Vatican official: adultery incompatible with reception of Holy Communion

November 19, 2014

In an address to a Vatican conference on the complementarity of man and woman in marriage, the secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Family spoke about the indissolubility of marriage and the incompatibility of adultery and the reception of Holy Communion.

“Redemption … strengthens the indissoluble character of the covenant between the spouses, which existed when Creation began (the principle Jesus indicates to the Pharisees, but that their hardheartedness prevented them from perceiving),” said Bishop Jean Laffitte.

He continued:

The body of the spouses, sacramentally inscribed in the horizon of Redemption, experiences the assumption of all the original values inscribed in its nature. This excludes, for example, adultery, which not only contradicts the nature of the marital covenant, but also deprives the body of its deeper meaning (adultery will never be a gift); adultery—the fact is better understood in this light—is incompatible with the reception of the Body and Blood of Christ; but Redemption is also operating, primarily within man, purifying his heart, because it is in the heart that evil desires are born: ‘I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart’ (Mt. 5:27-28).

 

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Further information:

• The Sacramentality of Human Love According to Saint John Paul II (Pontifical Council for the Family)