Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Pope Benedict XVI yesterday rapped divorced Catholics who remarry without first getting an annulment, saying they have to live “as brother and sister” if they want to remain in good standing with the church.
An “Apostolic Exhortation” resulting from a three-week meeting of bishops in Rome says that although such couples cannot receive holy Communion, they can adopt a Christian style of life.
Such couples, the document asserts, should commit themselves to “living their relationship in fidelity to the demands of God’s law, as friends, as brother and sister.”
I personally find this offensive because the church is very discriminatory about whose marriages it annuls. Let's be blunt. In America, often the wealthy get their marriages annuled on the flimsiest of pretenses. Rudy Guiliani got his first marriage annuled because he accidentally didn't realize for over a decade that he married his second cousin. Yeah, whatever. If you were Joe Blow Catholic who made $10.00 an hour, you wouldn't get annulments passed around like candy.
So basically what the church is saying is that there are two systems of justice here. You can divorce all you want if you are powerful, but if you are one of the sheep, and the first marriage just didn't work out, you were incompatable, you can get civilly remarried, but you are going to hell if you actually have sex with your new partner.
That's lovely. Let's say you get married at 21. Two years later, your partner decides to take off and divorces you on grounds that the church doesn't accept for annulment. You go to church every week for the next 20 years, stay celibate, and you find the love of your life at 43. You get married. You better not have sex if you want to be a good Catholic.
Or perhaps you want to get a better job, or have a relative in the hierarchy because then your first marriage can be annulled properly so you can fuck like a bunny with "God's permission". Give me a freaking break.
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