The debate over Communion for the remarried has intensified, after the Vatican’s doctrinal chief and the Council of German bishops made diametrically opposite statements.
Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was asked by the Italian magazine Il Timone whether the traditional teaching, reaffirmed by Pope St John Paul II’s Familiaris Consortio, is still valid.
St John Paul said that the divorced and remarried cannot take Communion, except possibly when they try to live “in complete continence”.
Cardinal Müller said of this condition: “Of course, it is not dispensable, because it is not only a positive law of John Paul II, but he expressed an essential element of Christian moral theology and the theology of the sacraments.”
Theologians distinguish between “positive laws”, which can be changed, and divine laws which cannot. The German cardinal thus implied that Communion for the remarried was against divine law.
Cardinal Müller said that changing the discipline is impossible because marriage, like the Eucharist, symbolises union with Christ. “This is the substance of the sacrament, and no power in heaven or on earth, neither an angel, nor the pope, nor a council, nor a law of the bishops, has the faculty to change it.”
But the Council of German Bishops, which comprises more than a third of the bishops’ conference, issued a statement saying that the remarried can receive Communion without resolving to live in continence. They say this is possible through “Differentiated solutions”. An accompanying statement said that a solution would be found through “a decision-making process” with someone else, not necessarily a priest.
Bishop ‘personally shaken’ by Australia’s abuse figures
Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher has said revelations by Australia’s royal commission on abuse this week were “harrowing”, adding that he felt “personally felt shaken” by the new information.“The Church is sorry and I am sorry for past failures that left so many so damaged,” the archbishop said in a statement. “I know that many of our priests, religious and lay faithful feel the same: As Catholics, we hang our heads in shame.”
He was speaking at the start of a three-week “wrap-up” that would conclude the commission’s investigation into abuse at Catholic institutions. Data from the commission showed that between 1980 and 2015, 4,444 people made allegations of child sexual abuse related to more than 1,000 institutions. The Catholic Weekly, a Sydney archdiocesan newspaper, reported that 1,880 of the alleged perpetrators had been identified.
It said allegations were made against seven per cent of priests.
“The coming weeks will be traumatic for everyone involved, especially the survivors,” he said. “I remain determined to do all we can to assist those who have been harmed by the Church.”
Pope: Christians must share more
Christians must work and pray together despite the obstacles to full unity that remain, Pope Francis has said.“Increasingly we are learning to ask ourselves: this initiative, can we share it with our brothers and sisters in Christ?” the Pope said in a speech to Germany’s Evangelical leaders. “The differences in questions of faith and morals, which still exist, remain challenges on the path toward the visible unity.”
