VATICAN CITY — Catholic bishops called Saturday for a more welcoming
church for cohabitating couples, gays and Catholics who have divorced
and civilly remarried, endorsing Pope Francis’ call for a more merciful
and less judgmental church.
Bishops from around the world adopted
a final document at the end of a divisive, three-week synod on
providing better pastoral care for Catholic families. It emphasizes the
role of discernment and individual conscience in dealing with difficult
family situations, in a win for liberal bishops.
Conservatives
had resisted offering any wiggle room in determining, for example,
whether civilly remarried Catholics can receive Communion since church
teaching forbids it. While the document doesn’t chart any specific path
to receiving the sacraments as originally sought by the liberals, the
document opens the door to case-by-case exceptions to church teaching by
citing the role of discernment and conscience.
The three
paragraphs dealing with the issue barely reached the two-thirds majority
needed to pass, but conservatives couldn’t muster enough votes to shoot
them down. That will give Francis the maneuvering he needs if he wants
to push the issue further in a future document of his own.
Read the rest here.
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