Sacramentum Caritatis §27
The Eucharist, a nuptial sacrament
“The Eucharist, as the sacrament of charity, has a particular relationship with the love of man and woman united in marriage...”
Read §27 in full: vatican.va.
Companion library · Primary source
Sacramentum Caritatis §§27–29 (2007)
Pope Benedict XVI’s post-synodal apostolic exhortation on the Eucharist as the “source and summit” of the Christian life — and the three paragraphs that name the Eucharist as the theological root of the indissolubility of marriage, divorce and remarriage as “a real scourge for contemporary society,” with the Church accompanying those who live it, and the marriage tribunal as the institutional pastoral response. Key sentences are quoted from the official Vatican English text; read the full paragraphs at vatican.va.
What this document is. A post-synodal apostolic exhortation — the form a pope uses to gather and promulgate the conclusions of a Synod of Bishops. Sacramentum Caritatis was issued by Pope Benedict XVI on 22 February 2007 (the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter) following the 11th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, which met in October 2005 on the Eucharist as source and summit of the Church’s life and mission. It is a major papal teaching on the Eucharist, and within it §§27–29 form a discrete unit on the Eucharist’s relationship to the sacrament of Matrimony.
Why a petitioner reads it. Because §29 is the most direct and consequential papal teaching of this generation on the Eucharistic situation of the divorced and the divorced-and-remarried, on the path of return, and on the Church’s commitment to the marriage tribunal as the pastoral institution that addresses the question of validity. The three paragraphs together explain why the discipline is what it is — not as a legal punishment, but as a theological correspondence between the indissoluble Christ-Church bond made present in the Eucharist and the indissoluble bond entered in sacramental marriage. The reasoning is anthropological and Eucharistic before it is canonical; the canons of the 1983 Code follow from it.
How §§27–29 read together. §27 establishes the Eucharist as a nuptial sacrament — the sacrament of the Bridegroom (Christ) and the Bride (the Church). §28 derives the unicity of Christian marriage from this Eucharistic root (one man, one woman). §29 derives the indissolubility — and from indissolubility derives the Church’s pastoral framework for those whose marriages have been broken by divorce and, in some cases, civil remarriage. Read in this order, the framework is not a sequence of rules: it is a single theological argument that arrives, by the end of §29, at the door of the marriage tribunal.
What follows
Section I
§27 — The Eucharist, a nuptial sacrament
Section II
§28 — The Eucharist and the unicity of marriage
Sacramentum Caritatis §28
The Eucharist and the unicity of marriage
“...man is meant to be definitively united to one woman and vice versa...”
Read §28 in full: vatican.va.
Why unicity follows from the Eucharist. The Eucharist makes present one Christ’s love for one Church — not many Christs, not many Churches. Christian marriage, as a sacramental sign of that Christ-Church bond, accordingly is one man with one woman. Polygamy is not excluded by the Church because of a cultural preference for the European nuclear family; it is excluded because polygamy is structurally incapable of imaging the Christ-Church bond. The unicity is the bond’s nature, not its decoration.
Application to the petitioner. The unicity teaching has a direct practical edge for the petitioner: there is no second sacramental marriage while a first sacramental bond exists. Civil law may recognize a second civil marriage. The Church does not regard the second civil union as a sacrament until the first is declared null. This is the canonical reason the tribunal’s answer matters so much: the question is not whether the first relationship is over emotionally or socially or financially; the question is whether the sacramental bond was ever in fact created. If yes, no second sacrament can be celebrated while the first endures. If no, the way opens for a true first sacramental marriage.
The catechumen analogy. The polygamy-to-the-faith case Benedict XVI describes here is not the petitioner’s case — but the principle it illustrates does apply. Those who come to the Gospel from an irregular situation are met with pastoral care that is “gentle yet firm.” The Church does not pretend the situation is already what it should be; she also does not slam the door. She walks the convert (or the petitioner) toward the “radical newness of Christ” over time, naming what must change and helping it change. The same posture governs the Church’s relationship to the Catholic petitioner whose marriage has broken: gentle yet firm, accompanying without pretending.
