[NGTM-1R]

Also, there's the little thing of papal infallibility,

Which has to be invoked. The only time it has been was when they invented it. There have been more infallible statements via church councils, really.

[Dragon]

Look people you are just expecting too much. The Catholic Church is an institution that excommunicates you if you dare to divorce! And of course you can't "remarry" anyone else.

Not really. It's perfectly possible to divorce and remarry while remaining in the Catholic Church. Granted, it's a loophole exploit, but it's an open secret that it's done that way.

[CommanderDJ]

I usually don't get involved in these discussions, but as a practicing Catholic, I'm just going to offer some clarification on the Church's view on a couple of the things that have been mentioned.

The Catholic Church is an institution that excommunicates you if you dare to divorce!

Without meaning to be rude, this is just plain wrong. Excommunication in the Catholic Church is barring someone from full membership in the Church; the primary consequence is usually suspension from the Eucharist. No such thing happens if you get a divorce. You remain a full member, nothing is withheld from you, you're just divorced. My auntie divorced from her alcoholic husband about a decade ago, and she can still attend all Church services etc. Excommunication is reserved for serious offences against the Church; divorce is not an offence against it.

It's perfectly possible to divorce and remarry while remaining in the Catholic Church. Granted, it's a loophole exploit, but it's an open secret that it's done that way.

Remarriage is permitted if the marriage is annulled - there's a difference between annulment and divorce, and annulment in the Church is only granted under specific circumstances. If you are only divorced, you cannot remarry in the Church.

And that's all. Carry on.

[Flipside]

I'm sort of in two minds about this Pope. As a non-Catholic I can't really comment on his stances regarding homosexuality or condoms because I would imagine that in the Catholic church it would be difficult to get a broader support without those viewpoints.

He does come across as someone who intends to bring the Church back onto course with regards to its' own compass however, the Catholic Church needs a period where they stop, as it were, complaining about the splinters in their brothers' eyes.

[Dragon]

Remarriage is permitted if the marriage is annulled - there's a difference between annulment and divorce, and annulment in the Church is only granted under specific circumstances. If you are only divorced, you cannot remarry in the Church.

You're right, should have elaborated (I wasn't aware that there's actual divorce option besides the exploit). That's the exploit I was talking about. IIRC, annulment can be granted if one party "doesn't fulfill marital duties" or something like that. Anyway, it's so vaguely defined that it can and is used in most cases when people simply want to divorce.

[CommanderDJ]

Remarriage is permitted if the marriage is annulled - there's a difference between annulment and divorce, and annulment in the Church is only granted under specific circumstances. If you are only divorced, you cannot remarry in the Church.

You're right, should have elaborated (I wasn't aware that there's actual divorce option besides the exploit). That's the exploit I was talking about. IIRC, annulment can be granted if one party "doesn't fulfill marital duties" or something like that. Anyway, it's so vaguely defined that it can and is used in most cases when people simply want to divorce.

I hope you don't mind if I respond to this, just for the sake of clarification.

Annulment isn't quite so vaguely defined; you can actually find a comprehensive list of reasons it could be granted even on Wikipedia. This article in particular, if you'd like to do some further reading . The basic premise of annulment is that it is a decision (which has to be administered by an ecclesiastical tribunal, so it isn't taken lightly) that the bond of marriage never existed; that it was void at its inception. As the article says, it is not a dissolution of an existing marriage. Again, you can find the specific reasons this conclusion may be reached in the article I linked above, but let me give an example: when the auntie I mentioned in my previous post married her husband, they were both happy, and both intended the marriage to be lifelong etc. When he descended into alcoholism a few years later and started abusing her, my auntie got a divorce, but she would not have been eligible for annulment because when they married they fully intended to carry out all the requirements of marriage (and the sacrament was contracted validly). Now if he had, for example, been abusing her before they got married and pressured her into marrying him even though she didn't want to, then the marriage could be declared null. I hope that makes the difference between the two clearer.

Now, whilst I'm sure that people have and will use the intricacies of annulment to obtain it when they should be getting a divorce, I hope I've demonstrated that the Church does not intend for the two to overlap (and it certainly isn't an "exploit" merely in place to allow people to remarry), and as I mentioned, couples applying for annulment in the Church have to present their case to an ecclesiastical tribunal, which will judge whether the bond of marriage existed at some point or whether the marriage was invalid to start with.

I hope this has been helpful.

[Luis Dias]

The Catholic Church is an institution that excommunicates you if you dare to divorce!

Without meaning to be rude, this is just plain wrong. Excommunication in the Catholic Church is barring someone from full membership in the Church; the primary consequence is usually suspension from the Eucharist. No such thing happens if you get a divorce. You remain a full member, nothing is withheld from you, you're just divorced.

I stand corrected.

[redsniper]

Divorce vs annulment.

So then, if your aunt wants to remarry now, is she just SOL or what?

[Mobius]

Divorced people are still allowed to take part in the Eucharist rite unless they're involved in a new relationship.

Once they get married a second time, Eucharist is off-limits for them.

[MP-Ryan]

Divorce vs annulment.

So then, if your aunt wants to remarry now, is she just SOL or what?

Nope.  She just can't get married in a Catholic church with a Catholic service.  She can still get a marriage license and get married anywhere else by anyone else who's licensed to marry people.

Given the bull**** the Catholic Church regularly puts non-Catholics through when a Catholic plans to marry one, a lot of Catholics don't even get married in their Church anymore.  My parents (Dad - Irish Catholic; Mom - Irish Protestant) ended up get married in a Protestant Church; not because mom has anything against the Catholic Church specifically, but more because it was going to be an absolute pain in the ass.

Traditions like this is why the Catholic Church is bleeding membership to evangelical churches the world over.  They're sending themselves into irrelevance at an unprecedented pace.

I know there's this historical argument that the Church has been around for 1500ish years and that's because of tradition, but most students of history will tell you that has far more to do with the isolation of certain pockets of populations, lack of widespread education (which the Church actually controlled), the Church's control over knowledge in general pre-Enlightenment, and their direct role in the everyday lives of most of humanity.  Globalization, widespread public secular education, and the emergence of science as a discipline and rationalism generally have vastly undermined the Church's control over people's everyday lives.  Really, the only reason the Church remained as strong as it did through the Medieval period was their suppression of science and jealously-guarded control over knowledge.  The Enlightenment changed all that, and the Church has been in a downward spiral toward niche irrelevance ever since.  By far the majority of today's Catholics do not strictly follow Church teachings; they pick and choose what works for them.

Looking even at the erosion in the last 150 years, unless the Church is willing to change I think they're going to push the Church further out of the daily lives of its followers.  I know they think that they can stay the course and society will change, but there's a fundamental flaw with that reasoning - science is removing people's need to use faith to interpret the world around them.  There will always be a role for religion, I suspect, but it's not the role the Church leadership wants it to have.  In short, unless they begin a process of realignment of Church teachings with the way people learn and know about their world today, they're pushing themselves into a decline it won't recover from.

Islam will eventually go the same way.  Religious influence over daily life diminishes as a population increases their education and, consequently, their standard of living.  When people lose the widespread, generalized fear of early and meaningless death, religion tends to lose its grip on them.  Let's face it - the only two real forced holds religion has on people is a monopoly over general knowledge and education, and a monopoly over spiritual life after death.  When they lose grip on education/knowledge, people gain knowledge of the world around them.  While that spiritual life role can still exist, it's a lot harder to motivate the same levels of fear in spirituality that you otherwise can when the people you are preaching to are as educated and capable of sharing ideas as you are.