Amoris Laetitia will deal with the family,
but what people will be looking out for is how it will address the
situation of divorced and civilly remarried Catholics when it comes to
Communion. And, not least, what it says about the role of women in the
church and about gay people.
Informed opinion indicates that Pope Francis will
emphasise the compassionate application of such teaching and in
accordance with what each unique pastoral situation requires. It is
believed he will do this while acknowledging the age-old teachings of
the church in family-related matters.
His long-anticipated pronouncement follows on the
three-week Synod of Bishops in Rome last October and the preceding
extraordinary two-week Synod of Bishops there in October 2011, both on
the family.
Amoris Laetitia will be Pope Francis’s formal
reflection on both synods in which he may, or may not, take on board the
agreed final statement last October of the approximately 190 bishops
from around the world who took part in both gatherings. It was
dispiriting for those hoping for change.
It is believed he will reflect, however subtly, much
of what the bishops said in that statement, if only to affirm his
commitment to shared governance of the church by the bishops with the
pope; such collegiality as was envisaged by the Second Vatican Council.
For those Catholics of a more traditional outlook the
bishops’ statement last October was greeted with welcome relief as
indicating that the barque of Peter remained on the path laid for it by
the late Pope Saint John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.
But traditional Catholics do not trust this pope to stay that course. Today will tell whether their doubts are justified.
Represented at the 2014 and 2015 synods by some of
the more powerful prelates in the church, the anxiety of traditional
Catholics about Pope Francis became manifest when it emerged early in
synod deliberations last October that 13 conservative cardinals had
written to him expressing concern that the “new process [at the synod]
seems designed to facilitate predetermined (liberal) results on
important disputed questions”.
They also noted how “the collapse of liberal
Protestant churches in the modern era, accelerated by their abandonment
of key elements of Christian belief and practice in the name of pastoral
adaptation, warrants great caution in our own synodal discussions”.
Pope Francis dismissed their concerns as groundless, but that did not go
down well.
The letter was signed by three members of the Roman Curia: Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Cardinal Gerhard Müller; Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy Cardinal George Pell; Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments Cardinal Robert Sarah.
Other signatories included: Archbishop of New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan; Archbishop of Toronto Cardinal Thomas Collins; Archbishop of Utrecht (Holland) Cardinal Willem Eijk; retired archbishop of Bologna (Italy) Cardinal Carlo Caffarra; Archbishop of Caracas (Venezuela) Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino; and Archbishop of Durban (South Africa) Cardinal Wilfrid Napier.
The synod’s final report last October stood firm in
opposition to same-sex marriage and urged cohabiting couples to seek
“the fullness of marriage and the family”. Some saw change in it
relating to access to the sacraments for the divorced and civilly
remarried. But this interpretation has been contested by the more
traditionally-minded.
Irish Times
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