Expert: Fr. Michael - 7/10/2010

Question
Can divorced Catholics serve as Eucharistic Ministers in Catholic Church?  Does Catholic Church allow Divorced Catholics not married in Catholic Church participate in the sacraments?

Answer
The Catholic Church does not permit "Eucharistic Ministers."  You must be speaking of the New Order Church.  Only a priest may touch the Most Blessed Sacrament, as he has been ordained and his hands anointed to do so.  For a lay person to touch the Most Blessed Sacrament is sacrilege.

A divorced person may, in some cases, continue receive the Sacraments, but not if that person is remarried.  Divorce and remarriage is adultery by the teaching of Our Lord Jesus Christ, as recorded in all four Gospels, and this public sin bars the person from the Sacraments.

If you are speaking of a Catholic who married before a civil official or a minister of an heretical or infidel minister, that Catholic, by his public act denying the Church, is automatically excommunicated and therefore barred from the Sacraments.