{"id":74094,"date":"2016-04-12T05:11:30","date_gmt":"2016-04-12T09:11:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=74094"},"modified":"2025-01-19T14:15:35","modified_gmt":"2025-01-19T19:15:35","slug":"pope-emphasizes-flexibility-rules-modern-families","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/04\/12\/pope-emphasizes-flexibility-rules-modern-families\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope emphasizes flexibility over rules for modern families"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"In<\/a>
In the document \u201cThe Joy of Love,\u201d Pope Francis suggested that bishops and priests could do so on a case-by-case basis in what could become a significant development in church practice.
(Photo by Jeffrey Bruno<\/a>\/Flickr)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

VATICAN CITY \u2013 In a sweeping document on family life that opened a door to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, Pope Francis insisted Friday that church doctrine cannot be the final word in answering tricky moral questions and that Catholics must be guided by their own informed consciences.<\/p>\n

Francis didn\u2019t create a churchwide admission to Communion for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics as some progressives had wanted. But in the document \u201cThe Joy of Love,\u201d he suggested that bishops and priests could do so on a case-by-case basis in what could become a significant development in church practice.<\/p>\n

The pope also strongly upheld the church’s opposition to same-sex marriage.<\/p>\n

The 256-page document, two years in the making and the product of an unprecedented canvassing of ordinary Catholics and senior churchmen, is a plea from Francis\u2019 heart for the church to stop hectoring Catholics about how to live their lives and instead find the redeeming value in their imperfect relationships.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand those who prefer a more rigorous pastoral care which leaves no room for confusion,\u201d he wrote. \u201cBut I sincerely believe that Jesus wants a church attentive to the goodness which the Holy Spirit sows in the midst of human weakness.\u201d<\/p>\n

The document is cleverly worded: Francis selectively cited his predecessors, making clear he is working within their tradition but omitting the sometimes harsh, definitive language that is an anathema to his mercy over moral priorities. He cited himself repeatedly, making some of his most significant points in strategically placed footnotes, rather than the text itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the classic case of an organic development of doctrine,\u201d said Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the archbishop of Vienna who presented the document at a Vatican news conference. \u201cThere is innovation and continuity. There are true novelties in this document, but no ruptures.<\/p>\n

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\u201d<\/p>\n

Gay Catholics were highly critical, saying Francis had failed them. The document offered nothing significant beyond existing church teaching that gays are not to be discriminated against and are to be welcomed into the church with respect and dignity. It repeated the church\u2019s position that same-sex unions can in no way be equivalent to marriage between a man and woman.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has ignored submissions and appeals by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Catholics,\u201d said British gay rights advocate Peter Tatchell. \u201cGentler words do not assuage Vatican opposition to gay equality.\u201d<\/p>\n

On thorny issues such as contraception, Francis stressed that a couple\u2019s individual conscience educated in church teaching \u2013 and not just dogmatic rules imposed on them across the board from above \u2013 must guide their decisions and the church\u2019s pastoral practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been called to form consciences, not to replace them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He insisted the church\u2019s aim is to reintegrate and welcome all its members. He called for a new language to help Catholic families cope with today\u2019s problems. And he said pastors must take into account mitigating factors \u2013 fear, ignorance, habits and duress \u2013 in counseling Catholics who fail to live up to the ideal.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can no longer simply be said that all those in any irregular situations are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace,\u201d he wrote. Even those in an \u201cobjective situation of sin\u201d can be in a state of grace, and can even be more pleasing to God by trying to improve, he said.<\/p>\n

Archbishop Blase Cupich of Chicago, a Francis appointee, said the pope was telling Catholics they should cultivate their consciences \u201cwith the light of the Gospel\u201d as their guide.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s recovering something that we may have lost sight of,\u201d Cupich said at a news conference in his archdiocese.<\/p>\n

The document\u2019s release marks the culmination of a divisive consultation of ordinary Catholics and the church hierarchy that Francis initiated in hopes of understanding the modern problems facing Catholic families and providing them with better pastoral care.<\/p>\n

The most controversial issue that arose in two meetings, or synods, of bishops was whether Francis would loosen the Vatican’s strict opposition to letting Catholics who divorce and remarry receive Communion. Church teaching holds that unless these Catholics receive an annulment, or a church decree that their first marriage was invalid, they are committing adultery and cannot receive the sacrament.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

