Ratzinger on Communion for adulterers in 1972!

[Geremia]

Joseph Ratzinger, "Zur Frage nach der Unauflosigkeit der Ehe," in Ehe und Ehescheidung (Munchen: Kosel, 1972), pp. 55-56:

communion can be given to a digamus (= to someone living in a second marriage), without the suspension of the second marriage; this in confidence in God's mercy who does not leave penance without an answer.
[...]
The anathema [of the Council of Trent] against a teaching that claims that foundational structures [forms] in the church are erroneous or that they are only reformable customs remains binding with its full strength. Marriage is a sacrament; it consists of an unbreakable structure, created by a firm decision. But this should not exclude the grant of ecclesial communion to those persons who acknowledge this teaching as a principle of life but find themselves in an emergency situation of a specific kind, in which they have a particular need to be in communion with the body of the Lord.

transl. from: Ladislas Örsy, S.J., Marriage in Canon Law: Texts and Comments, Reflections and Questions (1988), p. 293.

This sounds like Amoris Lætitia §301: "A subject may [...] be in a concrete situation which does not allow him or her to act differently and decide otherwise without further sin."

People doesn't just happen to "find themselves in an emergency situation" (state of sin); they place themselves therein!

[Geremia]

In the full article, Ratzinger modernistically rereads history, making St. Basil appear to support adultery and blasphemously thinking St. Basil thinks Holy Scripture contains contradictions! (Ratzinger thought St. Luke contradicted himself, too!)

...well known text of Basil that prescribes a longer Church penance for the second marriage and then tolerates it. In this he is aware of the contradiction to the words of Scripture [!]. The whole text makes it clear that he, like Origen, does not want to simply eliminate an existing practice, although he considers it contrary to Scripture [!]

Ratzinger regurgitates the old lie that Mt. 5:32 and 19:19 are exceptions to the indissolubility of marriage: "...excepting the cause of fornication (porneia)" (= excepting the case when there was no marriage to begin with).

He even quotes St. Basil as saying:

Seven years of Church penance – one year at the stage of the weeper, two years as hearer, three years as kneeler; in the seventh year he can, without receiving Communion, participate in the Mass of the Faithful.

cf. Brugger 2017 pp. 168-72 for St. Basil quotes on indissolubility of marriage, as cited at the Council of Trent