Bergoglio is Still Wrong About Marriage

I was revisiting Mark Shea's Catholic and Enjoing it, the other day.

And even more absurd, we have R.R. Reno pursing his lips and tisk-tisking that Francis (again, like the pastor he is at heart) tends to want it to be harder for people to enter into marriage than to approach the Eucharist. He scolds:

Francis reminds us that the Eucharist is “not a prize for the perfect”. But marriage, apparently, is.

Well, yes. People don’t wind up pregnant, abandoned, and impoverished when they receive the Eucharist in ways unacceptable to the finicky hyper-criticism of the Greatest Catholics of All Time. But they do when they rush into marriage ill-prepared. Only people bound and determined to be baffled and offended by this pope have a hard time figuring this stuff out.

I am so mortally weary of the Right Wing Francis Outrage Machine.

Francis and the Right Wing Marriage Argle-Bargle
June 22, 2016 by Mark Shea
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2016/06/francis-and-the-right-wing-marriage-argle-bargle.html

Well, how about getting some of the Francis Outrage from a victim of his?

I admit I did not end up pregnant by receiving Communion sacrilegiously while not yet baptised, me approaching the altar without knowing baptism was required, priest assuming I was a Catholic until he saw I didn't quite know what to do.

But impoverished and abandoned is what I can affirm for both 20 years ago and now. And every year in between.

"Francis" is acting like an ultra-example of the priest in Liverpool who refused to marry a couple whom "Francis" himself congratulated on their 70th wedding anniversary (I was born on their 24th wedding anniversary).

Barclay and Trudy had some trouble getting married. He a black, she a white, he from West Indies, she from the old country itself.

Eventually, in 1944, after they had known each other for about a year, Trudy decided she was ready to take the plunge and told Barclay she would like to marry him.

"He said to me: 'It's going to be very hard, you know that don't you?' And I said: 'Yes, I know.'"

Trudy was keen to have a church wedding but the priest at the local Catholic church in Liverpool refused to perform the service.

"He said, 'There's so many coloured men coming over here and going back home leaving the women with children. So I'm not marrying you.' We were upset about that," says Trudy.

However, they were determined to marry and settled for a brief ceremony at the Liverpool Register Office.

"Only Barclay's friend and one of my sisters went. The four of us went for a meal afterwards," Trudy says.

BBC News Mixed-race couple: 'The priest refused to marry us'
By Claire Bates BBC News
1 March 2017
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-39003902?SThisFB

But moving from the place together helped. Manchester was better than Liverpool:

Barclay found it difficult to find a new job and ended up walking the streets of Manchester looking for work. He was eventually hired by the Manchester Ship Canal dry dock.

The couple settled in to their new life in Manchester. They joined the local sports club, where they played tennis.

"We won a set of cutlery in the doubles," Barclay says.

The local Catholic priest agreed to perform a second wedding ceremony for them in his church. Two daughters - Jean and Betty - followed, and the young family were desperate to get a home of their own.

So, after the couple had proven they were stable, while living in sin, a Catholic priest did wed them.

This because if they hadn't lived in sin, they would not have proven to his pastoral sense that they were faithful, just because he belonged to a socio-economic category which was somehow pastorally swamped into that of vagabonds, as defined by Trent:

Chapter VII
Vagrants Are To Be United In Matrimony With Caution

There are many who are vagrants and have no permanent abode, and, being of unprincipled character, after having abandoned their first wife, marry another, very often several in different localities, during the lifetime of the first. The holy council wishing to put an end to this evil, extends this fatherly admonition to all whom it may concern; namely, not to admit to marriage easily this class of vagrants; it also exhorts the civil magistrates to restrain them vigorously. But it commands parish priests not to be present at the marriage of such persons unless they have first made a diligent inquiry, and after having reported the matter to the ordinary, shall have obtained permission from him to do so.

Session XXIV - which is the eighth under the Supreme Pontiff, Pius IV, celebrated on the eleventh day of November, 1563
Decree Concerning The Reform Of Matrimony
https://www.ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/TRENT24.HTM#3

Note, the priest in Liverpool was not treating Barclay as a negro in the racist sense. He was treating Barclay as a vagrant.