Section III · The petitioner’s paragraph
§29 — The Eucharist and the indissolubility of marriage
Sacramentum Caritatis §29
The Eucharist and the indissolubility of marriage
“When legitimate doubts exist about the validity of the prior sacramental marriage, the necessary investigation must be carried out to establish if these are well-founded.”
“...where the nullity of the marriage bond is not declared and objective circumstances make it impossible to cease cohabitation, the Church encourages these members of the faithful to commit themselves to living their relationship in fidelity to the demands of God’s law, as friends, as brother and sister...”
The Eucharistic-discipline restatement and the pre-Cana closing paragraph are paraphrased in the commentary below. Read §29 in full: vatican.va.
The argument in one sentence. Indissolubility is not an arbitrary Church rule about marriage; it is the necessary anthropological-Eucharistic consequence of Christian marriage being a sacramental sign of the Christ-Church bond — and the Eucharist itself expresses “the irrevocable nature of God’s love in Christ for his Church.” A marriage that could be ended at will would not be a sign of that bond. The Church holds the indissolubility precisely because she holds the Eucharist.
§29 speaks to the divorced and remarried. Read it next to what the Church says of the divorced who have not remarried:
· The divorced (not remarried). §29 does not address this case. Familiaris Consortio 83 asks the Church to offer such persons continual help “without there being any obstacle to admission to the sacraments.” The Catechism adds that spouses who separate do not thereby “cease to be husband and wife before God”; neither is free to marry another (CCC §1649). If you are divorced and have not remarried civilly, your sacramental life continues as for any Catholic: Confession when you need it, Communion in a state of grace.
· The divorced and civilly remarried (no annulment). This is the category §29 addresses most directly. The Church’s practice, confirmed by the Synod and re-stated by Benedict XVI, is to not admit to the sacraments. The reason given is not punitive: the discipline is grounded in the objective contradiction between the state of life (a second civil union while the first sacramental bond remains) and what the Eucharist itself is (the sign of the indissoluble Christ-Church bond). To receive the Eucharist while in that state would speak against what the sacrament makes present.
· The divorced and civilly remarried, where “objective circumstances make it impossible to cease cohabitation” (children, etc.). §29 names the “brother and sister” path: living in fidelity to God’s law within the second civil arrangement as friends, not spouses. When the couple sincerely resolves to live in complete continence, reconciliation in Confession (Familiaris Consortio 84) and then return to the Eucharist are possible (“taking care to observe the Church’s established and approved practice in this regard” — ordinarily discussed with the confessor or local ordinary, with discretion about scandal). The path is hard; §29 asks that pastors and ecclesial initiatives support it. But it is named, by name, by a pope.
The Pope’s explicit endorsement of the tribunal
Read paragraph two of §29 again. “When legitimate doubts exist about the validity of the prior sacramental marriage, the necessary investigation must be carried out…” That is Benedict XVI naming the marriage tribunal — the institution this Companion walks you through — as the canonically and pastorally appropriate response to a question about the validity of a sacramental bond. He goes further: he repeats his own “grave obligation” to bring the tribunal closer to the faithful. The tribunal is not a workaround the Church reluctantly tolerates. It is the institutional pastoral response to the question of validity. If you have legitimate doubts, you are obeying the call of §29 by walking the tribunal road.
“Love for the truth” as the integration of law and pastoral care. Benedict XVI rejects the common framing that the law is one thing, pastoral care is another, and the pastor balances them. He insists they meet at the point of love for the truth. The canonist who applies the law rigorously is being pastoral, not unpastoral, when he does so — because the truth of the marriage is what the faithful person needs. A pastoral response that hides or softens the canonical question is not actually pastoral; it leaves the person in the dark about his own sacramental reality. Hold this when the tribunal asks hard questions: the question is being asked because the answer matters — to your soul, to your children, to the Eucharist itself.
What §29 explicitly forbids. A blessing of irregular relations “lest confusion arise among the faithful concerning the value of marriage.” This is the single explicit prohibition in §29 beyond the sacramental discipline. The Catholic father in an irregular situation may approach the priest for counsel, for spiritual direction, for the path of return; he may not request and the priest may not perform a quasi-sacramental blessing of the irregular union itself. The discipline keeps the sign clear.
