The Maltese bishops' conference has published a set of “Criteria for the Application of Chapter VIII of Amoris Laetitia”. The Criteria have not met with a positive reception in many quarters, as Edward Pentin observes in the National Catholic Register.
The Criteria are problematic, to say the least. Firstly, they say - claiming to follow Amoris Laetitia - that if “a separated or divorced person who is living in a new relationship manages, with an informed and enlightened conscience, to acknowledge and believe that he or she are at peace with God, he or she cannot be precluded from participating in the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.” In other words, the Maltese Criteria make explicit something that is only hinted at in Amoris Laetitia; moreover, the Criteria give permission for something that is specifically forbidden in Familiaris Consortio, the very clear teaching of St John Paul II, not to mention the very clear teaching of the Church up to now.
