Pope Francis has described priests who refuse to baptise children of single mothers as “animals”, while stressing that the moral teaching of Church is based on love not rigidity. Many people say “yes, for the rest of my life!” when they begin married life but “they don’t know what they are saying”. A Vatican spokesman said the pope’s off-the-cuff remarks are sometimes edited after consulting with him or among aides.
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Meeting with carnival workers, acrobats, clowns, street performers, musicians and magicians, Pope Francis thanked the performers for brightening people’s day with “healthy entertainment”.
In remarks on Thursday, Pope Francis gave his own insight as to why marriage is so hard for couples today – and even suggested that “the great majority” of Catholic marriages may be null, Catholic News Agency reports.
Pope Francis was asked about the crisis of marriage and how to help young Catholics learn about sacramental marriage.
Francis’ statement demonstrates a lack of faith in the Church and its ability to vet couples seeking marriage, to teach them about what marriage is, and to administer the sacraments effectively. “And this happens everywhere, also in priestly life, in religious life”, he said. If so, are most masses invalid? Francis has cast doubt on the former, has done a poor job of the latter, and by doing so has brought the Church’s legitimacy into question.
Raising a point he has raised before, and one also raised by now-retired Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis insisted June 16 that the validity of a marriage implies that a couple understands that sacramental marriage is a bond that truly binds them to another for their entire lives. In April, he released a document that has the Catholic church welcoming divorced and remarried couples into its denomination.
According to the Code of Canon Law, “For matrimonial consent to exist, the contracting parties must be at least not ignorant that marriage is a permanent partnership between a man and a woman ordered to the procreation of offspring by means of some sexual cooperation”.
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Pope Francis should resign, and Catholics should demand it, so the Church can begin recovering from the havoc his ill-advised and arrogant papacy has wrought.
