He supported the permanence of marriage—and, as John Allen suggests, hinted that there are no sweeping changes coming on the issue of communion for the divorced and remarried:
Pope Francis gave his annual address to the judges of the Roman Rota, the Vatican’s main working court, to mark the opening of the judicial year.Most cases the Rota hears involve petitions for annulment of a marriage, and the pope was speaking just ahead of a decision he’s expected to make about whether divorced and civilly remarried Catholics can receive Communion, the hot-button issue of all hot-button issues at his two Synods of Bishops on the family.The bottom line is while Francis did not directly address the divorced and remarried, the overall thrust of his remarks seemed to dampen expectations of sweeping change.Here are the highlights from his 1,000-word address:Francis bluntly insisted that “there can be no confusion between the family willed by God and any other type of union.”Noting that the Rota has sometimes been called the “tribunal of the family,” Francis said he wanted to reflect on another designation: the “tribunal of the truth of the sacred bond,” meaning the bond of marriage. He said those two aspects of the Rota’s mission are “complementary.”Francis called the judges to remember that “those who, out of free choice or unhappy circumstances of life, live in an objective state of error, continue to be the object of the merciful love of Christ and therefore of the Church itself.”He insisted that the fact that many people today get married without fully understanding Church teaching, and with a weak personal faith, is not in itself grounds for declaring their marriage invalid.He called on judges to evaluate the sacramentality of marriage “very carefully.”
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- See more at: http://aleteia.org/blogs/deacon-greg-kandra/there-goes-that-crazy-radical-liberal-pope-francis-again/#sthash.83qlbTMY.dpuf
13 comments:
My, we're setting the bar pretty low.
Weak. The last paragraph is just an argument for more openness toward hgays and adulterers. A politician's speech...lots of words...says nothing.
It shows the depth of the crisis the Church finds herself in when Catholics are encouraged to rejoice that a pope actually does his job.
Taken from the article: "Up to this point, it’s been slightly unclear to some observers where Francis stands."
The idea that, in our modern era, with near universal education, computers, and the Internet, the pope is unable to clearly convey where he stands on moral issues is nothing less than astounding.
No longer interested in anything this Pope says or does.
Word on the street....Lutherans received Communion at the Vatican.
It's up to one's definition of what is considered to be sweeping change. As far as the marriage issue, you don't need seeping change. Just a little tweak will go a long way. Even liberal theological windbags can manage to turn the Church's de facto policy on divorce upside down with just a few words.
Jan I agree, I could not care less as well, just waiting this one out and see how bad the damage is to Holy Mother Church. Less and less Roman and Catholic each day as this pope destroys the Church. When will the Holy Ghost step in and save us?????????????
Anonymous 3.56 we all need to pray a lot more. Cardinal Burke has started a rosary crusade. There are not enough rosaries being said and that is why day by day things are getting worse rather than better.
And now Francis is "celebrating" the arch heretic Martin Luther, just thought I would never see this in my lifetime, the Roman Church as we know it is dead! Good job Vatican II and Francis way to go!!!!
This thing with the Lutherans is a stupid thing to do. If he really wants to play footsie with protestants, then he should lift the excommunication of Luther..I don't think that has been done.
Yes and the S.S.P.X. are the bad guys, this is just a total joke, just 50 years ago the S.S.P.X. would have been NORMAL Roman Catholics now the Protestants are are the NORMAL ones. Enough of the name calling i.e. Traditionalists, extremists, right wing Catholics we are just Roman Catholics as we were before the disaster called Vatican II.
Anonymous, EXACTLY my thinking when I learned about the SSPX. I thought, "they sound like the normal Catholics grew up with."
So, the Church having embraced modernism and protestantism, the SSPX must be reviled, condemned, and rejected and believing Catholics must be demonized. Hey, it is all about sex, drugs, and rock n roll...let the good times roll, baby!
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