84. Daily experience unfortunately shows that people who have
obtained a divorce usually intend to enter into a new union, obviously
not with a Catholic religious ceremony. Since this is an evil that, like
the others, is affecting more and more Catholics as well, the problem
must be faced with resolution and without delay. The Synod Fathers
studied it expressly. The Church, which was set up to lead to salvation
all people and especially the baptized, cannot abandon to their own
devices those who have been previously bound by sacramental marriage and
who have attempted a second marriage. The Church will therefore make
untiring efforts to put at their disposal her means of salvation.
Pastors must know that, for the sake of truth, they are obliged to
exercise careful discernment of situations. There is in fact a
difference between those who have sincerely tried to save their first
marriage and have been unjustly abandoned, and those who through their
own grave fault have destroyed a canonically valid marriage. Finally,
there are those who have entered into a second union for the sake of the
children's upbringing, and who are sometimes subjectively certain in
conscience that their previous and irreparably destroyed marriage had
never been valid.
Together with the Synod, I earnestly call upon pastors and the whole
community of the faithful to help the divorced, and with solicitous care
to make sure that they do not consider themselves as separated from the
Church, for as baptized persons they can, and indeed must, share in her
life. They should be encouraged to listen to the word of God, to attend
the Sacrifice of the Mass, to persevere in prayer, to contribute to
works of charity and to community efforts in favor of justice, to bring
up their children in the Christian faith, to cultivate the spirit and
practice of penance and thus implore, day by day, God's grace. Let the
Church pray for them, encourage them and show herself a merciful mother,
and thus sustain them in faith and hope.
However, the Church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon
Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced
persons who have remarried. They are unable to be admitted thereto from
the fact that their state and condition of life objectively contradict
that union of love between Christ and the Church which is signified and
effected by the Eucharist. Besides this, there is another special
pastoral reason: if these people were admitted to the Eucharist, the
faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the Church's
teaching about the indissolubility of marriage.
Reconciliation in the sacrament of Penance which would open the way
to the Eucharist, can only be granted to those who, repenting of having
broken the sign of the Covenant and of fidelity to Christ, are sincerely
ready to undertake a way of life that is no longer in contradiction to
the indissolubility of marriage. This means, in practice, that when, for
serious reasons, such as for example the children's upbringing, a man
and a woman cannot satisfy the obligation to separate, they "take on
themselves the duty to live in complete continence, that is, by
abstinence from the acts proper to married couples."
Similarly, the respect due to the sacrament of Matrimony, to the
couples themselves and their families, and also to the community of the
faithful, forbids any pastor, for whatever reason or pretext even of a
pastoral nature, to perform ceremonies of any kind for divorced people
who remarry. Such ceremonies would give the impression of the
celebration of a new sacramentally valid marriage, and would thus lead
people into error concerning the indissolubility of a validly contracted
marriage.
By acting in this way, the Church professes her own fidelity to
Christ and to His truth. At the same time she shows motherly concern for
these children of hers, especially those who, through no fault of their
own, have been abandoned by their legitimate partner.
With firm confidence she believes that those who have rejected the
Lord's command and are still living in this state will be able to obtain
from God the grace of conversion and salvation, provided that they have
persevered in prayer, penance and charity.
