According to Miguel Angel Ortiz, a professor at the Pontifical
University of the Holy Cross in Rome, Benedict wasn’t so much
addressing the specific issue of remarried divorcees but
addressing the relation between the spouses’ personal faith and
the validity of marriage, including its commitment to fidelity.
In a 2005 question-and-answer session with priests, the pope
said he once believed that lack of faith was enough to declare a
marriage invalid. But, after tasking theologians to look into
the issue, he had “understood that the problem was very
difficult” and required further study. At the time, Benedict
said it was “particularly sad” to see people marry in the church
out of tradition instead of a faith commitment only to
subsequently find faith and remarry. For Ortiz, the pope’s
reflection could “speed up the process of declaring a marriage
invalid” without changing the substance of the process itself.
Read it all. Filed under: * Culture-Watch History Marriage &
Family Religion & Culture * Religion News &