The closing turn to marriage preparation. §29’s final paragraph turns toward prevention: pre-Cana training, examining the couple’s convictions regarding the obligations of the sacrament before the wedding. A petitioner who is now walking the tribunal road through the consequences of a wedding that was canonically defective at consent is, paradoxically, the witness to why §29’s closing paragraph matters: the question the tribunal is asking, years later, would have been better asked at the parish before the vows. Tell your children that — if and when they are old enough — in your own words.
Section IV
Reading §§27–29 inside the tribunal process
The petitioner reading Sacramentum Caritatis for the first time often comes to it with a single anxious question: “Am I allowed to receive Communion right now?” The answer depends on which of the three situations above describes your present state. Walk through the categories slowly. The Companion cannot answer for your particular case — that conversation belongs in Confession with the confessor who knows your situation — but the structure is clear enough that a careful reading of §29 will tell you which question to bring to your confessor and the language to use.
The petitioner who is divorced but not civilly remarried, in a state of grace, continues to receive Communion through the tribunal years. The tribunal’s answer does not change your present Eucharistic status; it changes what is open to you afterward (a future Catholic marriage, if nullity is declared, in the form proper to canonical convalidation if a civil marriage has occurred in the meantime).
The petitioner who is civilly remarried without a declaration of nullity is in the situation §29 directly addresses. The pastoral conversation here is delicate and case-specific. A pending case does not change the present discipline: until nullity is declared, §29 applies as written, and the conversation about it belongs with your confessor. If serious reasons (such as the children’s upbringing) mean you cannot separate, and you and your partner sincerely resolve to live in complete continence, the way back is open even before the tribunal answers: first reconciliation in Confession (Familiaris Consortio 84), then the return to the Eucharist that §29 names, “taking care to observe the Church’s established and approved practice in this regard.” If the tribunal declares the first marriage null, the way opens to a true marriage in the Church, by convalidation of the present union or a new wedding, subject to any prohibition attached to the sentence or imposed by the local ordinary (can. 1682 §1); ordinary Eucharistic participation follows that regularization. If the tribunal does not find nullity proven, the “brother and sister” path remains open, as does appeal (CIC can. 1628; can. 1680 §1).
The petitioner who is still discerning whether to file reads §29 in a different light: as Pope Benedict’s explicit institutional endorsement that, when “legitimate doubts” exist, the tribunal is the right response. Doubt about the validity of a sacramental bond — whether your own or another’s — is not idle suspicion; it is the basis for the canonical investigation that §29 commends. When legitimate doubts exist, the tribunal’s investigation is the one §29 itself calls “necessary.”
Finally, every petitioner reads §§27–29 in light of the fact that Pope Benedict XVI begins not with the petitioner’s situation but with the Eucharist. The Catholic father in the tribunal years should imitate that order in his own prayer: begin not with the marriage, but with the Mass; not with the breakdown, but with the Eucharistic bond at its heart; not with what was lost, but with the Christ whose love is the standard against which the bond is being measured. The tribunal’s question is asked in the light of the altar.
Section V
A note on Sacramentum Caritatis and Amoris Laetitia
Reading SC §29 after AL 2016
In March 2016, Pope Francis issued the post-synodal apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, following the 2014 Extraordinary Synod and 2015 Ordinary Synod on the Family. Amoris Laetitia chapter VIII addresses, among other matters, the pastoral accompaniment of the divorced-and-remarried; certain paragraphs (notably §§300, 303, 305 and footnote 351) generated substantial theological discussion about the relationship between §29 of Sacramentum Caritatis and the pastoral accompaniment commended by Amoris Laetitia.
The Companion does not adjudicate this discussion. Three things must be said plainly:
1. The text of Sacramentum Caritatis §29 has not been amended. It stands as papal teaching of 2007 in its full force.
2. The Catechism of the Catholic Church holds the same discipline at CCC §1650 (they “cannot receive Eucharistic communion” while the situation persists) and §1651 (they remain able to participate in the Church’s life as baptized persons).
