In his pastoral letter on the occasion of the feast of the Assumption, Mgr Mario Grech said, among other things: “Some of the pastors, like Basil of Caesarea, received back in the fold also those who, when they had abjured their baptism, hadsevered their relations with their spouses and subsequently entered into a new relationship.”

It is important to note here that these remarried abjurers were received in the Church but were not allowed to receive Holy Communion if they persisted in their adulterous life.

In simpler words, the remarried divorcees could not receive Holy Communion.

That was the teaching and practice of the Catholic Church since her beginning, also during the times of the Fathers of the Church.

St Basil was concerned with the question of whether a married man separated from his wife and living with a paramour incurred in all cases the canonical penance for adultery as such.

If the man was deserted by his wife and took up with a mistress, both he and the mistress could receive a milder penance intended for non-adulterous fornication.

This is the indulgence St Basil allowed – not an indulgence to continue in their non-marital relation!

St Basil’s position is clear in his Ethica, Regula 73, c. 2: “It is not lawful for a man to put away his wife and marry another. Nor is it permitted that a man should marry a wife who has been divorced by her husband.”

This doctrine prevented remarried divorcees from receiving Holy Communion precisely because they persisted in adultery. This is the position of the Church today and in no way is it going to change.

Adultery and grace cannot stay together.