In brief remarks made on Wednesday, Pope Francis offered a comforting word for divorced Catholics and their children, urging priests to welcome and foster these families with “doors wide open.”
In remarks to his general audience, his first after a summer break, he reminded priests that divorced Catholics who remarry are not pariahs.
“People who started a new union after the defeat of their sacramental marriage are not at all excommunicated and they absolutely must not be treated that way,” Francis said.
“Though their unions are contrary to the sacrament of marriage, the church, as a mother, seeks the good and salvation of all her children,” he said.
Conceding that there was no easy way to resolve the conflict between divided families and the Roman Catholic Church’s stance on divorce, Francis told priests to be merciful and to encourage such families to participate in church life as much as possible.
Never veering from Catholic doctrine, Francis’ words sounded like a signal to the bishops, cardinals and church leaders who are to attend an extraordinary meeting on the family at the Vatican in October, Vatican experts said.
Many remarried Catholics have taken comfort in the pope’s remarks since his installation, hoping that restrictions on their participation in church rituals might be eased.
“This is not a new indication,” Italian financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore’s Vatican expert Carlo Marroni said. “He is saying what the gospel says; he is welcoming to everybody.”
“He did not mention the possibility to open the confessional or the holy communion to them,” Marroni said.
Despite Francis’ words, the Catholic Church is not expected to alter its stance on fundamental issues like the definition of marriage.
Last week, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin reaffirmed church doctrine and called marriage “a lifelong covenant of love and fidelity between a man and a woman” in a letter to the Knights of Columbus Supreme Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In May, Parolin called the results of a referendum that led to the recognition of same-sex marriages in Ireland a “defeat for humanity.”
In his letter to the Knights of Columbus, he said: “Today, when the institution of marriage is under attack from powerful cultural forces, the faithful are called to bear witness to this basic truth of biblical faith and natural law, which is essential to the wise and just ordering of society.”
Some analysts say that despite the opposition of Vatican conservatives, Francis might try to push for divorced and remarried Catholics to receive communion again.
Catholics who divorce after a church marriage, but do not remarry, are allowed to receive communion.
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