Word: communion
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Ralph has been married for 22 years. His wife and four teen-age daughters are, like him, devout Catholics. But when the family goes to Mass together each Sunday, only his daughters receive Communion. Why? Ralph had an earlier, unsuccessful marriage, and when he remarried he was automatically excluded from the church's sacramental life. His wife is likewise barred from the sacraments because she is a baptized Catholic who has married a divorced...
Since Vatican II, a number of U.S. dioceses have adopted formal procedures to readmit estranged Catholics to Communion without judging the validity of their existing marriage. One of the first to do so was Portland, Ore., where archdiocesan chancellor, Father Bertram Griffin, set up a so-called "good conscience" plan seven years ago. Says Griffin: "We were trying to bring canon law and pastoral practice together...
...Portland plan specified three criteria for readmission, which are similar to those used in other dioceses: the petitioning Catholic must deem his existing marriage stable and binding; the risk of scandal arising from the return of the petitioner to Communion must be minimal; finally, the petitioner must in "good conscience" believe that his former marriage was invalid. His reasons for this must be of the kind that are unprovable in church tribunals. Such cases would include those where the former spouse is accused of fraudulent intent and is unwilling to talk, or where he was homosexual or impotent and declined...
...Fisher of Lambeth, 85, former Archbishop of Canterbury; of a stroke; in Sherborne, England. One of ten children born to a Victorian rector, Geoffrey Francis Fisher was crowned the 99th Archbishop of Canterbury-Primate of All England and spiritual leader of the world's 42 million-member Anglican Communion-in 1945. He opposed progressive education, took a strong stand against the romance between Princess Margaret and the divorced Peter Townsend, and shocked millions by asserting that man's nuclear destruction might be God's will. Despite his critical attitude toward Roman Catholic dogmatism, Fisher was an ardent...
However, I have to share your reporter's opinion that rock concerts are no longer "events of ecstatic mass communion but uncomfortable affairs, jammed and hot." Only for the Stones will I allow myself to be smothered by a bunch of animals...