried to fix a thing. They are intimately encouraging all the sins. And, they have known this for decades.

I guess you would cheer the priest you would congratulate the Catholic priest who violated two confession of our children by telling their mother they were scandalized by her adultery. They were punished by their mother and her lover for their confessions. The bishop would do nothing.

This is HOW the Catholic Church works. THIS is what the Pope needs to hear and to deal with.

You have no idea what you are talking about. Sorry, I know exactly what I have seen.

Karl, your post is very hard to understand, but in a manner of speaking, I got a chuckle from it.
This one is primo; “It makes no sense to this Catholic why the Pope should even listen to or consult with pastors, like bishops and cardinals, as every single one of them has been a dismal failure regarding marriage”.
No, Sir;  These Catholic Priests and bishops and cardinals have tried to fix the problems the divorced have caused.  THEY were never married.  You…were.  The “dismal failure” regarding divorce is not those who never were married, it is those who…were. 
I get really tired with those who condemn the Church because they made a mess and the Church isn’t the scullery maid they hoped the Church would be.  Those who are “in the trenches” are those who make marriages work, imperfect as they may be.

The Pope has opened Pandora’s box. Perhaps that is what he wanted? Only he knows. To this, long-divorced Catholic, I see only more chaos in the wake.

This is the most pressing issue, in my opinion, in the Catholic Church and it must be addressed. What the Church has done in the nearly 60 years of my life, does not work. The evidence is insurmountable. Nor, does the Orthodox practice of “economia”, regarding remarriage. One can cherry pick results which is simply dishonest, to use “results” to rationalize right and wrong. Such “political spinning” has no place in the Catholic Church or among anyone who thinks they follow Christ.

I have never found a single bishop who cared enough to roll up his sleeves
and address these issues. For more than two decades I have sought assistance of many bishops, cardinals and ...  None care enough to even listen, much less consider acting responsibly. These “Princes of the Church” seem content to watch families be shredded by so-called “family courts” and then, usually when one of the “separated spouses gets the “hots”, to force them to be even more grotesquely abused by tribunals. I know many who have suffered tremendous injustice, on their priests and bishops and cardinals watches but have been ignored, or worse, marginalized, by them. I have never been told of a single instance of the intervention of a bishop or cardinal, canonically, to use the full moral authority of the Church, AS THEY SHOULD FOR ALL MARRIAGES. This is, I think, a tremendous scandal.

His Holiness should start by personally summoning and paying for consultations, as long as necessary, in Rome, with those of us who remain faithful to our vows and who have survived the two systems of injustice. That is exactly what they are. But, neither Pope Benedict nor Pope John Paul II cared enough to listen to us. Period. All they did was talk, empty talk, for decades.

It makes no sense to this Catholic why the Pope should even listen to or consult with pastors, like bishops and cardinals, as every single one of them has been a dismal failure regarding marriage. He should listen, primarily to those of us in the trenches and perhaps even our children,who have lived through, with no choice, what one or both of their parents have chosen to do. These children have no voice in the Catholic Church to advocate for them. I have tried. Nothing is ever, ever, done. Some of them know the real score. Those of us who remain faithful ARE SUCCESSFUL IN THE DEFENSE OF MARRIAGE!

I will try to offer up my pain, frustrations, failures and suffering(of all kinds), may God help me to do this, to intercede on His Holiness’ behalf in this regard, specifically. That he seek out the will of God, alone, yielding neither to excesses of perceived justice nor excesses of perceived mercy, in his search and in his decisions along his journey to the Synod he has called in 2014.

I would ask all Catholics to do the same but, especially, my brothers and sisters living the chaste life, of their choosing only after their marriage was badly wounded, as marriages do not die. They either are or they never were. Period. To say they die is to, in my opinion, sin gravely against the sacrament and all those involved. The Holy Father and the Catholic Church need your prayers and sacrifices…. In addition, to my brothers and sisters coping with same sex attraction but living the chaste, faithful Catholic life, please may you join us in this? We need each other in our, respective, walks. This way we can support each other in faithfulness to the teachings of the Catholic Church, by our living witnesses.

