Coleridge has just returned from Rome where he and other bishops have been discussing how to address the fallout resulting from Australia's clerical sexual abuse crisis. Of particular importance in these discussions was how the Church will adopt a new approach to prevent similar abuses occurring in the future.

One of the propositions they will consider is how to include women in positions of "governance".

The fallout following the Royal Commission into clerical sexual abuse resurged after the Australian police charged Cardinal George Pell with historic sexual offences.

Pell is the former Archbishop of Sydney. He is on leave from his current role as the Vatican's Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy while he seeks to clear his name.

Coleridge says the case was discussed with the Vatican officials but only to provide the Holy See with an insight "into the atmosphere in Australia around this case."

He says the Church has been "shaken to the core" by the clerical abuse scandal and today was being called to a "greater authenticity".

Coleridge says the current crisis is "both threat and opportunity" but the Church must adopt a new approach.

The bishops have therefore announced a plenary council to take place in 2020 which will undertake a wide-ranging review of its mission.

This will include looking at ways to give more responsibility to lay people.

One of the major criticisms of the Australian church has been clericalism, which has seen too much responsibility placed in the hands of priests and bishops.

Source

• The Tablet
• Image: ABC

Speaking a news conference at the synod on the family, Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane said he was concerned an "all-or-nothing" approach tended to dominate discussions before and, at times, during the synod.

But there exists a "vast territory that calls us to a new kind of pastoral creativity", he said.

On the issue of divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, the Church's doctrine is clear that they cannot receive Communion, he noted.

But Archbishop Coleridge said this is a delicate subject that cannot always be generalised and must be viewed case-by-case.

"In the case of divorce and remarriage, we're always dealing with sin, there's no news in saying that; the Church has traditionally spoken of the second union as adulterous," Archbishop Coleridge said.

He said the term "‘adulterous' is perhaps too sweeping", and that while defining the sin is "important, but in another sense it doesn't say enough".

"And I think what a pastoral approach requires is that we actually enter into what the synod is calling a genuine pastoral dialogue or discernment with these couples."

While the framework and direction of this dialogue is Church teaching, the archbishop said that the Church is also called to reach out to those who feel alienated.

"What really worries me as a pastor is that a lot of these people don't come to me or the Church," he said.

"They are seriously alienated and feel seriously excluded.

"So the question is not what do we do when they come to us but how can I/we go to them and begin that process of dialogue that starts with a kind of listening."

Sources

• Catholic News Service
• Image: ABC

Francis said this in an unscheduled intervention during the second day of the synod in Rome.

Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi told reporters that the Pope affirmed that "Catholic doctrine on marriage has not been touched or put into question".

The Pope also said: "We should not let ourselves be conditioned by or to reduce the horizons of our work as if the only problem were that of Communion for the divorced and remarried or not," Father Lombardi reported.

The Vatican did not release the text of the Pope's remarks.

Australian Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane, writing on his blog, said that during open discussion at the synod on Monday, some bishops were "uneasy about the impression given by the presentation of Cardinal (Peter) Erdo in the morning that some key questions are already decided and seemingly off the table".

"They felt that such a stance was premature," Archbishop Coleridge wrote.

Cardinal Erdo, the synod general relator, had said "merciful pastoral accompaniment is due" to the divorced and civilly remarried.

But this cannot leave in doubt "the truth of indissolubility of marriage, taught by Jesus Christ himself", he added.

"The mercy of God offers the sinner forgiveness, but requires conversion," said the cardinal.

"It is not the failing of the first marriage but the living in a second relationship that impedes access to the Eucharist."

But the following day, Italian Archbishop Claudio Celli said discourse on the matter is still open.

Canadian Archbishop Paul-Andre Durocher noted there could well be differences of opinion as to whether Church practice towards the divorced and remarried represented doctrine that could not be changed, or a discipline.

Vatican spokesman Fr Thomas Rosica said on Tuesday that among the subjects raised by synod participants was a suggestion the Church's pastoral practice to divorced and remarried persons could perhaps be determined by national or regional bishops' conferences.

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• National Catholic Reporter
• The Tablet
• Image: Reuters