De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

So, in a P.R. master-stroke, no one is talking about the extreme pro-lgbt, pro-abortion politician the Pope awarded  a knight in the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great. Now everyone is talking about a spontaneous marriage ceremony for a Catholic couple living in a civil, non-sacramental marriage for at least seven years it seems, during a flight in Chile today. The fact that unqualified Vatican PR staff immediately had to assure everyone the marriage was perfectly licit is practically a guarantee that it wasn't: Pope Francis performed on Thursday the first-ever papal marriage ceremony aboard the plane bound for Iquique, the final day of his Apostolic Visit to Chile! Greg Burke, Director of the Holy See Press Office, said the marriage was "totally legit" and "doctrinally OK". pic.twitter.com/F9KKzE4Omr — Vatican News (@VaticanNews) January 18, 2018 It is interesting to note, however, the couple’s account seems to contradict the d...

Edward Peters, the Canon Lawyer, has just posted a blog on the appearance of the pope’s letter to the Argentine bishops in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis  as I reported yesterday here. "Unless Canon 915 itself is directly revoked, gutted, or neutered, it binds ministers of holy Communion to withhold that most august sacrament from, among others, divorced-and-remarried Catholics except where such couples live as brother-sister and without scandal to the community. Nothing I have seen to date, including the appearance of the pope’s and Argentine bishops’ letters in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, makes me think that Canon 915 has suffered such a fate." Dr. Peters seems to be saying that, basically, the pope's inclusion of this in the AAS holds no authority as it does not address Canon 915, although this is a legal rather than a theological approach to the question. Equally one could say that it cannot be binding on Catholics because it is either unclear or contradicts what w...