Council of German bishops endorses Communion for the remarried
The group did not include Cardinal Gerhard Müller, who has said the practice is against God's law
The permanent council of the German bishops’ conference has endorsed Communion for the remarried, in the same week as the Vatican’s doctrinal chief said the practice was against divine law.
In a new statement agreed by the council, which numbers 27 out of the 66 German bishops, they say that the remarried can receive Communion without resolving to live “as brother and sister”. They say this is possible through “Differentiated solutions which are appropriate to the individual case”. An accompanying statement says the solution will be found through “a decision-making process, accompanied by a priest”.
The permanent council does not include the Vatican’s doctrinal chief, Cardinal Gerhard Muller, who in a recent interview said that the practice was against divine law.
In Familiaris Consortio (1981), St John Paul II said the remarried could only receive Communion if they tried to live “in complete continence”. The same doctrine has been taught by Benedict XVI, reaffirming centuries of Church teaching.
The cardinal said that the teaching reaffirmed by St John Paul II in Familiaris Consortio was not just one pope’s teaching, but something which could not be changed by any bishop, pope, or even an angel.
He added that some bishops were diverging from Catholic doctrine, and so risked becoming “the blind leading the blind”.
The permanent council of German bishops proposed Communion for the remarried in 2014, saying that it was “ a test of the Church’s credibility”. Several German bishops distanced themselves from the 2014 statement.
At the subsequent Synod on the Family, bishops did not approve the proposal. But since the Pope’s document Amoris Laetitia, some bishops have suggested Communion for the remarried is now possible.
In his recent interview, Cardinal Müller said: “Amoris Laetitia must clearly be interpreted in the light of the whole doctrine of the Church,” adding: “it is not right that so many bishops are interpreting Amoris Laetitia according to their way of understanding the Pope’s teaching.”
Francis did not read this speech to the bishops, as it effectively cast a bad light on the alliance that he had struck with the progressive wing of the German Church.
But the speech, as always, become public as having been delivered by the pope. And in Germany it let loose an uproar, in which Cardinal Reinhard Marx, archbishop of Munich and leader of the innovators, made himself the plaintive spokesman with Francis, obtaining from him this explanation that Marx afterward related to others: “I didn’t write it, I hadn’t read it, don’t pay any attention to it.”
http://magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2017/01/30/attention-danger-no-more-speeches-from-the-pope-on-the-%E2%80%9Cad-limina%E2%80%9D-visits/
November 14, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — Liberal-minded Cardinal Karl Lehmann is urging his fellow German bishops to change Church discipline quickly while Francis is still Pope.
In an interview with German website katholisch.de, he pressed the bishops to use the “freedom that has been granted by the Pope.”
“Francis wants us to explore new paths. Sometimes you don’t have to wait until the large tanker begins to move,” he added, alluding to the alleged slowness of the Curia in making changes, an attack often uttered by German liberal churchmen.
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| "They have set up their signs for ensigns" |
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| "They have set fire to thy sanctuary." |
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| "They have defiled the dwelling place of thy name on the earth." |
- Understanding for Asaph. O God, why hast thou cast us off unto the end: why is thy wrath enkindled against the sheep of thy pasture?
- Remember thy congregation, which thou hast possessed from the beginning. The sceptre of thy inheritance which thou hast redeemed: mount Sion in which thou hast dwelt.
- Lift up thy hands against their pride unto the end; see what things the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary.
- And they that hate thee have made their boasts, in the midst of thy solemnity. They have set up their ensigns for signs,
- And they knew not both in the going out and on the highest top. As with axes in a wood of trees,
- They have cut down at once the gates thereof, with axe and hatchet they have brought it down.
- They have set fire to thy sanctuary: they have defiled the dwelling place of thy name on the earth.
- They said in their heart, the whole kindred of them together: Let us abolish all the festival days of God from the land.
- Our signs we have not seen, there is now no prophet: and he will know us no more.
- How long, O God, shall the enemy reproach: is the adversary to provoke thy name for ever?
- Why dost thou turn away thy hand: and thy right hand out of the midst of thy bosom for ever?
- But God is our king before ages: he hath wrought salvation in the midst of the earth.
- Thou by thy strength didst make the sea firm: thou didst crush the heads of the dragons in the waters.
- Thou hast broken the heads of the dragon: thou hast given him to be meat for the people of the Ethiopians.
- Thou hast broken up the fountains and the torrents: thou hast dried up the Ethan rivers.
- Thine is the day, and thine is the night: thou hast made the morning light and the sun.
- Thou hast made all the borders of the earth: the summer and the spring were formed by thee.
- Remember this, the enemy hath reproached the Lord: and a foolish people hath provoked thy name.
- Deliver not up to beasts the souls that confess to thee: and forget not to the end the souls of thy poor.
- Have regard to thy covenant: for they that are the obscure of the earth have been filled with dwellings of iniquity.
- Let not the humble be turned away with confusion: the poor and needy shall praise thy name.
- Arise, O God, judge thy own cause: remember thy reproaches with which the foolish man hath reproached thee all the day.
- Forget not the voices of thy enemies: the pride of them that hate thee ascendeth continually.
