Dear Ann,
According to what I understand of Catholic moral theology, if a person is invincibly ignorant of the fact that they are committing what is objectively a sin, then God does not condemn them for it, as they are subjectively innocent…. I think you are in error when you say that millions (may) be damned for remarrying after false annulments, because they are subjectively and invincibly ignorant.
Warmly,
J, North America
Dear J in North ‘Murica,
Almost every one of your “invincibly ignorant” people carries around on his or her person, a baby television through which they can instantaneously gain access to the sum of human knowledge, including the full Magisterium of the Church. Words have meaning. The word “invincible” means “utterly impossible to overcome”.
Utterly impossible.
Utterly impossible.
Utterly. Impossible.
Not, “requiring seven-point-four seconds to search on my phone.”
And there came to Him the Pharisees tempting Him, and saying: Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? Who answering, said to them: Have ye not read, that He who made man from the beginning, made them male and female? And He said: For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh.
Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. They say to Him: Why then did Moses command to give a bill of divorce, and to put away? He saith to them: Because Moses by reason of the hardness of your heart permitted you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and he that shall marry her that is put away, committeth adultery.
-Matthew 19
Not, “an article of common sense and comprehension of the simple words of the marriage VOWS in one’s mother tongue, namely, ‘…for so long as we both shall live: for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, ’til death do us part’.”
As St. Thomas Aquinas wrote on this: “ignorance excuses from sin, in so far as something is not known to be a sin.” In matters of importance, he notes that ignorance itself could be culpable, since Christians are enjoined to learn their faith to the point that they can save their souls. He says, “negligence renders the ignorance itself voluntary and sinful, provided it be about matters one is bound and able to know. Consequently this ignorance does not altogether excuse from sin.”
I reckon marriage is kinda important, and also it is kinda important to know who the Vicar of Christ on Earth is and is not, since, you know, we’re talking about CHRIST’S VICAR ON EARTH, and the man who is the principle of unity and standard of schism IN HIS PERSON.
I think an obligation is implied there, especially in light of the Good Shepherd Discourse in John chapter 10, in which Jesus Christ says in no uncertain terms that the sheep MUST discern for themselves the voice of the shepherd from the voice of the stranger AND the faithless hireling; and since both the words of the current Antipope AND the Canon Law which judges the validity of Papal resignations is available on said previously mentioned baby televisions in no less than six languages, instantly.
Pray for Pope Benedict, the Papacy, and Holy Mother Church-
Ann