Pavarotti's Death and The Church

[Joe_Frances]

It is inevitable that I am going to be branded by Catholic liberals and non-observants and just about everyone I know as judgmental, narrow, rigid, unsophisticated, retrograde and even uncharitable for this, but here goes.  I think it is unseemly and scandalous that  Maestro Luciano Pavarotti is lying in state in the Modena Cathedral prior to what will in all likelihood be a great Catholic funeral.  Here is a man, a great tenor, an international artist of the highest order who also abandoned his wife of 33 years for a 26 year old girl whom he "married" with a big splashy celebrity wedding, and now?  The Church appears to embrace him as if this never happened.  I find this absolutely wrong.  It is not only objectively morally and spiritually wrong (if this does in fact occur) but also objectionable because anti-Catholics could and invevitably will use this as another reason to oppose the Church and call it hypocritical when it stands up on all types of moral issues such as divorce, abortion, co-habitatioin, et... I think Luciano Pavarotti was a great singer. But I don't think he should have a Catholic Funeral Mass unless it is determined that he amended his life prior to death.  Question:  Will both wives be there?  Or maybe just the second.  I know,  I am rigid, unsophisticated and medieval.  Most of all I think the Church should stand by its moral principals.

[NorthernTrad]

Hear hear!  Moral courage to speak the truth is not always easy friend.

[introibo]

My thoughts exactly. 

[Avalonik]

From my understanding he was quite ill for a long time.  Plenty time to have repented for any/everything and Confessed.  While he was a public figure, this is obviously a private matter between the man and God (with the help of a priest).  Right?

I mean, even if he somehow (for some reason) publically announced his repentance, the enemies of the Church would just say he cowered in the face of his mortality and reverted to medieval peasant superstition.  Should your speculations prove correct about public reaction, I think we're just going to have to deal with it.  

[Archbishop_10K]

While I agree with you about Pavarotti, I think looking the other way has been the policy in Italy for centuries now. Certainly a more scandalous man than Pavarotti was Victor Emmanuel, the first king of Italy and destroyer of the Papal States; yet he most likely got a splendid Requiem Mass and is buried in church property (the Pantheon).

[Marylou]

From my understanding he was quite ill for a long time. Plenty time to have repented for any/everything and Confessed. While he was a public figure, this is obviously a private matter between the man and God (with the help of a priest). Right?

Please God you are correct.

I am often concerned about the public scandal that the church gets itself into.
We had the 'Catholic Marriage' of Nicole Kidman over here to contend with.
How nice it would be for all of us concerned about the public image of the church if these public 'greats' made their return to the Faith as public as they do their blatant abuse of it.

[Kal]

Unless his Priest and his "wives" are clear that he amended his life at the end, then a Catholic funeral would be a scandal. It is ridicules every Catholic knows you cannot remarry in this way. But I guess it feels good for some clergy to be in the spot light.

[StephenF]

Funeral's are what the Church does best.  Let God be the judge.  Would you deny such a great artist a requiem Mass for the repose of his soul?  You are obviously not Italian...

[CatholicBob]

Funeral's are what the Church does best.  Let God be the judge.  Would you deny such a great artist a requiem Mass for the repose of his soul?  You are obviously not Italian...

I would most definiteld deny this "great artist" a requiem mass if he publicly mocks Catholic doctrine.  Let God be the judge, indeed, and the Church is empowered by God to judge such matters.  And what makes him a great artist?  Just because he can sing?  Whoop-de-doo.  I don't see why that makes him so special that the rules don't apply to him.  I will remember him as the adulterous, philandering, gluttonous egomaniac that he was by all accounts.

[introibo]

Let's hope that through his suffering (and pancreatic cancer is supposedly one of the most painful types) he did come to atone for some of his past sins.  We don't know his innermost thoughts and his situation with God. 

However, that still doesn't nullify the scandal of his divorce, remarriage, etc.

By the way, not that I'm any fan of or have any interest in Nicole Kidman, but I was assuming that her marriage was valid and legitimate as her earlier marriage to Tom Cruise was not in the Church and thus was not valid.

Christina