Conservatives had insisted the rules were fixed and there was no way around Christ\u2019s teaching on the indissolubility of marriage. Liberals had sought wiggle room to balance doctrine with mercy and look at each couple on a case-by-case basis, creating a path to reconciliation that could lead to them eventually receiving the sacraments.<\/p>\n

Francis took a unilateral step last year and changed church law to make it easier to get an annulment. On Friday, he said the rigorous response proposed by the conservatives was inconsistent with Jesus\u2019 message of mercy.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy thinking that everything is black and white, we sometimes close off the way of grace and of growth and discourage paths of sanctification which give glory to God,\u201d he said. \u201cLet us remember that a small step in the midst of great human limitations can be more pleasing to God than a life which appears outwardly in order but moves through the day without confronting great difficulties.\u201d<\/p>\n

Francis didn\u2019t explicitly endorse the \u201cpenitential path\u201d of bringing such civilly remarried Catholics to Communion that was advocated by leading progressives such as Cardinal Walter Kasper. But he repeated what the synod had endorsed of the need for pastors to help individual Catholics over the course of spiritual direction to ascertain what God is asking of them.<\/p>\n

And he went further by explicitly linking such discussions of conscience with access to the sacraments.<\/p>\n

In a footnote, Francis cited his previous document \u201cThe Joy of the Gospel\u201d in saying that confession should not be a \u201ctorture chamber,\u201d and that the Eucharist \u201cis not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rev. James Bretzke, a Boston College theologian, said the document will give cover to and empower those priests and bishops who want to apply a broader understanding of the confidential discussions between priests and divorced and civilly remarried Catholics \u2013 a concept known as the \u201cinternal forum solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe does not outlaw that, whereas John Paul II specifically outlawed (it),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Still, Mark Brumley, president of Ignatius Press, an English-language publisher of the writings of retired Pope Benedict XVI, said Francis\u2019 emphasis on conscience \u201cdoesn\u2019t mean this is a free pass to do whatever you want.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the document tries to navigate the difficult path of upholding church teaching while allowing the civilly remarried to participate in the life of the church.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very tricky thing,\u201d Brumley said.<\/p>\n

Such recourse to the use of a \u201cwell-formed conscience\u201d and the internal forum in negotiating moral issues is not new by any means. But it has been de-emphasized by the past two popes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not about a reform of rules. It\u2019s about reform of the church,\u201d Cupich said.<\/p>\n

In many ways, the document is most significant for what it doesn\u2019t say.<\/p>\n

While Francis frequently cited John Paul, whose papacy was characterized by a hard-line insistence on doctrine and sexual morals, he did so selectively. Francis referenced certain parts of John Paul\u2019s 1981 \u201cFamilius Consortio,\u201d which until Friday was the guiding Vatican document on family life, but he omitted any reference to its most divisive paragraph 84, which explicitly forbids the sacraments for the divorced and civilly remarried.<\/p>\n

In fact, Francis went further than mere omission and effectively rejected John Paul\u2019s suggestion in that document for people in civil second marriages to live as brother and sister, abstaining from sex so they can still receive the sacraments. In a footnote, Francis said many people offered such a solution by the church \u201cpoint out that if certain expressions of intimacy are lacking, it often happens that faithfulness is endangered and the good of children suffer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similarly, in discussing the need for \u201cresponsible parenthood\u201d and regulating the number of children, Francis made no mention of the church\u2019s opposition to artificial contraception. He squarely rejected abortion as \u201chorrendous\u201d and he cited the 1968 encyclical \u201cHumanae Vitae,\u201d which deals with the issue.<\/p>\n

But Francis made no mention of the \u201cunlawful birth control methods\u201d cited and rejected in \u201cHumanae Vitae.\u201d Instead, he focused on the need for couples in their conscience to make responsible decisions about their family size.<\/p>\n

Francis made a single reference to church-sanctioned family planning method of abstaining from sex during a woman\u2019s fertile time. He said only that such practices are to be \u201cpromoted\u201d \u2013 not that other methods are forbidden – and he insisted on the need for children to receive sex education, albeit without focusing on \u201csafe sex.\u201d<\/p>\n

The document devoted an entire chapter to love and sex in marriage \u2013 at times explicitly. Schoenborn acknowledged that Francis dared address such issues even though bishops and cardinals in two separate synods essentially ignored the question. Schoenborn suggested the celibacy of the synod fathers was perhaps responsible for the omission in synod documents.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Zoll reported from New York.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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