On the sight of it, it is only meant to restrain what is obviously to any Catholic simply adultery.

But at the end, a certain class can be admitted to marriage with caution, and these would then obviously not be committing adultery with the marriage, that must therefore be because they were never married to a first wife in the first place (or she died) and the suspicion of adultery was only there due to vagrancy.

So, vagrants are a bit unpleasantly singled out as suspects of having abandoned wives (when some clearly haven't), of being of unprincipled character, of attempting adultery as often as they attempt marriage.

Nevertheless, it appears they do succeed in marrying, on the rules of Trent, and it seems the priest in Liverpool was one of the obstacles, the priest in Manchester one of the solutions.

So, the diligent enquiry was obviously for instance about constancy in love. Meaning, the rule in the first place was not meant as a total barrier to making a first contact.

I have fled Sweden, not because I fled a wife (if a presumed consent led to a marriage by proxy, I was never told at least, I have never lived in the same appartment as a woman for a longer time, other than my grandmother and mother), my papers from Sweden can be checked, I think it can be proven I am not attempting bigamy.

I have fled Sweden because people concerned with "molding my character" have in the meanwhile stopped me from marrying, and have also made it extra difficult to get a wife in a Catholic parish, which is where my faith tends.

I do not deserve to be lumped into the category of vagrants as described by Trent, and I think I have proven it even as homeless, by staying where I have stayed for seven, soon eight years, despite an ever more intense persecution.

Among others from Catholic parishes who, seeing today's civil authorities are not so eager to restrain vagrants (perhaps rightly so, since part of the problem is solved, once papers can be asked for across the globe), have gone in for restraining my contacts with the opposite sex in the parish, at least among the ones sufficiently young to marry.

This includes in the Paris-Nanterre era especially the St Nicolas du Chardonnet parish, of SSPX, where I practised for some months from late 2009 to mid-late 2010 or even 2011, until their attitude got too apparent and systematic, until they - not unlike Swedes in my school days and the days when I studied or had a job or had just lost one which was never meant to last anyway - had ruined at least one hope of love and marriage and the temporal bliss that God can bless, as Sweden had ruined many more, before I left it.

Bergoglio's past in Argentina has involved a good pastoral partnership with SSPX - those adhering to Bp Fellay, the original unit. As is St Nicolas du Chardonnet now.

This means, there can very well have been contacts about me, there is at least certainly a similarity of culture.

Now, Mark Shea tries to defend it like this [back to first link] :

Francis’ observation that most marriages are probably invalid is, as is typical for him, the observation of a pastor on pastoral reality. What amazed me was that anybody doubts it, much less has a cow about. We have a 50% divorce rate. We have people entering into marriages *constantly* for the most fluff-brained and immature reasons. We have a population that believes that gay “marriage” is a marriage. How much more obvious can it be that vast numbers of people have not the slightest idea what marriage is, what its purpose and meaning is, and why they are getting married?

Now, this should be carefully broken down and analysed a bit.

Francis’ observation that most marriages are probably invalid is, as is typical for him, the observation of a pastor on pastoral reality.

"Pastoral reality" is often code for discouraged pastors [real or fake ones] reashuffling their analysis of reality.

To Mitch Pacwa it is perhaps a "pastoral reality" that Young Earth Creationism only works among Protestants (despite evidence of Catholics even going Geocentric, like me), or only works in "ill informed and ill educated" populations, such as he does not want to be the whole of the Catholic one.

To me that is Mitch Pacwa abandoning Catholic doctrine to a reality he has arranged so the abandonment is not seen as treason.

It is not as if he were just allowing diehard Evolutionists who were otherwise Catholics to remain Evolutionists, so to speak as a sop to their human weakness. No, it is Mitch Pacwa actively promoting Evolution belief, seeing Chapters 1 - 11 of Genesis as another genre and God knows what.

In France, that reaches the level of actually asking YEC if they aren't "afraid of disagreeing with the Church" as if the "ordinary magisterium" (even that of Vatican II Sect!) were having evolution as official doctrine and this infallibly since shared by all bishops.

What amazed me was that anybody doubts it, much less has a cow about.