3. Amoris Laetitia (2016) commends accompaniment, discernment and the integration of the divorced and civilly remarried. Whether its Chapter VIII allows, in some cases, absolution and Communion for some who are not living in continence has been read in different ways, and Pope Francis wrote on 5 September 2016 to the bishops of the Buenos Aires region endorsing their pastoral guidelines on this chapter (the letter at vatican.va, in Spanish). This is a question for your confessor and, where the case warrants it, the local ordinary; it is not one to settle in private reading.
For the petitioner the practical implication is straightforward: read §29 carefully (you have above); do not attempt to settle the post-AL discussion by yourself; bring the particulars of your case to your confessor and, when the case warrants it, to the judicial vicar of your diocese or the local ordinary. The Companion’s role is to put the primary text in front of you and to direct you to the human persons in the local Church who hold the office of accompaniment. It is not to issue a verdict on your sacramental status.
Source. Benedictus PP. XVI, Adhortatio Apostolica Postsynodalis Sacramentum Caritatis, 22 February 2007. Promulgated in Latin in Acta Apostolicae Sedis 99 (2007) 105–180. Official English translation published by the Holy See at vatican.va. The sentences quoted above are excerpted verbatim from the Holy See English, each linked to the full paragraph; paragraph numbers (§27, §28, §29) follow the canonical numbering of the exhortation as promulgated. Internal scripture citations (Eph 5:31–32, Gen 2:24, Mt 19:5, Mk 10:2–12) are as printed in the Holy See edition. §27’s two embedded quotations are from Mulieris Dignitatem 26 and the Catechism of the Catholic Church 1617, as footnoted in the original (notes 84–85).
What this Companion entry is and is not. The quotations above are key sentences taken from the official Holy See English translation of Sacramentum Caritatis, each linked to the full paragraph at vatican.va. The commentary that follows each section is the Companion’s pastoral framing for the petitioner. The commentary is not a substitute for the confessor who knows your particular case, for an advocate or canonist (CIC can. 1481), for the judicial vicar of your diocese, or for the local ordinary’s pastoral guidance in your particular situation. Where the Companion commentary and the priest who knows your case differ on the application of §29 to your particular circumstances, the priest who knows your case governs your sacramental practice. Where the Companion commentary and the magisterial text of Sacramentum Caritatis differ, the magisterial text governs.
The Eucharistic root, not the canonical floor. The starting point of the whole argument is not a canon and not a sacramental discipline; it is a Christological fact. The Eucharist is the sacrament of the Bridegroom and the Bride. Every Mass makes present the moment Christ became the Bridegroom of the Church through the Cross. Christian marriage is not just commemorated by the Eucharist; it is rooted in it. The vow on the wedding day shares in the same Christ-Church bond that the Eucharist makes present.
What this means for the petitioner. Your wedding day, if your consent was canonically valid, did something more than initiate a civil contract: it brought into being a sacramental sign of the Christ-Church bond. That is the bond the tribunal is examining. Not the affection you felt, not the years you logged, not whether the marriage was happy or unhappy — the question is whether a true sacramental sign came into being at the moment of consent. If yes, the bond was real; the Eucharist itself stood at the heart of it. If no — if the consent was canonically defective in one of the substantive ways the Code names — then the sign did not come into being, and the tribunal’s task is to find out which.
St. Paul and the “great mystery.” §27 names Eph 5:31–32 explicitly. Paul writes: “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh. This is a great sacrament; but I speak in Christ and in the church” (Eph 5:31–32, Douay-Rheims). The Catholic doctrine of sacramental marriage is built on this verse. Read it slowly in your own Bible this week. The Church reads Eph 5 as the deepest scriptural justification for treating marriage between two baptized persons as inseparable from the Christ-Church bond — and therefore as participating in the indissolubility of that bond.
The closing line of §27 — on the unique mission of women in the family and in society — is not parenthetical. Benedict XVI was carrying forward the “feminine genius” theology of John Paul II (cf. Mulieris Dignitatem, 1988; Letter to Women, 1995) into a Eucharistic frame. For a petitioner whose marriage involved a wife who was either the spouse who left or the spouse who was left, this line is important: the dignity and irreplaceability of the woman’s vocation in the family is reaffirmed by the same exhortation that addresses the Eucharistic situation of the marriage’s end. The Church does not see the failed marriage as a story in which women, in particular, are dispensable or interchangeable.