c. 2000 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ The Vatican on Thursday (July 6) ruled out any relaxation of its ban on communion for divorced Roman Catholics who have remarried, declaring the prohibition derives from divine law and can never be changed.

The Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts issued the authoritative statement in response to arguments by liberal theologians in the United States and Germany that the section of church law under which the ban is enforced should not be applied to remarried Catholics.

The council, which is the Vatican’s highest authority on church law, accused the unnamed theologians of twisting the meaning of its wording in order to use it “as an instrument for relativizing the precepts or emptying them of their substance.”

For divorced and remarried Catholics to receive communion is a “scandal” that “prompts others toward wrongdoing” and affects both the sacrament of the Eucharist and the Catholic belief in the indissolubility of marriage, the council said.

The council said the only exception to the ban on communion is for remarried couples who must stay together for such “serious motives” as raising the children of the second marriage but live together as brother and sister without marital sex.

In token of its importance, the Vatican distributed the council’s three-page statement in six languages _ English, Italian, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese. It was signed by Archbishop Julian Herranz, the Spanish prelate and member of the Opus Dei Prelature, who is president of the council.

The withholding of communion from Catholics who receive a civil divorce and remarry outside the church is a highly emotional issue. Some Catholics consider it to be as important as the debate over allowing priests to marry and ordaining women. Divorced Catholics who do not remarry are allowed to receive communion.

According to the Catholic Almanac, estimates of the number of U.S. Catholics who have divorced and remarried range between 6 million and 8 million. Although denied communion, they may attend Mass, baptize and raise their children in the church, and take part in other church activities.

At issue is Canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law, which states: “Those upon whom the penalty of excommunication or interdict has been imposed or declared, and others who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin, are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.” An interdict prohibits an individual from receiving sacraments.

“In recent years some authors have sustained, using a variety of arguments, that this canon would not be applicable to faithful who are divorced and remarried,” the council said. It said these were “clearly misleading” interpretations of the magisterium, infallible church teachings, and “the discipline of the church throughout the centuries.”

The council said it had the support of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in rebutting the arguments.

“The prohibition found in the cited canon, by its nature, is derived from divine law and transcends the domain of positive ecclesiastical laws; the latter cannot introduce legislative changes which would oppose the doctrine of the church,” it said.

The council said the “unworthiness of being in a state of sin” not only concerns the sinner’s “moral conscience” but “poses a serious juridical problem in the church.”

“In the concrete case of the admission to Holy Communion of faithful who are divorced and remarried, the scandal, understood as an action that prompts others towards wrongdoing, affects at the same time both the sacrament of the Eucharist and the indissolubility of marriage,” the council said.

“That scandal exists even if such behavior, unfortunately, no longer arouses surprise,” it said. “In fact, it is precisely with respect to the deformation of the conscience that it becomes more necessary for pastors to act, with as much patience as firmness, as a protection to the sanctity of the sacraments and a defense of Christian morality, and for the correct formation of the faithful.”

The council advised priests to avoid “instances of public denial of Holy Communion” by explaining to remarried couples “the true ecclesial sense of the norm in such a way that they would be able to understand it or at least respect it.”

But it said when this is not possible or when couples ignore the priest’s explanation, “the minister of communion must refuse to distribute it to those who are publicly unworthy.”

“They are to do this with extreme charity and are to look for the opportune moment to explain the reasons that required the refusal,” the statement said. “They must, however, do this with firmness, conscious of the value that such signs of strength have for the good of the church and of souls.”

DEA END POLK