Divorced people are technically not supposed to take communion in a Catholic church, right?

[Anonymous]

I'm afraid many of you are quite wrong. Of course divorced people can receive communion in the Catholic Church.
You cannot receive communion if you are divorced and re-married without an annulment.

Per the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
Divorce, of itself, is not an obstacle to receiving the Eucharist—but mortal sin is. If a person’s divorce is an occasion of mortal sin, then he must at least be reconciled with God and the Church, ordinarily through the sacrament of confession, prior to receiving the Eucharist.

That said, divorce is not always an occasion of sin for every spouse. The Catechism of the Catholic Church notes the following:

It can happen that one of the spouses is the innocent victim of a divorce decreed by civil law; this spouse therefore has not contravened the moral law. There is a considerable difference between a spouse who has sincerely tried to be faithful to the sacrament of marriage and is unjustly abandoned, and one who through his own grave fault destroys a canonically valid marriage. (CCC 2386)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I only ask because divorce is somewhat common and I literally never see any middle aged or older people at Mass but not taking communion. Do divorcees and people who remarry just ignore that?

No, that is not correct. Common misperception though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No.., divorced people are not supposed to take communion.

In the 70’d this was very much a thing where divorced people were denied communion.

This lead to many problems because if you didn’t want to divorce you still couldn’t take communion.

Do they then said only if you are having sex outside that marriage.

But then the caved and let everyone take communion.

This is not true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:annulment= pay us a lot of money and we can make it go away.

Any fees are meant to offset administrative costs and can be reduced or completely waived in cases of financial hardship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they’ve had an annulment in the Church, they can receive communion.

I had an older, very devout relative who went years without receiving communion because she had married a divorced man. A kind priest asked her about it and was able to help the couple to get an annulment of the first marriage. The husband had only been married for a few months as a 19/20 year old, no kids, so the annulment was actually very easy.

My relative simply didn’t know that this was a possibility. She was so happy that she could receive communion again after this very nice priest helped them.

So you really may not know the situations and backgrounds of the people you see receiving communion.

Are annulments really that common? I find it a little hard to believe all the divorcees who come to Mass got annulments. All the non-annulment divorcees just quit coming?

LOL on Long Island, divorced Catholics get annulments like candy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:annulment= pay us a lot of money and we can make it go away.

Any fees are meant to offset administrative costs and can be reduced or completely waived in cases of financial hardship.

Uber wealthy man gets divorced after 25 years of marriage, which included three children from that marriage. Annulment is a sham.

My uncle another uber-rich, annulled after 6 kids 22 years of marriage. Sham.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:annulment= pay us a lot of money and we can make it go away.

Any fees are meant to offset administrative costs and can be reduced or completely waived in cases of financial hardship.

Uber wealthy man gets divorced after 25 years of marriage, which included three children from that marriage. Annulment is a sham.

My uncle another uber-rich, annulled after 6 kids 22 years of marriage. Sham.

You simply don’t know what you’re talking about.

As noted upthread, nothing actually is “annulled” in a so-called “annulment” proceeding. To the contrary, a Declaration of Nullity is issued only after investigation, trial on the merits and a finding beyond a reasonable doubt that no “sacramental” marriage ever occurred. The grounds for such a finding can vary, and range from fraud/duress to mental incapacity to enter into a union that is lifelong, exclusive, and open to the possibility of offspring (the definition of a Christian marriage).

Hence, while acknowledging that there may have been a civil bond, the persons you cite as evidence that annulment proceedings allegedly are a “scam” were in fact not ever “married” to begin with, at least not in the Christian sense of the word. The duration of a putative marriage, and whether it produced children may be relevant to the parties’ state of mind at the time the marriage was entered into, but they are in no wise dispositive because what is at issue is whether the putative marriage was valid in the first instance.

Moving on to the ancient canard that “annulments” allegedly are bought and paid for, typically by the rich, this has never been true and certainly is not true now, Pope Francis having essentially ended the practice of asking parties to pay administrative and processing fees, (which typically were requested in any event on an “ability to pay” measure or as a voluntary contribution).

[Anonymous]

Divorced people go up and take communion, nobody is going to stop them.

[Anonymous]

To paraphrase Pope Francis, rules hide pain and problems, at worst evil.

[Anonymous]

I know a very devout Catholic whose husband had a double life. He was abusive and they divorced. She had no issues getting an annulment and I’m sure takes communion.