In a sweeping document on family life that opened a door to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, Pope Francis on Friday said that church doctrine cannot be the final word in answering tricky moral questions and that Catholics must be guided by their own informed consciences.
Francis did not create a churchwide admission to Communion for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics as some progressives had wanted. However, in the document The Joy of Love, he suggested that bishops and priests could do so on a case-by-case basis in what could become a significant development in church practice.
The pope also strongly upheld the church’s opposition to same-sex marriage.
Photo: AP
The 256-page document, two years in the making and the product of an unprecedented canvassing of ordinary Catholics and senior churchmen, is a plea from Francis’ heart for the church to stop hectoring Catholics about how to live their lives and instead find the redeeming value in their imperfect relationships.
“I understand those who prefer a more rigorous pastoral care which leaves no room for confusion,” he wrote. “But I sincerely believe that Jesus wants a church attentive to the goodness which the Holy Spirit sows in the midst of human weakness.”
The document is cleverly worded: Francis selectively cited his predecessors, making clear he is working within their tradition, but omitting the sometimes harsh, definitive language that is an anathema to his mercy over moral priorities. He cited himself repeatedly, making some of his most significant points in strategically placed footnotes, rather than the text itself.
“It’s the classic case of an organic development of doctrine,” said Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the archbishop of Vienna who presented the document at a Vatican news conference. “There is innovation and continuity. There are true novelties in this document, but no ruptures.”
Gay Catholics were highly critical, saying Francis had failed them. The document offered nothing significant beyond existing church teaching that gays are not to be discriminated against and are to be welcomed into the church with respect and dignity. It repeated the church’s position that same-sex unions can in no way be equivalent to marriage between a man and woman.
“He has ignored submissions and appeals by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Catholics,” British gay rights advocate Peter Tatchell said. “Gentler words do not assuage Vatican opposition to gay equality.”
On thorny issues such as contraception, Francis said that a couple’s individual conscience educated in church teaching — and not just dogmatic rules imposed on them across the board from above — must guide their decisions and the church’s pastoral practice.
“We have been called to form consciences, not to replace them,” the pope said.
He insisted the church’s aim is to reintegrate and welcome all its members. He called for a new language to help Catholic families cope with today’s problems. And he said pastors must take into account mitigating factors — fear, ignorance, habits and duress — in counseling Catholics who fail to live up to the ideal.
“It can no longer simply be said that all those in any irregular situations are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace,” he wrote.
Even those in an “objective situation of sin” can be pleasing to God by trying to improve, he said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing