Pope Francis rejects German proposal for inter-communion

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This is good news. However, the rejection should have been earlier and clearer. What good is all this discussing and equivocating? I think the only reason is that the bishop of Rome tried to avoid that the bishop of Munich should lose his face. When the latter insisted, he at least tried to soften the impact.
 
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You’re probably right. After the meeting at the beginning of May the directive from Pope Francis was apparently “go back and debate until you reach a unanimous decision.” Anyone with half a brain knows that was never going to happen, so it was effectively a way of saying “no” to Cardinal Marx, who is in Pope Francis’ inner circle, without having to embarrass him publicly with a flat out rejection. In the weeks following that meeting, however, Cardinal Marx had made several comments to the press strongly suggesting that they were going to forge ahead anyway and essentially leave it up to individual dioceses in Germany whether to adopt the letter or not. So maybe this was a consequence of pressing the envelope too far, too quickly.

I also highly suspect that this issue is not going away anytime soon. In the letter from the Vatican they plainly state that they will be looking more closely at this topic in the future. With all of the constant synods that seem to be on the agenda each year I wouldn’t be surprised if this is a topic sooner or later.
 
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I have a real solution. If a spouse believes everything that a Catholic believes about the Eucharist, does not want to join the Catholic Church, and is in distress over the conflict of the two, perhaps focus on the distress as a psychiatric issue. that is, a delusion as to the nature of reality.
 
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There is the accusation that the seven bishops who argued against the intercommunion proposal are hypocrites: In their dioceses, intercommunion - not only of Lutherans! - is a fact and has been for decades. By not taking any measures against that, they have been giving their silent agreement when it was their responsibility to defend church teaching as soon as they learned about the ongoing problem. Anyone ever thought of the many Protestants taking communion when not in a state of grace? The bishops and priests are also responsible for that in a way. None of the seven, not even Woelki, has been known to advise priests to insist on Catholic teaching when a Protestant approaches the chalice. The only thing Card. Marx did was writing down what has been reality for a long time anyway: De-facto intercommunion takes place in many parishes including those under the jurisdiction of those seven bishops. Isn’t that duplicity?
 
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You’re not wrong about that - but within the last few decades very few in the Church hierarchy have been willing to even bring up this problem even in countries or areas where Catholicism is stronger, much less in Germany where it only survives due to the church tax. Any bishop that would broach this topic in today’s Church climate would be sticking their neck out for fear of some kind of repercussions from the Vatican, where today’s de facto policy on this matter for when someone approaches communion is “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

I don’t even blame priests for this communion issue anymore - to me the blame solely lies with the bishops and upper hierarchy. Virtually no one in the Church today would be willing to speak out publicly about this problem and acknowledge that it is an issue; they don’t want to be seen as too “judgmental” and “unwelcoming”. They basically just rely on the honor system and wash their hands of the problem. Every time there is an article online about a priest denying communion to someone for one reason or another, they end up getting punished by the bishop or removed from their parish.

But the bottom line is that you’re right, the dissenting German bishops deserve some of the blame as well - they had the courage to challenge the defective proposal from Cardinal Marx and the other German bishops, but they will almost certainly do nothing to address the problem at the ground level.
 
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@tseleehw: Exactly. So it is incorrect to call those seven bishops the last orthodox bishops in Germany when in reality there is not even one.
You mention that the root of the issue is further up in the hierarchy and I agree. But what hope is there if both clergy and laity are in grave error? How can the Catholic church be the true church when it doesn’t matter whether you’re Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox or what have you? To me it seems that this is a strong indicator that the true church may be somewhere else, where sacraments are guarded and not taken lightly.
 
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The practices in Germany don’t necessarily reflect the practices of the universal Church.
There have been many times in history where abuses have been rampant in local Churches… both in Catholicism and Orthodoxy.
 
The priest does not interrogate everyone as they present themselves for communion. “Are you a Protestant? Are you in a state of mortal sin? Yes? Oh well I don’t really care here you go”. Unless the spouse is known to be Protestant or this person is known to be unrepentant of a mortal sin (extremely hard to prove-they would have to publically flaunt their sin- ie hey everyone! this is my mistress we got real intimate this morning ok we are sitting down now can’t wait for this Eucharist) then everyone who presents themselves for communion is assumed to be in a state to recieve communion. That is up to the individual. Honestly I would hazard a guess that most people who present themselves for communion probably shouldn’t be doing so. Now how does this make the Catholic Church suddenly not the true church? The Catholics and the Orthodox are literally the last men standing…
 
It is sad to see the Church being brought into this way where intercommunion for those undeserving is given. She, and the exclusiveness of the Holy Communion, is being trampled and watered down.

Perhaps the whole scenario can be corrected, now that the Holy Father has made a public stand opposing intercommunion. It should begin with the highest hierarchy in Germany down to the local parish priests.

The parishioners can only know so much if their bishops and priests say it emphatically through the pulpit regularly.
 
Of course you cannot interrogate people lining up for communion. However, in reality, many of those Protestants know the priests personally, some are even active in the parish in one way or another.
So often it is not true that those Protestants are anonymous strangers. People know each other, as they are someone’s husband or wife. So you cannot excuse priests and bishops just like that.
 
Constantin said:
So you cannot excuse priests and bishops just like that.
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Neither can we judge them at a distance based on nameless people that supposedly are doing something wrong, without any actual facts or specifics. We each have our own road to hoe an working through the complexities of some German bishops is the job of Pope Francis, not us.
 
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To me as a German Catholic, there is not so much of a distance, as this happens in our parishes. Ideally, Pope Francis would do something about it, I agree, but so far he seems disinclined to act.
 
When the group of German bishops first travelled to Rome on May 3, Pope Francis told them to reach a unanimous decision.
This is very different from stating that the German proposal is unacceptable.
Now, the Cardinal-in-spe Ladaria says that the pope “came to the conclusion that the document is not mature enough to be published”.
Similarly, this is far from a clear rejection, it could mean anything.
I would not call this acting on something, rather the pope is trying to be diplomatic (why?) and (as so often) remains unclear and fuzzy.
 
Constantin said:
I would not call this acting on something, rather the pope is trying to be diplomatic (why?) and (as so often) remains unclear and fuzzy.
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It is an action, whether you want to call it that our not. As to why, I think when looking at Pope Francis, we need to bear in mind he is a teacher first and foremost. If we are going to eavesdrop, as it were, on the interactions between him and the bishops, we need to remember that he is even teaching them.

Now if something if unclear, then according to the catechism, we are to interpret that thing in the most favorable light to avoid rash judgement.
 
Sentire cum ecclesia only goes so far. At some point, you can no longer whitewash the problem. Good for you that you still can see all this in the most favorable light. I no longer am able to do that.
 
Constantin said:
Good for you that you still can see all this in the most favorable light.
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Of course we must. What good would it be to rail against the problems we see in others at the expense of incurring sin, or at least going contrary to the teaching of the Church, ourselves. Then we become the blind sheep trying to fix what we see as a blind shepherd. It is the mote and beam all over again.
 
It seems there has been a loss of Catholicity. Maybe living in a region steeped in anti-Catholic spirituality has caused the disintegration of the Faith.

1 Corinthians 10:17 Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread…

Lutherans partake of an essentially anti-Catholic bread. If they do not subscribe to the Pope being the anti-Christ, then there is no longer an impediment to become Catholics. I understand there are many very Catholic Lutherans, so let them take the plunge!
 
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