Well, Mark Shea has some goodwill, but also some naiveté ... more goodwill and naiveté about Bergoglio than about young couples, though.

We have a 50% divorce rate.

What exact year of marriages had ended in 50 % divorce? In what country? Does this involve Argentina?

Or, are you perhaps naive about what statistics mean?

You are certainly not having a crude divorce rate of 500 out of 1000 women (whether married or unmarried) divorcing each year. That is obvious.

Neither are you having a great number of follow up studies from any marital year proving so and so many divorced.

You are comparing the number of divorces with the number of marriages (which is greater). Both crude marital and crude divorce stats are measured year by year.

Both of them are also measured in so and so many for 1000 people, precisely like deaths or births.

I actually checked the wikipedia (which is just for idiots and nincompoops like me, not for intelligent people like Mark Shea who prefer remaining sure 50 % of marriages go into the sink!).

Here is the article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_demography

The table can be manipulated (not meaning as to contents, but as to how they show) so that you can order it from the p o v of any column, like country by letter of alphabet (Argentina is missing from the English version of article!), or, as I did, divorce to marriage ratio from low to high.

Vietnam has a low divorce to marriage ratio. Its stats are from 2007.

crude marriage rate : 5.7 : 1000
crude divorce rate : 0.2 : 1000
0.2 / 5.7 = 0.0350877192982456
so, divorce to marriage ratio is really 3.5 % BUT it is here noted as: 4

Belgium has a high divorce to marriage ratio. It's stats are from 2010.

crude marriage rate : 4.2 : 1000 (lower than Vietnam)
crude divorce rate : 3.0 : 1000 (higher than Vietnam)
3.0 / 4.2 = 0.7142857142857143
so, divorce to marriage ratio is really 71.4 % BUT it is here noted as : 71.

Can the divorce to marriage ratio have been rising for the very simple reason that young people have been less often allowed to marry the significant other they love?

You can hardly pretend that all marriages in Vietnam of 2007 either ended up in perpetual fidelity for 96 % of the cases or ended up in divorce the very same year in 4 %.

Nor can you pretend that all marriages ending in divorce in 2007 in Vietnam were such as had also been contracted in 2007. The marriages and divorces are not about same couples, they are about a coincidence of statistics.

Convenient enough for city planners and real estate brokers who want to know how many families and how many divorced individuals want homes in 2008, but not an excellent guide for predicting that marriages have a full 96 % chance of stability in Vietnam. Even if that would have been a good thing.

So also, you can hardly pretend that the similar coincidence in stats in Belgium in 2010 prove that a marriage contracted in Belgium has only a 29 % chance of stability.

But you can of course BOTH be blind to this AND forget that the 50 % divorce ratio is not world wide around the Catholic world, but US of A, actually approximate, since 53 %, and then spread this apprehension to a friend in Argentina if your name is Tony Palmer. You know that Anglican friend of Bergoglio's. Or if you are Rotarian. You know, the club where Bergoglio is honorary member.

Delaying young marriages out of a superstitious fear out of misunderstanding the mathematics involved in the stats (and misunderstanding mathematics is ten thousand times more active in misleading than simply counting wrong) will decrease the crude marriage rate next year and therefore in itself, without adding an extra divorce, even while preventing some further on, increase the divorce to marriage rate.

It does not occur to you either, that if Russia is trying to recover from Communism, some of the old couples were ill made because of Communism.

If US has had a need both of Fatima and of a New Evangelisation, some of the old couples were ill made because of Disney style American Paganism, from back when "To Mars and Beyond" allowed Walt Disney Studios to malign the Middle Ages, from back when every publicity seemed to cry out that marital bliss is about enjoying the same vacations and enjoying them to the fullest.

Why should young people in Russia or US be barred from marriage, just because older marriages breaking gave Russia a divorce:marriage ratio of 51 in 2011 or gave US a divorce:marriage ratio of 53 in the same year?

What your argumentation is doing, is very much saying "we ate sour grapes, now we must see about the weak teeth of our children" - a proverb which God in its inverse prohibited from Israel.

We have people entering into marriages *constantly* for the most fluff-brained and immature reasons.

As long as these do not positively exclude the true ones of marriage, that is not really any problem.

