INTERNAL FORUM REVISTED A LA 1970'S

UPDATE BY EDWARS PENTEN BELOW

I have written about this well before the Synod on Marriage and the Family. This is what I was taught in my canon law class in the seminary. I was taught this around 1978 and really, really believed this was legitimate. I think there can be a case made for it as the Synod fathers seem to do last month.

The internal forum could only be used in the following scenario (as taught by my canon law professor who was a priest and taught canon law for many decades at the seminary prior to and after Vatican II):

1. The external forum had to be used first.
2. The external forum fails because of technicalities, such as lack of witnesses or only the couple themselves know what transpired and no one else does. 
3. With an ambiguous conclusion to the external forum that does not approve or disapprove the annulment, then the internal forum can be a last resort.

How the internal forum worked:

1. The penitent initiates it (not the priest) and does so within the Sacrament of Confession
2. The penitent tells the priest that he/she has gone through an unsucessful annulment due to technicalities
3. The penitent believes the first marriage recognized by the Church as a sacrament was not in fact a sacrament due to a number of circumstances known only to the penitent and/or the respondent.
4. The penitent explains that the second marriage not recognized by the Church is a good marriage, children are cared for, strong family life and children from previous marriage are supported
5. The penitent after being asked by the priest says no scandal would be involved if they were to return to Holy Communion as no one knows about their previous marriage
6. The priest tells the penitent that for him/her to return to Holy Communion is a decision of their conscience and only the penitent will be held accountable for doing so if in fact the first marriage is an actual sacrament. 
7. The priest offers a conditional absolution based upon what the penitent has revealed and the penitent is then free to receive Holy Communion although there is not a brother/sister relationship in the irregular marriage but the marital act is a part of the irregular marriage.
8. The priest may not convalidate the marriage in the Church.

I know that this is what I was taught and what I believed to be a pastoral solution only after the annulment procedure failed due to technicalities. I knew too that the penitent had to initiate it, not the priest and if the pastoral solution was given, the burden of conscience was on the penitent and in no way could the priest actually validate the second marriage.

This sound like what Pope Francis is purported to have told a journalist last week. Rorate Caeili is reporting this, but I have not seen it confirmed or denied by any other source, so this quote may be yet another falsehood concerning something the pope has said which in fact he did not say.

At any rate, if he did say it, it sounds awful much like what I was taught in the 1970's and fits with so much of the resurgence of 1970's thinking, theologically and ideologically under this pontificate:

The diverse opinion of the bishops is part of this modernity of the Church and of the diverse societies in which she operated, but the goal is the same, and for that which regards the admission of the divorced to the Sacraments, [it] confirms that this principle has been accepted by the Synod. This is bottom line result, the de facto appraisals are entrusted to the confessors, but at the end of faster or slower paths, all the divorced who ask will be admitted." [Rorate translation, emphasis added]

AND NOW THE VATICAN DENIAL AND THE LOGICAL QUESTION: WHY THE HELL DOES POPE FRANCIS GIVE INTERVIEWS TO A MAN LIKE THIS???

Latest Scalfari Article on Pope 'In No Way Reliable'
Vatican spokesman says La Repubblica article quoting Pope as wanting "all divorcees" admitted to the sacraments "cannot be considered the Pope's thinking"


by Edward Pentin 11/02/2015 Comments (17)

Reports that Pope Francis told the Italian journalist, Eugenio Scalfari, that remarried divorcees “will be admitted” to the sacraments via the confessional are “in no way reliable” and “cannot be considered as the Pope’s thinking", Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi has said.

In a Nov. 1 article in La Repubblica, Scalfari, a 91 year-old atheist and Socialist, wrote that he had spoken with the Pope about the Synod on the Family on the telephone last Wednesday, during which Francis allegedly said: “We must not think that the family does not exist any longer, it will always exist, because ours is a social species, and the family is the support beam of sociability, but it cannot be avoided that the current family, open as you say, contains some positive aspects, and some negative ones.”

The Pope, according to Scalfari and translated by the Rorate Caeli blog, went on to say: “The diverse opinion of the bishops is part of this modernity of the Church and of the diverse societies in which she operated, but the goal is the same, and for that which regards the admission of the divorced to the Sacraments, [it] confirms that this principle has been accepted by the Synod. This is the bottom line result, the de facto appraisals are entrusted to the confessors, but at the end of faster or slower paths, all the divorced who ask will be admitted."

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told the Register Nov. 2: "As has already occurred in the past, Scalfari refers in quotes what the Pope supposedly told him, but many times it does not correspond to reality, since he does not record nor transcribe the exact words of the Pope, as he himself has said many times. So it is clear that what is being reported by him in the latest article about the divorced and remarried is in no way reliable and cannot be considered as the Pope's thinking."

Father Lombardi said he would not be issuing a statement about the matter as those who have “followed the preceding events and work in Italy know the way Scalfari writes and knows these things well.” Over the past two years, Scalfari has written several such articles following conversations with Pope Francis, each of which has drawn controversy.
This exchange appears no different, which raises the question: why does the Pope continue to speak to someone such as Scalfari, and discuss such sensitive subjects with him, when he knows he is unreliable but likely to report his words without reference to a recording or transcript?


Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/edward-pentin/fr.-lombardi-latest-scalfari-article-on-pope-in-no-way-reliable/#ixzz3qMUdddMr