Can a divorced Catholic receive Holy Communion?
Divorced Catholics lose none of their rights in the Church, except the right to enter a new marriage, until the Church declares them free to marry. All Catholics, divorced Catholics included, are free to receive the sacraments, provided they are not in a state of serious sin, (i.e. have not “remarried outside the Church,” or are not cohabiting with another partner). If they are in another marital (or cohabiting) union, they are not permitted to receive the sacraments. People in such a situation are encouraged to attempt to seek an annulment (see above). Divorced Catholics, even those “remarried outside the Church”, are not excommunicated. Pope Benedict XVI had the following to say on February 22, 2007: “If the Eucharist expresses the irrevocable nature of God’s love in Christ for his Church, we can then understand why it implies, with regard to the sacrament of Matrimony, that indissolubility to which all true love necessarily aspires. There was good reason for the pastoral attention t