In previous articles, I have covered how Pope Francis says good atheists will go to heaven and that he will not judge homosexuals. Earlier this year, Francis met with a transgender Spaniard at the Vatican whom he told, “You are a son of God and the Church loves you and accepts you as you are.” In stark contrast, the Apostle Peter said, “In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality. But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him” (Acts 10:34,35). Born a woman, Diego Neria Lejarraga underwent a procedure to become a transgender person and asked Francis if, after their gender reassignment, there was “a place somewhere in the house of God for [them].” Francis responded by embracing Lejarraga. Francis is including everybody in the Roman Catholic Church: even atheists, homosexuals, transgenders and now … divorced and remarried people.
On Tuesday, Francis reformed the Roman Catholic Church’s procedures for marriage annulment. These changes are aimed at accelerating and simplifying the marriage annulment procedure. Now Roman Catholic bishops are allowed to nullify a marriage. This comes as no shock. Last month, the Pope asked the clergy to keep “open doors” to Catholics who remarry. He said the following concerning divorced and remarried Roman Catholics:
We have seen a growth in awareness that we need to welcome . . . those who have been baptized who have established a new relationship after the failure of their sacramental marriage. To all effects, these people are not at all excommunicated. They are not excommunicated. And they must be treated as such. They will always be part of the Church.
According to Jesus, only death ends marriage. Thus second marriages are specious and adulterous. Jesus said:
Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery. (Mark 10:11,12)
Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband commits adultery. (Luke 16:18)
But not so, according to Francis. In a recent Vatican news conference, the Roman Catholic Pope released two letters, “The Gentle Judge, The Lord Jesus” and “The Meek and Merciful Jesus” by which he “introduced reforms to the legal structures of the Church, which deal with questions of marital nullity,” according to Vatican Radio. These documents announced revisions to the Roman Catholic Church’s marriage annulment process. The Washington Post reports:
The revisions, according to Vatican experts, appear to be the most far-reaching made to the church’s annulment process in centuries.
The announcement, featuring changes that will make it easier for Catholics to remarry, comes about a month before a major meeting at the Vatican, where Catholic leadership will examine the church’s views on family issues, including divorce and remarriage.
The changes will eliminate a requirement that all annulment decisions get a second judgment and will allow local bishops to expedite the annulment process for some cases. The annulment process will be free of charge, though many dioceses had already eliminated the administrative fees for marriage annulments, according to a Vatican spokesman. The revisions also expand the role of local bishops in judging nullification proceedings.
In sum, the marriage annulment procedure is now cheaper and easier. See the Reuters video below:
These changes certainly undermine the concept of marriage as a bond that can only be dissolved through death. The Apostle Paul wrote:
Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to herhusband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man. (Romans 7:1-3)
A wife is bound by law as long as her husband lives; but if her husband dies, she is at liberty to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 7:39)
Divorced and remarried Roman Catholics are ineligible to take Communion. If a Catholic wants to end their marriage, they must be granted an annulment, “a process that many Catholics believe is too costly and complicated.” The Washington Post says:
An annulment is granted by a Catholic tribunal if it agrees that a marriage originally thought to be valid was actually missing at least one crucial element from the start, meaning that it was never really a true marriage in the first place. The length of the process varies between dioceses but can take 12 to 18 months, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
One of the changes implemented by the pope will eliminate the “second instance” of that tribunal, meaning that all couples seeking annulment will have to obtain only one sentence from a single tribunal. “The moral certainty reached by the first judge according to law should be sufficient,” the letter reads. . . .
Austen Ivereigh, a papal biographer and commentator on the Vatican, called it “revolutionary” that Francis has granted bishops the power to nullify a marriage – a power that has rested with church courts. Bishops, he said, could also delegate that power to priests. This will make annulments more accessible, especially in much of the developing world, where, Ivereigh said, many areas have no church courts.
There is much apostasy within the Roman Catholic Church to protest, but Protestants have also granted themselves the pope-ish power of nullifying marriages long before the Roman Catholics. These Protestants have lost their moral authority to speak against homosexual marriage when they are simultaneously condoning the sexual immorality of divorce and remarriage. Consider Kim Davis, the Kentucky Clerk, arrested for blocking homosexual marriages when she herself was “first married in 1984, and divorced a decade later. . . Five months after the marriage dissolved, she gave birth to twins by another man. In 1996, she married again, and her new husband adopted the twins. They divorced in 2006. The following year, she married the father of her twins. That third marriage lasted less than a year. In 2009, Davis remarried her second husband, Joe Davis. They remain wed.”
It has been said that the way in which Francis changed the annulment process was unusual, because he did not go through the Synod on the Family, as expected, in October. I expect more changes for the Roman Catholic Church to be discussed in October. According to polls, 76% of religiously identified Roman Catholics expressed a desire to see the church allow the use of birth control, 62% said they thought that the church should allow divorced and remarried couples to receive Communion, 61% believe that the Catholic Church should allow cohabiting Catholics to receive Communion, and 62 % of “Cultural Catholics” believe the Catholic Church should recognize the “marriages” of gay/lesbian couples.
Not surprisingly, the Purpose Driven Pope and the Roman Catholic Pope are working together as agents of change. Rick Warren has announced he will be speaking later this month at the World Meeting of Families event to commence Francis’ highly anticipated visit to the United States. The Gospel Herald reports:
Warren announced his plans to attend the event during the Sunday morning worship service at the Lake Forest, CA church.
“Next month, Pope Francis is coming to America for a world gathering on families,” he told the congregation. “I’m not a Catholic, and we have many differences with Catholics. But they love the Lord and we have much in common with that – we believe in the Bible, and the Trinity, and in Jesus and the resurrection.”
“There are probably going to be a million people in Philadelphia at this final event with Pope Francis, and he’s asked me to be the final speaker,” the Purpose Driven Life author continued amid cheering and applause. . . .
While acknowledging there are differences between the two groups, Pastor Warren has in the past called on non-Catholic Christians to join with Pope Francis and the Catholic Church in pursuit of common goals, such as the sanctity of life and the sanctity of marriage.
As we can see, the Roman Catholic Church does not actually believe in the sanctity of marriage. Warren has no problem working with Roman Catholics while Francis welcomes atheists, adulterers, homosexuals, and transgenders into the RCC. Gospel Herald continues:
In November, the pastor joined the leader of the Roman Catholic Church and 30 other global religious leaders for an interfaith Vatican conference on marriage and family, where he spoke on the “Biblical Meaning of Marriage.”
“It’s great to be with leaders from different streams of Christianity from all over the world,” Warren said at the time. “Although we have some differences, we all love Jesus Christ and we all want marriage and families to be healthy and strong.“
In Rick Warren Caved in on Marriage at Vatican Conference, I noted how Warren blasphemously called Francis the “Holy Father,” in his speech. Warren’s Purpose Driven agenda includes an ecumenical vision for Catholics and Protestants to work together. See my article More on Rick Warren’s Ecumenical Purpose.
Francis may be Warren’s “Holy Father” but he is not my Holy Father. Jesus said, “Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven” (Matthew 23:9). And my church has no fellowship with atheists, adulterers, homosexuals and transgenders (unless they repent and believe — see 1 Corinthians 6:9-11). My church is “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15), “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone” (Ephesians 2:20).
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