The fact is, the Pope has said nothing new. the media and the Vatican spin doctors want you and the world to think he has. St. John Paul II said himself in that document that the Church must "help the divorced" so that they "do not consider themselves separated" from the Church.
Mercy was not suddenly sent down to earth in March 2013 any more than papal humility or kindness to babies and the sick or taking the bus.
What game is being played here by the Vatican and its communications experts? Firstly, no other language has this paragraph. Secondly, the referral is only relevant in its doctrinal soundness if one goes to Familiars Consortio and reads it. This is a profound paragraph and it has not been reported on. The Pope referred to it, did he mean just that sentence about the situational "discernment" or did he intend to endorse the whole paragraph? -- a paragraph which upholds the doctrine as given to the world be Our Lord Jesus Christ!
The mainstream media outside of Italy would not be expected to research what he actually said in Italian. For this, they cannot be blamed - the lingua franca of the world is English in which it does not appear. One can forgive the Pope for not speaking English, one cannot forgive the Vatican communication experts for not properly translating and reporting on what the Pope actually said.
There is a game being played here. The Pope made a statement on a matter which is being hotly debated and the world's media has lapped it up. Yet, he included reference to doctrinal orthodoxy that has been ignored because it has not been translated.
Is the Pope himself playing this game with full knowledge that as long as he says it in Italian, he can't be accused of being unorthodox? Or is he an innocent bystander to a corrupt and agenda driven Communications Office which is out of control and bent on changing doctrine through pastoral initiatives?
"Will
this Pope re-write controversial Church doctrines? No. But that isn't how
doctrine changes. Doctrine changes when pastoral contexts shift and new
insights emerge such that particularly doctrinal formulations no longer mediate
the saving message of God's transforming love. Doctrine changes when the Church
has leaders and teachers who are not afraid to take note of new contexts and
emerging insights. It changes when the Church has pastors who do what Francis
has been insisting: leave the securities of your chanceries, of your rectories,
of your safe places, of your episcopal residences go set aside the small minded
rules that often keep you locked up and shielded from the world."
It originated as best as we can tell by Richard Gaillardetz in the National Catholic Reporter and used repeatedly in talks without attribution by Father Thomas J. Rosica, CSB, Executive Producer of Salt + Light Television and a high-profile Vatican official and English-language spokesman for the Holy See and he is a well-known member of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. The man in charge of all of this is Jesuit Father, Federico Lombardi as Director of the Vatican Press Office.
Who can answer the question and explain why the English speaking world is not getting the full story? Imagine, the Church of Christ on Earth engaged in media spin and obfuscation. Expect it to increase before October.
Familiars Consortio 84.
e)
Divorced Persons Who Have Remarried
84. Daily experience unfortunately shows
that people who have obtained a divorce usually intend to enter into a new
union, obviously not with a Catholic religious ceremony. Since this is an evil
that, like the others, is affecting more and more Catholics as well, the
problem must be faced with resolution and without delay. The Synod Fathers
studied it expressly. The Church, which was set up to lead to salvation all
people and especially the baptized, cannot abandon to their own devices those
who have been previously bound by sacramental marriage and who have attempted a
second marriage. The Church will therefore make untiring efforts to put at
their disposal her means of salvation.
Pastors must know that, for the sake of
truth, they are obliged to exercise careful discernment of situations. There is
in fact a difference between those who have sincerely tried to save their first
marriage and have been unjustly abandoned, and those who through their own
grave fault have destroyed a canonically valid marriage. Finally, there are
those who have entered into a second union for the sake of the children's
upbringing, and who are sometimes subjectively certain in conscience that their
previous and irreparably destroyed marriage had never been valid.
Together with the Synod, I earnestly call
upon pastors and the whole community of the faithful to help the divorced, and
with solicitous care to make sure that they do not consider themselves as
separated from the Church, for as baptized persons they can, and indeed must,
share in her life. They should be encouraged to listen to the word of God, to
attend the Sacrifice of the Mass, to persevere in prayer, to contribute to
works of charity and to community efforts in favor of justice, to bring up
their children in the Christian faith, to cultivate the spirit and practice of
penance and thus implore, day by day, God's grace. Let the Church pray for
them, encourage them and show herself a merciful mother, and thus sustain them
in faith and hope.
However, the Church reaffirms her practice,
which is based upon Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion
divorced persons who have remarried. They are unable to be admitted thereto
from the fact that their state and condition of life objectively contradict
that union of love between Christ and the Church which is signified and
effected by the Eucharist. Besides this, there is another special pastoral
reason: if these people were admitted to the Eucharist, the faithful would be
led into error and confusion regarding the Church's teaching about the
indissolubility of marriage.
Reconciliation in the sacrament of Penance
which would open the way to the Eucharist, can only be granted to those who,
repenting of having broken the sign of the Covenant and of fidelity to Christ,
are sincerely ready to undertake a way of life that is no longer in
contradiction to the indissolubility of marriage. This means, in practice, that
when, for serious reasons, such as for example the children's upbringing, a man
and a woman cannot satisfy the obligation to separate, they "take on
themselves the duty to live in complete continence, that is, by abstinence from
the acts proper to married couples."[180]
Similarly, the respect due to the sacrament
of Matrimony, to the couples themselves and their families, and also to the
community of the faithful, forbids any pastor, for whatever reason or pretext
even of a pastoral nature, to perform ceremonies of any kind for divorced
people who remarry. Such ceremonies would give the impression of the
celebration of a new sacramentally valid marriage, and would thus lead people
into error concerning the indissolubility of a validly contracted marriage.
By acting in this way, the Church professes
her own fidelity to Christ and to His truth. At the same time she shows
motherly concern for these children of hers, especially those who, through no
fault of their own, have been abandoned by their legitimate partner.
With firm confidence she believes that
those who have rejected the Lord's command and are still living in this state
will be able to obtain from God the grace of conversion and salvation, provided
that they have persevered in prayer, penance and charity.
