Synod offers striking softening to remarried, proposing individual discernment

[gilliam]

VATICAN CITY A worldwide gathering of some 270 Catholic bishops has recommended softening the church’s practice towards those who have divorced and remarried, saying such persons should discern decisions about their spiritual lives individually in concert with the guidance of priests.
Pope Francis also closed the meeting with a strong renewal of his continual emphasis of the boundless nature of divine mercy, saying: “The Church’s first duty is not to hand down condemnations or anathemas, but to proclaim God’s mercy.”

Although the final document from the Oct. 4-25 Synod of Bishops says discernment for remarried persons can “never overlook the demands of truth and love in the Gospel,” it seems to significantly move decision-making for how they can participate in the church to private conversations in dioceses around the world.

Suggesting use of what is called the “internal forum,” the document says priests can help remarried Catholics “in becoming conscious of their situation before God” and then deciding how to move forward.

ncronline.org/news/vatican/synod-offers-striking-softening-remarried-proposing-individual-discernment

 

[_Abyssinia]

If anybody is getting an impression that divorced and remarried persons can now undergo a period of discernment and receive Communion even if they are not living as brother and sister, your under the wrong impression, because that has not changed.

 

[Elizium23]

If anybody is getting an impression that divorced and remarried persons can now undergo a period of discernment and receive Communion even if they are not living as brother and sister, your under the wrong impression, because that has not changed.

I think we’re having another Humanae vitae moment.

 

[_Abyssinia]

I think we’re having another Humanae vitae moment.

What do you mean?

 

[johnnyc176]

What do you mean?

Liberals back then thought for sure that the Church was going to change it’s teaching on contraception but in one of God’s surprises Pope Paul VI issued Humanae vitae which upheld the teaching of Jesus and His Church.

 

[ARSpade]

Liberals back then thought for sure that the Church was going to change it’s teaching on contraception but in one of God’s surprises Pope Paul VI issued Humanae vitae which upheld the teaching of Jesus and His Church.

And the the Liberals went ahead and ignored it anyway, sometimes with bishops loudly proclaiming that it was okay.

 

[Neofight]

And the the Liberals went ahead and ignored it anyway, sometimes with bishops loudly proclaiming that it was okay.

You paint with a broad brush, when you say “the Liberals” seeming to imply all a liberals did so, and woke all Liberals are somehow not as righteous as other Catholics.

 

[JimG]

If anybody is getting an impression that divorced and remarried persons can now undergo a period of discernment and receive Communion even if they are not living as brother and sister, your under the wrong impression, because that has not changed.

It’s unclear to me how this will play out. The first paragraph above reads:

“A worldwide gathering of some 270 Catholic bishops has recommended softening the church’s practice towards those who have divorced and remarried, saying such persons should discern decisions about their spiritual lives individually in concert with the guidance of priests.”

What will they be discerning? The validity of their first marriage? Their degree of fault in the marital breakup? How they feel about the second marriage? Will they be determining through the internal forum that the first marriage was invalid, and that they are free to receive communion? If they decide by their own conscience that the prior marriage was not valid, does that free the original spouse as well?

Will it be like altar girls? Each diocese decides for itself?

 

[_Abyssinia]

It’s unclear to me how this will play out. The first paragraph above reads:

“A worldwide gathering of some 270 Catholic bishops has recommended softening the church’s practice towards those who have divorced and remarried, saying such persons should discern decisions about their spiritual lives individually in concert with the guidance of priests.”

What will they be discerning? The validity of their first marriage? Their degree of fault in the marital breakup? How they feel about the second marriage? Will they be determining through the internal forum that the first marriage was invalid, and that they are free to receive communion? If they decide by their own conscience that the prior marriage was not valid, does that free the original spouse as well?

Will it be like altar girls? Each diocese decides for itself?

I don’t see George Weigel (in this article) or Fr Thomas Petri on Twitter for example, saying the final document provides a penitential path of sorts, a way to receive Communion for divorced and remarried persons, without living as brother and a sister. If the final document provided a path for Communion differently, why wouldn’t they and other sources be saying it did?

 

[St_Francis]

The original article is from the National “Catholic” Reporter, the National Enquirer of the Catholic world.

 

[Corki]

The original article is from the National “Catholic” Reporter, the National Enquirer of the Catholic world.

Good one. I’ll have to remember that “by line”.

 

[phil19034]

You paint with a broad brush, when you say “the Liberals” seeming to imply all a liberals did so, and woke all Liberals are somehow not as righteous as other Catholics.

in this usage of the word… he’s not talking about political liberals. The post was talking about theological liberals.

I highly recommend the following book from the Ignatius Press: American Church: The Remarkable Rise, Meteoric Fall, and Uncertain Future of Catholicism in America

You can buy it here from Amazon: amzn.to/1S3xjfr

God Bless

 

[808Catholic]

If anybody is getting an impression that divorced and remarried persons can now undergo a period of discernment and receive Communion even if they are not living as brother and sister, your under the wrong impression, because that has not changed.