God bless. Thank you.

Dave Zelenka,

Jesus was critical of Pharisees, but he did not recruit Sadducees. They both thought they were better than the other, and hence both closed to door to being converted, missing the point of the Gospel.

I stopped reading the National Catholic Reporter because it was filled with political pontification.

Liberals need to learn to look beyond their own politics as much as conservatives do.

The us vs them card they are playing is destructive.

“What God has put together; no man shall asunder.” Mark 10:9

There is no more clarity than this.  The failure is due to sin; address those issues first, then you can begin to find mercy and compassion in the process.  It is always by God’s grace that man or woman finds the courage to bear witness and fidelity to the truth and as it was established. 

Any other twigging, finagling and twist-n-turns offers room to connive.  We have bore witness to the filth.  This is no different from abortion and same-sex marriage aguments.  Justifications and more justifications lead to a “pit” without a bottom.

“But let your word be Yea, yea; Nay, nay; but what is more than these is from evil” - Matthew 5:37.

I don’t trust it.

In Christ,

The whole point is that sinners need Jesus. The righteous do not need Jesus. The Parable of the Lost Sheep lays that fact out. The Blessed Sacrament is not needed by the righteous. The Blessed Sacrament is for sinners like me and you. We must allow the fallen people to the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

Don’s assessment is true to the CCC.  I, too, believe the issue of divorce will become the central issue of this Synod.  It must be in that it is THE central issue facing “families” today.  It effects so many it must be addressed by the Church even if the Church merely restates verbatim its teaching in the CCC.  Havin said that, I do believe it is possible that exegesis of the words of Christ may be revisited.
Is it “except on the ground of fornication” in the clear English sense of the term “fornication”?  If so, the Church is no longer in the business of merely esatablishing the legitimacy of the marriage in the first place.  It must then determine who broke the oaths of marriage with fornication.
If on the other hand the rendering of the words addresses the traditional view of the Church, that is, not the physical act but rather the nature of the “marriag” itself as illicit, then the entire previous view is cast aside.
Basically, the Synod is going to have to decide between the Protestant interpretation and the Catholic one.
It is a VERY hard judgement to make, and let us not forget the key cause; Sin.
The Church is not the CAUSE of the problems.  The CAUSE is the SIN of the divorced.
This will be a very interesting Synod indeed.
One last question;  How “narrow is the gate” if the Church merely accepts the feelings of the people on an issue of this import?
Answer; Just as narrow as it was before the decision.  God’s plan is God’s plan.  Let us pray for wisdom for the Holy Father and all those involved in the upcoming Synod.

Mark - If the solution were as easy you propose, this would not be an issue causing so much controversy and pain. I don’t think I can agree that living as “brother and sister” in the new marriage eliminates the problem of being in a second, “illicit” marriage. According to the CCC, it is the mere contracting of a new marriage that is sinful. CCC 2384: “Divorce is a grave offense against the natural law. It claims to break the contract, to which the spouses freely consented, to live with each other till death. Divorce does injury to the covenant of salvation, of which sacramental marriage is the sign. Contracting a new union, even if it is recognized by civil law, adds to the gravity of the rupture: the remarried spouse is then in a situation of public and permanent adultery: If a husband, separated from his wife, approaches another woman, he is an adulterer because he makes that woman commit adultery, and the woman who lives with him is an adulteress, because she has drawn another’s husband to herself.”
There are many other aspects of the family that will be discussed at the synod but, in my opinion, this will be THE big issue on the table. I trust the Holy Spirit will guide the bishops to a solution.

