“The fact that there are Catholic couples and people who have
re-married, and therefore can’t come to Communion, the fact that they
would desperately like to do so, and the Church recognizes the good of
that; the question is, 'how do we do that while being faithful to the
teaching of the Church concerning the bond?' That brings us to the
question of an annulment, the declaration that there never was a bond in
the first place,” Cardinal Wuerl commented.
My comment: Couples and persons in irregular relationships, if they realize the love of God and the need for communion with God and the church must also realize that the graveness of their situation, and that the solution is repentance and amendment of life. This is indeed a difficult situation. The disciples of Christ said, "therefore it is no good to get married". This was the typical reply of the disciples as they perceived how difficult the teachings of Christ about marriage, divorce and adultery. But Christ never budge in. In fact Jesus Christ rebuked the pharisees and told them that it was their hardheadedness that cause Moses to relent and allow them to divorce their wives. But Christ emphasized that from the beginning it was not so. What the church should do is to give pastoral programs to help these people, but not to circumvent the rules that would dilute or even cause a distortion of the gospel of Christ. The Church must renew the face of the earth and it should not be around-the world pressuring the church to bend her doctrines. What is important is the salvation of souls not the "inclusivity" spoken of by the world. The world seeks tolerance without making judgement. Indeed we are not suppose to judge persons because Christ said that we must not judge. But as individual Christians we need to make judgements on actions because we need to do what is right and shun wrong doing. The only way we can do it is calling sin a sin and a spade a spade. But our compassion for the erring brothers and sisters must always be characterized by a compassion that seeks the conversion and a heart full of pity and love.
“The whole concept of 'graduality' – that surfaced but you don’t find it in the final document,” he said.
My comment: Yes the Cardinal is correct, there is a need for a clearer definition of this term. In the gospel we saw how Christ spoke with the woman of Samaria in Sycar's well. Little by little Jesus open the understanding of the woman and in the end Christ made it clear to her that she was living in sin because the man he is living with is her 9th. But as of the moment the word "graduality" far from providing coherence creates confusion for lack of meaning.
The world is watching us. And it is naive to think that the world would ever be sympathetic to the Church. So we need to work hard to convert the world.
For the salvation of souls is the supreme Law.