You marry for money?

Does that mean your consent is invalid?

As long as your will to get money is not involving a will to reduce births in order to keep the money as opposed to spending it, no! Or any will to infidelity.

A monetary motive may be ill mannered, it may be unideal, it may be ill bred - and on the part of the heiress marrying such a man, there may be some fluff brained and immature too. But as long as this love of money does not exclude being faithful in bed and making it fertile, what is the trouble?

The marital intent involves fidelity and fertility, if it is there, the other motives don't matter for the validity of the marriage.

Being greedy won't stop your dick from making your wife pregnant, being fluff brained won't stop the wife from being fertile, and as long as there is no intent of being infertile while enjoying the marital bed, greed and fluff brainedness won't stop marital intent from being the required one either.

We have a population that believes that gay “marriage” is a marriage.

In the legal and administrative sense, also just some countries in the world.

And if young people have started opting for that, is it not precisely because people like Bergoglio and - alas at least here - Mark Shea have been making access to genuine marriage harder and harder?

After all, making marriage harder means making access to the other sex harder. This means some have by mere social fatigue been driven to homosexuality, this is even more clear of populations than of individuals : if ten boys not hoping to get girlfriends band together, perhaps two form a gay couple (or whatever portion, this is not meant as stats and obviously depends on their attitude on other issues).

How much more obvious can it be that vast numbers of people have not the slightest idea what marriage is,

How about a poll where they are given alternatives like:

• marriage is a sacrament
• marriage is a stable company of man and woman for making and educating children
• marriage is a stable company of man and woman allowing them to have sex without sinning
• marriage is the natural end of all and every love affair
• marriage is a civil convenience about couples
• list all meanings you find acceptable in order of preference, cross out inacceptable ones
• marriage is or is not the same in all five senses (or should or should not in cases where one sense precludes other)
• marriage can / cannot be extended to same sexed couples, and if so only in such and such of above meanings

If more than 50 % answer all questions wrong, you may have a point.

what its purpose and meaning is, and why they are getting married?

So, say Tom and Pam do think marriage is basically a civil business, think that Pam's sister Miley and Tom's brother Milo each have a similar right to prolong homosexual love affairs, think being in love and having a sexual preference compatible with the love is very necessary for marriage (however that squares with marriage being mainly a civil business), and therefore Milo and Miley would never dream of getting married (God grant them to be wrong on that one!), this means that their theology on sacrament of marriage is in a complete mess.

They are however both baptised, they have Catholic families where at least some members frown on their cohabition, they have not yet gone as far as pregnancy, but could imagine that too. They get married before a priest (this happened before Bergoglio and Quarracino started messing around!).

Is their marriage invalid because they consider marriage to be things which it isn't?

Or is their marriage valid insofar as they intend all that goes with marriage (abstaining from contraception would perhaps be a bit optimistic about them : but the question is whether ANY intent of ever in some cases using contraception makes marriage intent invalid or whether ONLY an intent of simply avoiding children by contraception - like the infamous Gates "couple" - makes marriage invalid)?

Suposing that a decided intent never ever to use contraceptives is not necessary for the sacrament of marriage to take place, it would seem that their marriage is simply valid.

That would be as obvious as that a Lutheran Modernist who thinks everyone goes to Heaven and there is no Original Sin to wash away can nevertheless administer valid baptism.

Once they have done that, they are married.

The reason is very simple. Baptism is the most necessary sacrament to escape Original Sin. Marriage is the most necessary sacrament for most people to escape sexual sin. God can't have made the bar that high for either, since it is His will that all shall be saved. So, they are married.

If they married with false hopes (like two fifties cosmonauts perhaps marrying hoping Moon would be 16th and Mars 17th Soviet Republics, if the false hopes broke down and their marriage with it, like that couple bickering over whether non-conquest of Moon is due to US Capitalist competition or due to moon landing never occurring (it seems Moon Trutherism is popular in Russia), and them divorcing, if they intended what was needed to inetend, they remain married after civil divorce, they cannot remarry someone else.

Giving them a new hope instead of the old which they ruined due to false bases, should not be done at expense of validity of sacraments.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Friday after
Ash Wednesday
3.III.2017