On the one hand, it is extremely good that PF did not just tell them that they were All Right as they were. His action admirably made clear that they needed to get married because, despite their civil 'marriage', they were not in fact married. Eccellente. Clearly, he will first have taken them aside and absolved them from their acts of fornication, before receiving their consent in the Holy Sacrament of Matrimony. What's not to like?
On the other hand, canonists have been uneasy about the "wedding" in the airliner. It all interests me because twice recently, 2 January and 14 January, I have vigorously argued against the apparent belief of some superhyperueberpapalists, that the Roman Pontiff, just because he makes and dispenses from laws, is himself above the Law.
And if it were to be asserted that "By doing X, PF tacitly dispensed himself from the law(s) against X", I would regard the implications of that approach as thoroughly disturbing ... almost like the Nazi notion that the Fuehrer's will is the Supreme Law. The whole business would suggest the ugly idea that "I'm the Pope and so I can do anything".
Indeed he is and indeed he can't.
God bless the pair of them! And him as well!
I wonder if the journalists will check that they were canonically free to marry, and ferret around to uncover the facts about the Act of God which prevented them from marrying in due form in the first place. An earthquake, was it ...
There is a rather pleasing scene at the end of Fr. Rolfe’s (Baron Corvo’s, etc. whatever you want call him) novel Don Tarquinio where Pope Alexander VI marries a couple on the terrace of the Castle Sant Angelo, all rather spontaneously in front of a crowd of courtiers.
ReplyDeleteYes, Dear Father, it was an earthquake. But for some reason in their country/province/town there has been no new construction since. No Church to get married in, no Rectory either, no Cathedral…so sad. And as for your very kind presumption that there was the Sacrament of Confession prior to this irregular 'event' I'm sorry to say I do not have your charity. In a time of scandal, I am scandalized by this travesty.
ReplyDeleteEven if, in charity, we assume there was Confession, and this couple were Baptized Catholics and that there was no other impediment could Francis not have advised them to head to their local pastor and be properly married? This very public act, with no way for anyone to see beneath the surface, creates a scandal and a very unfortunate precedence.
I tried to post this on facebook and got this error:
ReplyDeleteYou can't post this because it has a blocked link
The content you're trying to share includes a link that our security systems detected to be unsafe:
liturgicalnotes.blogspot.com
Please remove this link to continue.
If you think you're seeing this by mistake, please let us know.
Apparently, Father, you are not welcome on Facebook.
This is the same Pope Francis who declared that most marriages are invalid, because the parties do not understand the sacrament of Holy Matrimony, owing to lack of proper pastoral counseling, and he marries two people he met on the plane?
ReplyDeleteAs noted by Mr Beckett, Facebook is refusing to recognise that this blog isn't 'offensive to community standards'.
ReplyDeleteThree times this has happened to me; I complained each time and they reversed their decisions, restoring my sharings of Fr Hunwicke's posts ('after evaluation, it appears that the post does not violate our community standards').
It's happened again (the post in question was from the 14th, 'the Next Conclave and the Papal Oath'-- I just don't 'get' why someone in corporate social media world would care about the subject or in fact be able to understand what Fr H. was writing about), but this time they aren't restoring it, nor have they communicated at all (indeed, the original message this time promised 'to try to take a look to check...' and to let me know 'if there is an update'); so I will delete my account (as I'd assured 'em I would if they repeated their nonsense again).
There are other reasons not to facilitate the Facebook juggernaut but this is the last straw so far as I'm concerned.
Our approach is not to say they were not married. Of course they were. (I recall a couple slipping into our parish after 6pm Mass one evening and the curate undertaking the needful). I much prefer the Pope working as a priest in an airplane than granting press conferences. More please.
ReplyDeleteAll part of the plan to trivialize the sacrament of matrimony...Amoris Laetitia in action
ReplyDeleteOnce again PF shows his disdain for orthodox and prudent procedure (Pharisaic, I expect he’d call it), but his precipitous (apparently) and poorly thought-out action will open a Pandora’s box for pastors.
ReplyDeleteAnd in Pharisaic fashion some of the faithful will declare: “What need have we of witnesses, or procedure, or paperwork…? Just get on with it!”
Thank you Pope Francis, for sowing further confusion and discord!
Well one good use for FB is that it quickly unearths the lie that this travesty of a "marriage" was in any way "spontaneous". It was just another photo-op - fake news that had been planned at least a month ago:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2051641361738038&set=p.2051641361738038&type=3
What does that tell us about a man who would take part in such a deception?
It makes it worse that they had at least a month in which to put everything in order, but didn’t bother.
ReplyDeleteThe following article in Spanish was published last December and describes the forthcoming wedding of the couple on the plane:
http://www.emol.com/noticias/Nacional/2017/12/19/888055/Con-emocion-y-nerviosismo-Tripulacion-del-avion-que-trasladara-al-Papa-en-Chile-cuentan-como-recibieron-la-noticia.html
"... despite their civil 'marriage', they were not in fact married."
ReplyDeleteI am not sure that this is true. Any public and documented act where the groom and bride exchange vows is, at least presumably, marriage. So the the couple could have sinned by transgressing a Church's precept rather than by fornication. Of course, for catholics such marriage could be declared null by an ecclesial court because of the defect of form, but if there has not been a trial it should be presumed valid. Just like a marriage before a priest who had not the requisite jurisdiction. Un unlike the case where the two just lived together without any formalities.
Therefore, canonist Dr. E. Peters called this papal act convalidation, i.e. there was something to convalidate in the first place.