Source: Crux
Towards the end of Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis’s document on the family, the pontiff writes that when priests have to make judgments in concrete cases such as pastoral care of divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, they are to do so “according to the teaching of the Church and the guidelines of the bishop.”
One wonders if he knew at the time just what a conflicting welter of responses that injunction would elicit.
Since the document appeared in early April, various bishops and groups of bishops around the world have issued guidelines for its implementation, and surveying the landscape, it’s abundantly clear they’re not all saying the same thing.
Some have stipulated that although divorced and civilly remarried Catholics remain a part of the Church and should be welcomed into its life, the traditional bar on giving them Communion remains fully in force.
Others, with varying degrees of caution, have suggested that Amoris does in fact create the possibility of receiving Communion after a process of discernment in some cases.
Reacting to that spread of reaction, some may object that while bishops are free to decide how to implement a papal decision, they’re not free to interpret it away. Others will conclude that until and unless Francis changes Church law, bishops have every right to apply the current norms as they see fit.
Whatever one makes of the merits of the dispute, one conclusion seems ineluctable: Whether by design or not, what Pope Francis effectively has done is to opt for decentralization on one of the most contentious issues in Catholic life today.
Barring some further clarification or decree from Rome, what we now have is individual bishops, or regional groupings of bishops, determining whether the answer is “yes” or “no” in the territory under their jurisdiction.
In July, Archbishop Charles Chaput issued a set of guidelines for implementing Amoris in Philadelphia which held that divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, if they wish to receive Communion, are called to live as brother and sister and refrain from sexual intimacy.
Recently Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted of Phoenix penned an article for his diocesan newspaper saying that nothing about Amoris opens the door to Communion for the divorced and remarried.
Categories: Catholic Church, Church, Pope Francis, The Muslim Times