Wouldn't it have been great if a security team of Trads had just grabbed Franciscus after this speech and hauled him out of the Vatican the way the security team hauled a passenger out of that plane?
ROME- Ever since Pope Francis released a sweeping document on the family this March, there’s been ongoing discussion regarding what the conclusion actually is for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics who, according to previous Church teaching, were barred from receiving Communion.
We may now have a new clue, one that stems from the pontiff’s former archdiocese in Argentina.
The bishops of the Buenos Aires region have drafted a set of guidelines meant to help local priests put Francis’s Amoris Laetitia into pastoral practice, particularly chapter eight, which makes reference to “discernment regarding the possible access to the sacraments of some of those who are divorced and in a new union.”
The guidelines say that some civilly remarried couples who can’t adhere to the Church’s teaching of “living like brothers and sisters,” who have complex circumstances, and who can’t obtain a declaration of nullity for their first marriage, might undertake a “journey of discernment,” and arrive at the recognition that in their particular case, there are limitations that “diminish responsibility and culpability.”
For these exceptional cases, the bishops wrote, “Amoris Laetitia opens up the possibility of access to the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.”
Yet, they warn, “it’s necessary to avoid understanding this possibility as an unrestricted access to the sacraments, or as though any situation might justify it.”
The guidelines, dated Sept. 5, reached Francis, who answered on the same day, writing: “The document is very good and completely explains the meaning of chapter VIII of Amoris Laetitia. There are no other interpretations. And I am certain that it will do much good. May the Lord reward this effort of pastoral charity.”