01 Are Most Sacramental Marriages Null?
Pope Francis has stirred up the pot recently with his comments on the crisis of marriage in today's "provisional culture." Here's the statement given ad lib from the Pope:
“I heard a bishop say some months ago that he met a boy that had finished his university studies, and said ‘I want to become a priest, but only for 10 years.’ It’s the culture of the provisional. And this happens everywhere, also in priestly life, in religious life,” he said.
“It’s provisional, and because of this the great majority of our sacramental marriages are null. Because they say ‘yes, for the rest of my life!’ but they don’t know what they are saying. Because they have a different culture. They say it, they have good will, but they don’t know.”
It was later edited by the Vatican before the transcript was released to say, "some" or "part of" instead of "the great majority". This was a head scratcher and many in the Catholic conservative blogosphere got angry. Here's our take.