Comments on homesick home: Latae sententiae

This is horribly sad.

2006-09-10T08:51:00.000-07:00

This is horribly sad.

hummm that was an intersting way of viewing cathol...

2006-03-15T20:35:00.000-08:00

hummm that was an intersting way of viewing catholism and why you send your children there....... you want to give them the good part of the catholic's.... and you know that their heart will be able to choose about the bad parts. That makes more sense to me.

JW, this was my understanding as a teenager -- it ...

2005-11-22T10:17:00.000-08:00

JW, this was my understanding as a teenager -- it was incorrect, but I had no one to point that out to me at the time.
Since then, though, I married a Buddhist who refused to agree to raise our kids Catholic, and I accepted that my future kids would be Buddhists. So I married in the church, but refused communion, and it was my understanding that marriage was the last sacrament I would receive. The kids are being raised Catholic, but I still don`t regret my initial promise to my husband -- I think it was the right thing to do at the right time. So I still don`t receive communion. I`ve also donated money to Planned Parenthood over the years, which some say is morally equivalent to procuring abortions (but I don`t think it`s that simple).
I`ve always wondered how Canon Law applied to priests who got married -- I know a few, but have always been too shy to ask!

L you have not been automatically excommunicated, ...

2005-11-21T22:39:00.000-08:00

L you have not been automatically excommunicated, unless you actually participated in the act of abortion.

Jackie divorce does not rate excommunication. There used to be a church law that remarring after divorce caused automatic excommunication, but that law was cancelled, retroactively, in 1978.

Oh, I am a Catholic priest. Though right now I am under a latae sententiae (meaning automatic) suspension (not excommunication) because I got married! However Church canon law (#1335) says that my suspension is itself suspended if anyone asks for something sacramental.

I`m still not sure I fit the definition of "excomm...

2005-10-28T10:34:00.000-07:00

I`m still not sure I fit the definition of "excommunicant," because I`ve never actually had or procured an abortion, and even though my husband initially didn`t agree to raise our kids Catholic, I did end up doing it that way. I`ve decided it ultimately doesn`t matter to me.

The whole annulment process sounds interesting -- I don`t know what it`s like now, but a few generations ago it used to cost a lot of money, and my great-grandmother couldn`t afford to get one when she left her wife-beating husband. A kindly parish priest overlooked this and remarried her in the church -- or so the family legend goes.

Ah, a wise woman, your Grandmother. My excommunic...

2005-10-28T06:59:00.000-07:00

Ah, a wise woman, your Grandmother.

My excommunication was not over abortion, but rather divorce. For several years after the fact, I (thought I had) nonchalantly walked away from the Church until faced with all the issues of remarriage and raising children. At which point my father, during a blowout fight over the merits of getting an annulment, pretty much said the same thing as your Grandmother.

Too true.

And now I'm in the middle of the annulment process. I think if I hadn't, the feeling of leaving something unresolved would have stayed with me forever.

As will I, Roger.L., I hear you. I was raised in ...

2005-10-23T01:25:00.000-07:00

As will I, Roger.

L., I hear you. I was raised in a Baptist church in central NY (very different from Southern Baptist), was away for quite a while, and came back (to the Methodists). I've strayed since then but I always seem to come back.

I'm not all that sure about faith myself. Fortunately, my church isn't about hellfire and brimstone so I can be comfortable even if I never sort it out completely.

It may be a little hypocritical of me to refer to myself as a "person of faith" when I'm not all that positive that's what I am but I want to do something to counter the rhetoric of the religious right. If I show any doubt, they'll land all over me. Anyhow, having doubts doesn't mean I'm lying. Most sane people have doubts; I'm just admitting mine and they come and go.

The church helps keep me centered. It provides me with friends and a moral compass. The liberal (mostly) Methodists and I stand together on many things. I want to show that people of faith can be a force for love and good as well as hatred and evil even when I'm wondering why a "loving" God (anyone's god) can allow evil to exist or little children to die.

I was raised catholic. I was pretty catholic all ...

2005-10-22T20:42:00.000-07:00

I was raised catholic. I was pretty catholic all the way through high school. Then one weekend we were at this retreat and the priest said that if you weren't baptized, you couldn't go to heaven (or something like that.) So I cornered him and asked about my dad -- born jewish, but the nicest guy you ever met. The priest said no. So I decided that if my dad wasn't there, I wasn't interested in heaven.

Then I got to thinking about the whole thing and decided that God was such a petulant little brat -- demanding people tell him how great he was and not allowing them to have any fun -- that either he didn't really exist or I wanted to kick his but from here to kingdom come (or vice versa, depending on the situation.)

My religiousness has gone downhill ever since. 8^)

But, of course, as you (hopefully) well know, I will fight for everyone's right to believe anything they want from catholicism to the great pumpkin.

It is so true!Your Grandmother knew so much about ...

2005-10-22T12:48:00.000-07:00

It is so true!
Your Grandmother knew so much about his.
I have not been an active Catholic since I was child - literally.
Yet it has never left me.

Instead I have found a place to give me the community and comforting rituals that I remember with fondness.

For me, being Unitarian helps fill that space.

I was a rabid anti-choice adolescent. Until I went home from GR.8 religion class and talked to my Mom.

She sat me down and told me that abortion wasn't that easy.

That has never left me.

Oh, honey, I know. This was such a fabulously writ...

2005-10-22T12:36:00.000-07:00

Oh, honey, I know. This was such a fabulously written post, by the way.

I was raised Mormon, and I actually did excommunicate myself-- took my name off the records. And I would never inflict it upon my children.

But I do love Catholicism, so I am reading all of this with a tremendous amount of interest.