Remarried and refused Holy Communion

The present divorce debate brings back so many memories of the terrible politico-religious crisis which crippled Malta in the early 1960s.

I was then just eligible to vote, and yes, I voted for the Labour Party.

At the time, anybody voting for that party was threatened with eternal damnation by the local Roman Catholic hierarchy.

Now 50 years later, we have that same Church declaring that anybody who, like me, has been divorced, and is in a permanent relationship, cannot receive Holy Communion. However, divorcees, who are not in a permanent relationship, are allowed to receive Holy Communion.

Is this not encouraging promiscuity? It is basically telling such divorcees to live the playboy or playgirl life, and look for females or males of easy virtue and prostitutes.

Well, I certainly would not want to be in that category, just in order to be able to receive Holy Communion.

I have been happily remarried for almost 25 years and my present wife and I will be celebrating our silver wedding anniversary this coming June. There is an irony in the mediaeval way the local Roman Catholic Church here in Malta is acting at the moment.

When I was serving as a doctor in the British Forces at Nato, some 14 years ago in Belgium, my son, the product of my present marriage, was given his first Holy Communion there.

Who do you think gave him this sacrament?

A wonderful married American priest with children!

Yes, he was a former married Protestant priest, who converted to Catholicism!

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