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CWN - An article in the authoritative Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica says that the Council of Trent carefully avoided condemning the practice of Orthodox churches that allowed 2nd marriages in some cases.

The article by Father Giancarlo Pani has obvious relevance to the current debate on the "Kasper proposal," which would allow divorced and remarried Catholics to receive the Eucharist under some circumstances. Cardinal Kasper has pointed to the practice of the Eastern churches as a possible model.

The article in La Civilta Cattolica also carries special significance because the contents of the Jesuit journal are cleared in advance by the Vatican Secretariat of State, and are therefore perceived as a Vatican thinking.

Father Pani writes that at Trent, a proposed decree would have condemned the notion that adultery breaks the marital bond and allows for the offended party to enter into a new union. Some participants in the Council, representing the Kingdom of Venice, protested that the decree, as worded, would be offensive to the Eastern-rite Christians within their domain, who regarded marriage as dissolved by adultery.

In deference to the Venetian delegates, Father Pani writes, the Council revised the proposed decree. Nevertheless the final statement (Canon VII of the 24th session) still clearly affirms that remarriage is forbidden:

If any one saith, that the Church has erred, in that she hath taught, and doth teach, in accordance with the evangelical and apostolical doctrine, that the bond of matrimony cannot be dissolved on account of the adultery of one of the married parties; and that both, or even the innocent one who gave not occasion to the adultery, cannot contract another marriage, during the life-time of the other; and, that he is guilty of adultery, who, having put away the adulteress, shall take another wife, as also she, who, having put away the adulterer, shall take another husband; let him be anathema.