 

[Neofight]

in this usage of the word… he’s not talking about political liberals. The post was talking about theological liberals.

I highly recommend the following book from the Ignatius Press: American Church: The Remarkable Rise, Meteoric Fall, and Uncertain Future of Catholicism in America

You can buy it here from Amazon: amzn.to/1S3xjfr

God Bless

Neither was I speaking of political liberals, but theological liberals. My point is the same.

The goal of Catholic liberal theology is not to destroy the Church or give it over to the enemy of the world. As long as we are recommending books to support our contentions, I recommend the Holy Bible, especially the gospel, which has 4 books in the beginning of the New Testament that talk about the upside of liberal theology that was the foundation of Church teachings.

 

[Brendan]

Here is the article from CNA

Headline: Final synod document strongly backs Church teaching, beauty of family life

And a statement from Cardinal Pell

On Saturday a spokesman for Cardinal George Pell – head of the Vatican’s economy secretariat – said in a statement that the prelate was “very pleased with the document.”

“It expresses well what the current pastoral practice and teaching of the Church are on sexuality, marriage and families,” the statement read.

“No doctrinal developments, no doctrinal surprises, no doctrinal backflips. No changes in praxis or discipline,” but rather a “beautiful commendation of large families and of the witness of happily married spouses and their children as agents of evangelization.”

catholicnewsagency.com/news/final-synod-document-strongly-backs-church-teaching-beauty-of-family-life-37584/

 

[OriginalJS]

If anybody is getting an impression that divorced and remarried persons can now undergo a period of discernment and receive Communion even if they are not living as brother and sister, your under the wrong impression, because that has not changed.

Maybe, but many divorced and remarried are receiving anyway and nobody says a thing,

 

[_Abyssinia]

EXCLUSIVE Cardinal Pell: “The final document is much better than what we feared”

Yesterday, Cardinal George Pell commented on the final document of the Synod on the Family at the general assembly of the Una Voce Federation that was also taking place in Rome. Pell said, that the Synod was „very hard work“.

The final document contained 94 paragraphs. Most of them were not controversial. The paragraphs 84, 85 and 86 had substantial minorities opposing them:

84: 187 yes and 72 no.

85: 178 yes and 80 no.

86: 190 yes and 64 no.

According to Pell a minority of bishops objected because they thought that the true teaching was not taught explicitly enough. He excused the Synod fathers with the argument that they - although they happen to be bishops - “have never done any or much Thomistic philosophy”.

Pell saw a danger in the paragraph about conscience because people could use “conscience” and then “do what they want”. But the paragraph about conscience was rewritten in the last days: “You need to study it, but it is basically good.”

According to Pell, the Synod did not focus at all on the three topics Communion for the divorced and remarried, on the idea of conscience or on the acceptance of homosexuality: “Catholic doctrine is stated clearly.”

Pell admits that the language is “different” and verbose. It is not a document that he would have written: “Some people will say it is terrible, but it is not terrible.” For him the final version is almost a miracle if compared with the draft: “The Synod itself is much, much better than the worst we have feared.”

“There is nothing there endorsing Communion for the divorced and remarried. There is nothing there endorsing a penitential process. There is nothing there that is saying homosexual activity is justified.”

Pell does not know, how the text will be explained or spined. He is sure, that there will be attempts to “make something out of it.”

He explains that according to the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, “there is no doctrinal error in anything that has been published”.

gloria.tv/media/gdW4oS5Nwkh

 

[pnewton]

If anybody is getting an impression that divorced and remarried persons can now undergo a period of discernment and receive Communion even if they are not living as brother and sister, your under the wrong impression, because that has not changed.

It is not my impression, but rather it is in the document that the pastor is the one to work out what is best, with the limitations being his bishop and doctrine, not us. Neither discipline, or canon law, are listed as limits, though these should be major issues, and a bishop may well require his priests to adhere to his own understanding of doctrine.

As to what is doctrine, the article above says, “According to Pell a minority of bishops objected because they thought that the true teaching was not taught explicitly enough.” Since there was on matter which the bishops did not agree *was *doctrine, which has never been state as doctrine, though some bishops say it is, others say it is discipline, I think any priest would not be bound by an alleged doctrine.

 

[johnnyc176]

Maybe, but many divorced and remarried are receiving anyway and nobody says a thing,

As long as that is not the fault of making clear the teaching of Jesus. When God asked Adam ‘where are you?’ it didn’t mean He did not know where Adam was. We have been ‘hiding’ from God ever since.

 

[johnnyc176]

As long as we are recommending books to support our contentions, I recommend the Holy Bible, especially the gospel, which has 4 books in the beginning of the New Testament that talk about the upside of liberal theology that was the foundation of Church teachings.

That is your liberal interpretation of the Bible. I recommend those books for the whole Gospel that proclaims Catholic theology that is the foundation of Christianity.