Abyssinia, I ask you this and I’d love to ask others of your stance the same question. Why do you think Pope Francis invited the issue into Church discussion. Please don’t say “I don’t know” because your opposition to the question is so strong that you must have formed a belief about the Popes actions in order not to take the position of lets wait and see what the Cardinals, Bishops and Pope arrive at in Communion.
What is your belief about why Pope Francis raised the issue for theological examination?
Most people, unless they travel to Europe regularly or have relatives/friends there, are essentially clueless as to what is going on. It would appear that (at least) the
German bishops, apparently driven by Cardinal Kasper’s research, are or have been pushing for some sort of change in the rule concerning reception of Communion by those in irregular marriages.
It may be that there is more push, in a wider area, for such change. It is not, however the only question on the table; and while I do not know of statistics for Europe concerning divorce, the likelihood is that it is at least as high, if not higher than the US - which appears to be about 25% of marriages ending in divorce. And according to CARA research of that 25%, about 85% have not applied to a tribunal for a determination of the validity of the first marriage. If that is true (And I have not seen anyone actually challenge those statistics), Europe is in severely sad shape - and the US should not feel the least comfortable.
Further, it appears that some European countries have around 5%, or less, of Catholics attending Mass on a regular basis; the US appears around 22 to 25% attending.
So there are any number of issues regarding marriage, and tribunal activity, all of which relate to Pope Francis’ call for a much more vigorous evangelization - and as he has noted, that has to start with Catholics - a very significant number of whom appear to not be evangelized much or at all.
For all we know, the part of continuing the discussion about Communion may be designed to settle a matter which supposedly was settled years ago. George Weigel’s article is very interesting.