Don’t Trust the Popular Media
They are not our friends

I learned long ago to never trust anything American mass media has to say about the teachings or doings of the Catholic Church. Today, most of the popular media is politically liberal and dominated, it seems, by atheists, agnostics, and others who think Bible-believing Christians are all a bunch of ignorant hicks. (What did St. Paul say about it all being nonsense to the unspiritual? 1 Cor. 2:14.) As such, they don’t give a hoot about the Catholic Church and most loathe it. Why? Because it is the one institution in the world that consistently stands for truth, something the mass media seems to have abandoned long ago. Their hatred is inflamed even more because the Church will not change its teachings to accommodate their choices and lifestyles.

With that in mind, check out this headline from the L.A. Daily News:
Pope urges more rapid divorce decrees.

As you know, there are no divorces in the Catholic Church. So that part is patently false. The Church might, after a finding there was a defect in the marital “contract” at the time it was entered into, grant an annulment. In other words, the Church can officially say a valid marriage was never formed at the very beginning. (That’s why it doesn’t make any difference how many years the couple have been together or how many children they had, a point many people – including some Catholics – fail or refuse to understand.)

However, even if the word “divorce” was replaced with “annulment” in the headline, it is still misleading. The Holy Father is not asking for speedier annulments. He is concerned about marriages being regularized and wants people to be able to receive the Eucharist. (“The ecclesiastical sentences in this matter, in fact, define the possibility or not of the reception of eucharistic Communion by not a few faithful.”) The Holy Father has simply asked for marriage tribunals to quit fooling around and make prompt decisions in each case.