Ratzinger on communion for remarried divorcees

Ratzinger as a priest

“With utmost prudence, I wish to attempt to formulate a proposal which I believe fits into the category of situations where making an exception is strictly necessary. In cases where both spouses see their first marriage as having been irretrievably destroyed a long time ago; and when a second marriage follows and proves to be a moral union and filled with the spirit of the faith, especially with regard to children’s education (where the destruction of this second marriage would lead to the destruction of a moral greatness and would cause moral harm), in this case, those who have contracted a second marriage of this kind should be allowed to approach the sacrament of communion, through extra-judicial means and with the parish priest and members of the community as witnesses.”

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“It is important to stress that the annulment process is subject to the discretion of the individual. This factor, as well as the difference in possibilities open to individuals depending inevitably on their level of education but also on their financial situation, should steer us away from the idea that this route is an irrefutably just one.”

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 “The marriage annulment process is necessarily limited to what can be demonstrated legally and yet this is precisely how certain decisive facts can be neglected. Most importantly, this means that formal criteria (such as defects of form or ecclesiastical form which is intentionally overlooked) are attributed disproportionate importance which leads to injustices.”

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“When moral obligations toward children, the family and the wife result from a second marriage, and there no such obligations toward the first marriage; when for moral reason, renouncing the second marriage is unacceptable  and continence is not a realistic possibility (magnorum est, as Gregory II says), then it seems only fair that after a trial period, the person in question should be allowed to join the community of faithful who receive communion and it would be fully in line with Church tradition.”

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“Marriage is a sacramentum, it remains an irrevocable and fundamental expression of a commitment made. However, this does not mean that the Church cannot extend communion to those who recognise this doctrine and principle of life but find themselves in an emergency situation of an exceptional nature in which they are particularly in need of full communion with the Body of the Lord.”


Zur Frage nach der Unauflöslichkeit der Ehe. Bemerkungen zum dogmengeschichtlichen Befund und zu seiner gegenwärtigen Bedeutung; in: Ehe und Ehescheidung. Diskussion unter Christen, edited by F. Henrich and V. Eid, (Münchener Akademie-Schriften 59, Munich, 1972), pp. 35-56.