As Pope JP II said and Francis has reiterated, “as the family goes, so goes the church”. Many national Catholic organizations in the US are very committed to helping to bring families back to the center of the church by partnering with parents (the Domestic Church) to “bring home the faith”. The Strong Catholic Families initiative (www.strongcatholicfamilies.org) is a great example of what we can do when we place families first in passing on the faith to the next generation of believers.

God bless you Pope Francis.

We had great popes with JPII and Benedict. However, I have only one thought with Pope Francis and all his errors in his interviews….next pope please!

No, Mark. You are mistaken. You are disowning what God has revealed, what Christ has established and what His Church has taught to support a solution that does away with sin.

“But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of fornication, makes her an adulteress; and that anyone who marries a divorcee commits adultery.”

To live in remarriage after divorce commit adultery. It is to commit mortal sin publically, to give serious scandal, to offend gravely against God and morals, to trivialize the sacrament of holy matrimony. It can never be justified.

Christ was never indifferent to sin even as He always loved sinners. He said to the woman caught in adultery, Go in peace and sin no more. The Church can do no less.

This Pooe is either stupid or fierless

Well not exactly, Don. They’re not required to walk away from the new marriage if they live as brother and sister and are responsible to any duties from the previous marriage. Whether they intend to do that is, I think, not for a confessor to probe anymore than any other person who comes to confession; benefit of the doubt is given. But either way, the priest giving communion shouldn’t be told to actively withhold. He should assume the best about their intentions, about whether they’ve been to confession, made arrangements, etc

Who is going to participate?  I have some thoughts I’d like to share…

I agree with everything Deb said. Also, there are plenty of issues surrounding family and evangelization besides divorce and remarriage.  For example, how to live out the ideal of the Domestic Church, particularly in challenging circumstances; how to tailor parish catechesis for families, and so forth.

I think all of our answers can be found in Christ, especially when he talks about marriage. Perhaps we should all pull out our bibles and read about what He says before we determine if the Church should be with Him or against Him.
We could also choose not to speculate on anything until it has happened.

There certainly are a lot of posters on this site defending mortal sin. Sad.

does it provide scandal for a man and woman to live together in a purported marriage (while there original spouse is still living)evenif they are abstaining from sexual relations?

is a couple that is doing such a thing placing themselves in the near occasion of sin?

Mark, I agree with you to an extent.  The quibble I have (maybe I just don’t understand) is that in order to obtain absolution one must have a firm purpose of ammendment.  The problem with the divorced and remarried isn’t that they may be having sex; it is that they are already married and yet pretending to be married to someone else. It is the new marriage itself that is the hurdle, not the sex within that marriage.  Right now, the position is that unless you are willing to walk away from the new “illicit” marriage, you have not indicated that you have a firm purpose of amendment. I see a difference between fornication (Father, I had sex with my girlfriend; I am sorry; I will try my best not to do it again) and living in an illicit marriage (Father, I know I am in an illicit marriage, and I am sorry, but I am going to stay in it). Anyway, I sure hope that the bishops can figure this out and reach a solution that is both intellectially honest and merciful without essentially saying “We’re really not serious about the indissolubility of marriage after all.”

The solution is really simple enough.

You just treat divorced and remarried Catholics like anyone else. You get rid of the two-tiered double-standard of Catholics who are “regular old sinners” versus those “living in sin.” The latter category is not useful.

Divorced and remarried Catholics may be living as brother and sister for all we know. Or they might be trying, but fail frequently, but confess before receiving communion; leaving their new spouse shouldn’t be a condition of absolution. Or they might have judged in conscience (right or wrong) that their first marriage was invalid in spite of what some tribunal said (annulments are not infallible) and at that point it’s between them and God and they’re like any Catholic who is in some sort of private irregularity.

Plenty of people dissent and use birth control or have premarital sex and don’t go to confession and still receive communion, and there’s no way to know or stop them (nor, really, any reason). The double standard between “manifest” and private sinners needs to be done away with, at least in cases where the sin itself is only indirectly “manifest,” where the alleged publicity of it rests on jumping to conclusions about people’s private sex lives based on mere external arrangements.

