Cardinal Walter Kasper says hardliners opposed to his proposals for Communion for the divorced and remarried really have Pope Francis as a target. The German cardinal told the Italian daily Il Mattino that some of his fellow cardinals “. . . claim to know on their own what truth is, but Catholic doctrine is not a Read more
Cardinal George Pell says allowing Communion for Catholics who are divorced and remarried outside the Church is impossible. The cardinal said doing so would make pastoral practice incompatible with doctrine. The former Archbishop of Sydney wrote this in a foreword to a book titled “The Gospel of the Family” by Professor Stephan Kampowski and Fr Read more
A strong sense of exclusion and hurt is felt by many people who are living in situations not in accord with Church teaching in areas such as divorce and re-marriage, cohabitation, contraception and same sex unions. This information is contained in a Pastoral Letter from the New Zealand Catholic Bishops summarising the main themes that Read more
Five cardinals have joint-authored a book that finds current Church doctrine regarding divorced and remarried Catholics is the most merciful approach. “Remaining in the Truth of Christ: Marriage and Communion in the Catholic Church” has been written by Cardinals Gerhard Müller, Raymond Burke, Walter Brandmüller, Carlo Caffarra, and Velasio De Paolis. Four theologians and professors Read more
The Church should do more to welcome “unconventional couples”, instead of making them targets of “de facto discrimination”, a leading Italian bishop says. The secretary-general of the Italian bishops’ conference, Bishop Nunzio Galantino, said couples in “irregular matrimonial situations” are still Christians. Speaking at a national liturgical gathering in Italy on August 27, Bishop Galantino Read more
The prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has again strongly defended the Church’s teaching on Communion for the divorced and remarried. In a book length interview published on July 29, Cardinal Gerhard Müller discussed “mercy” and its connection with justice. He also dwelt on the image of the Church as a Read more
Whether to marry and whom to marry are among the biggest decisions—arguably the most important—a woman or man makes. The statistics reveal that human beings aren’t really as skilled as they need to be in this arena, with the rate of divorce roughly between 40% and 50% for first marriage and at 60% for second tries. And Read more
In Cardinal Walter Kasper’s recent address to the extraordinary Consistory of Cardinals (February 20-21, 2014), published in English with additional material as The Gospel of the Family (New York: Paulist, 2014), he makes mention of certain early Christian sources in the hope of suggesting “a way out of the dilemma” (p. 30) presented by the question of Read more
A new working document for the upcoming synod on the family has hinted at initiatives to help divorced and remarried Catholics. The 85-page “Instrumentum Laboris” was released by the Vatican on June 26. It was drafted after consultation last year, when a questionnaire about family life was sent to bishops’ conferences. The working document stresses the truth of Church teaching, Read more
Jesuit theologian Professor Ladislas Orsy has proposed a way once promoted by Joseph Ratzinger for divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion. In 1972, Professor Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, put forward an argument based on “oikonomia” – good spiritual housekeeping – a part of Eastern Church tradition. He argued that Communion could be given Read more