As this magazine has reported, the Archdiocese of Washington has published a detailed pastoral plan for the implementation of Amoris Laetitia. The beautifully produced and lavishly illustrated booklet can be found on the archdiocesan website. It runs to 58 pages. Never before, as far as I can remember, has a Papal document produced such a response. I don’t remember anyone, for example, producing something similar for Familiaris Consortio or even for Veritatis Splendor. Amoris Laetitia is clearly, as some see it, in a class of its own. Why this should be, given that it is only one post-Synodal Exhortation among many, is not immediately clear. Moving onto the text of the document, which says a lot of things no one could possibly disagree with, one immediately wants to know what it has to say about the reception of Holy Communion by those who are living as man and wife in unions that are not recognised by the Church, specifically the divorced and the remarried. But on this the document has nothing to say at all – at least not specifically. The canonist Ed Peters has, however, spotted one phrase in which may be a coy reference to this matter, though it is hardly clear and specific.
1:33 PM
Why Cardinal Wuerl's 'Amoris Laetitia' document is open to abuse
Those who want to change practice on Communion for divorced-and-remarried couples could exploit a rather awkward sentence
Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith

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