"The Church should seriously consider the possibility — based on each individual case and not in a generalizing way — to admit civilly divorced and remarried believers to the sacrament of Penance and Holy Communion when the shared life in the canonically valid marriage definitively has failed and the marriage cannot be annulled, the liabilities from this marriage have been resolved, the fault for breaking up the marital life-bond was regretted and the sincere will exists to live the second civil marriage in faith and to educate children in the Faith.""We need to make more room for the conscience of the bride and married couples in our preaching and our pastoral outreach. It is certainly the task of the Church to form the consciences of the faithful, but the judgment of conscience of the people cannot be replaced. This is especially true for situations where the partners who experience a conflict in values must make a decision about whether to be open to the procreation of children vs. the preservation of their marriage and family life when the two conflict with each other.""Can we evaluate sexual acts in a second civil marriage exclusively as adultery?"
16. In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience when necessary speaks to his heart: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God; to obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged.(9) Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of a man. There he is alone with God, Whose voice echoes in his depths.(10) In a wonderful manner conscience reveals that law which is fulfilled by love of God and neighbor.(11) In fidelity to conscience, Christians are joined with the rest of men in the search for truth, and for the genuine solution to the numerous problems which arise in the life of individuals from social relationships. Hence the more right conscience holds sway, the more persons and groups turn aside from blind choice and strive to be guided by the objective norms of morality. Conscience frequently errs from invincible ignorance without losing its dignity. The same cannot be said for a man who cares but little for truth and goodness, or for a conscience which by degrees grows practically sightless as a result of habitual sin.
“Many of the speeches in the general discussions mentioned the possibility of dealing with questions on the basis of a given cultural context. I would say there were about twenty or so speeches and only two or three were against, claiming that for the sake of the Church’s unity handing over powers would have fatal consequences. I think that in this stage of the discussions, the idea is mostly shared. I, for example am German and it seems to me that the remarried divorces issue is very strongly and widely felt in Germany and much less so elsewhere. This is an area where there could be space for original pastoral ideas, also as far as the understanding of homosexuality goes, an issue that really varies from culture to culture. National Episcopal Conferences could be allowed to search for pastoral solutions that are in tune with their specific cultural context.”
Viele Fragen, um die es geht, sollte man regional entscheiden dürfen. Wir brauchen nicht für jedes Problem eine einheitliche, gesamtkirchliche Lösung, die in Rom erarbeitet wurde. Die Kirche muss sich vielleicht darauf verständigen, dass in unterschiedlichen Weltregionen und Kulturkreisen ein jeweils anderer Umgang mit dem komplexen Thema Familie ermöglicht wird. Ein Ordensmitglied aus dem Nahen Osten sagte mir jüngst: Eine Würdigung gleichgeschlechtlicher Lebensformen durch die Kirche wäre, rein hypothetisch, möglicherweise in Europa denkbar. Im islamischen Kontext wäre es das aber keinesfalls....
One should be allowed to decide many questions about which it is on the regional level. We do not need for every problem a uniform, whole-church solution which was compiled in Rome. The church must maybe come to an agreement about the fact that in different world regions and societies another contact with the complicated subject Family is allowed. An order member from the Middle East said me recently: An acknowledgment of same-sexual life forms by the church would be conceivable, purely hypothetically, possibly in Europe. However, in the Islamic context it would on no account be this....
In dieser Frage hat mir Kardinal Rainer Maria Woelki die Augen geöffnet: Er hat darauf hingewiesen, welche Werte, etwa Treue, auch in gleichgeschlechtlichen Partnerschaften gelebt werden. Einen Segen für sie schließt das nicht aus, aber dann müsste die Kirche dafür vielleicht auch neue Formen finden. Ich fände es jedenfalls fatal, wenn eine Segnung gleichgeschlechtlicher Partnerschaften verwechselt würde mit dem Sakrament der Ehe von Mann und Frau, die auf die Zeugung von Leben hin gegründet ist.
In this question cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki has opened to me the eyes: He has pointed to the fact which values, possibly loyalty, are also lived in same-sexual partnerships. This does not exclude a blessing for them, but then the church would have to find for it maybe also new forms. I would find it, in any case, fatal if a blessing of same-sexual partnerships was mistaken for the sacrament of the marriage of man and woman who is founded on the fathering from life.
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| Marx - Germany's new Luther? |
A few years ago, LifeSiteNews wrote about the "German Bishops being caught in a massive porn scandal." After a papal rebuke, they announced that it would be sold. Yet we find that one year ago, this has not only not happened; but these same filthy Rhine bishops actually pumped over one billion Euros from Catholics back into its production!
• July 30, 2015 3 COMMENTS
Just what kind of priest is the Jesuit Bernd Hagenkord of Vatican Radio's German language?Father Bernd Hagenkord is the head of German Vatican Radio. On his Vatican Radio blog he allows vulgar postings against Catholics and agrees with them. Those who criticized an explicit picture of a lesbian kiss published by Vatican Radio and later deleted under pressure are called – quote - "a case for the psychiatrist". Hagenkord’s posters ask to bring critics of the sin of homosexuality to court and call them disgusting agitators or right-wing propagandists. Hagenkord himself writes in a posting that critics of the sin of Sodom are – quote – "just sick".
“Francis knows exactly how power is spelled,” says Bernd Hagenkord, a Jesuit who is in charge of German programming for Vatican Radio. “He’s a communicator in the league with Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama. They say he’s being unclear, but we know exactly what he means.”