Basically, the remarried shouldn’t be treated any differently than single people who have girlfriends or boyfriends. Maybe they’re having premarital sex, maybe they’re not confessing it. Who knows! It doesn’t change their public standing in the church or get them made second-class citizens. Neither should it for divorced and remarried couples (nor any other sort of cohabiting couple, suspicious “friendship” of a married man, or even a gay couple…though we’ll see if Francis is willing to extend his welcoming of imperfect situations this far!)

Further to my point, above, I note that an Archbishop in Freiburg, Germany issued a statement this week stating he will grant communion to remarried people. This has been a huge issue in Germany and, I believe, Austria with many bishops rebelling against the Church’s official position. So I think this will be a big show-down at the synod. Hopefully, there is also a focus on other aspects of the family too.

THE PEOPLE ARE THE CHURCH ?...AND OUR POPE FRANCIS IS ONE OF THE THOSE PEOPLE ?...KNOW PHARISES MUST RULE , BUT REBORN   CHOSEN WHO CAN GIVE TRUE WITNESS WITH LIVES TO JESUS CHRIST EVEN WILLING TO DIE ON THE CROSS IF NEED BE ?...THIS CALLED FAITH ?...LONG LIVE POPE FRANCIS

I believe the real purpose of this synod is to find a way to permit divorced and remarried Catholics to re-enter full communion with the Church. Pope Francis has mentioned several times that he thinks this is a pressing issue that must be dealt with.  There is a strong feeling among many that it is unforgiving, unjust, unmerciful, to deny communion to people who are remarried.  Others feel just as strongly that admitting remarried people to communion would undermine the sacrament of marriage.  To take the extreme example, what do we do with a young woman with several children who’s husband has abandoned her and has no means to support her family, so she remarries? Or the young man who’s wife leaves him for another man and five years later falls in love again, remarries, and has children. Later, he realizes he made a bad mistake but now is told he must leave wife and children in order to be in communion with the Church?  Right now, both of these people are barred from communion unless & until they divorce their new spouse or the spouse dies. Should the Church insist that they split up, depriving the children of a two-parent home? They are likely to leave the Church, and their children will then not be raised Catholic. This is a real connundrum. Right now, we use the process of annulment (a declaration that the marriage was never valid to begin with) to deal with failed marriages. The panels that review annulment applications are relaxed in some geographic areas - to the point of making the process a farce - yet in other areas the panels are very strict. The question is how to maintain the Church’s dogmnatic teaching on the indissolubility of marriage, yet be merciful and forgiving at the same time. I am really not sure there is an answer that can achieve both objectives.  Any solution that the bishops come up would be likely to make a farce out of the indissolubility of marriage. Maybe it would be that the Church must look at each situation and determine whether sanctioning the new marriage (by permitting communion) is the lesser of two evils?  I pray that the Holy Spirit guides the bishops in this synod.

Thank you Holy Father! While this may be a perennial problem, it is a very acute one… particularly where I live, with families increasingly isolated in their suburban fortresses and family members isolated from each other by all the other rushing around we do when not at home. There are some very good discussions and ideas around this surfacing, particularly as the converts of the past 10-20 years are coming to the fore - bringing new ideas. A synod would be a welcome venue to discuss this movement and unify efforts.

Why the focus on family?  It is time to pull us together.  Seriously, with over 50% of American children now born out of wedlock by very mature parents (average age of 26), 100,000 orphaned kids waiting for foster care, with Planned Parenthood having Catholic men and women divided pushed in the corner afraid to speak out to what they know is true.  Liberalism/socialism is wrong!  Real protection starts with parents, family and a strong local community.

ryan, perhaps not everyone shares your view that the Church cannot better perform her ministry.

Yawn.  What do these synods actually accomplish?  And this particular topic seems likely to just be rehashing old topics.  It just seems like a waste of time and resources to me.