Vatican spokesman: Catholics in irregular marriages are not outside the Church

Catholic World News

Echoing a recent homily by Pope Benedict, the director of the Holy See Press Office said in his weekly editorial that Mass and Eucharistic adoration are complementary and that those who are unable of receive Holy Communion because they are in “an irregular marital situation” are not outside the Church.

“The celebration of Mass and Eucharistic adoration outside of Mass are in fact complementary,” said Father Federico Lombardi, SJ. “Excessive – not to say exclusive – accentuation of the Eucharistic celebration, at the expense of time spent in Eucharistic adoration, will ultimately make us incapable of experiencing the living presence of Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist outside of Mass, and perhaps even have a similar effect on our ability to grasp the spiritual significance and richness of the celebration of Mass itself.”

“The suffering of those deprived of sacramental Communion, if it is inwardly accepted as the price of the common witness that the faithful should give to the importance of the stability of sacramental marital love, is a gift to the Church,” Father Lombardi added. “People who find themselves in such a condition are most definitely not outside the Church. They are rather most fully inside the Church, in the heart of the Church, with a desire that is perhaps all the greater because of the experience of deprivation.”