VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has called for a creative, humble approach as the Vatican ponders why many in the Catholic Church have gone their own way on sexual and family issues like contraception, pre-marital sex and divorce.
A Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Sunday opened a two-week meeting of 200 cardinals and bishops from around the world, who know that many in their flock, while considering themselves Catholic, still defy church teaching on sexual matters. The most contentious issues include bans on artificial birth control and on Communion for divorced faithful who remarry.
The Catholic church considers divorced Catholics who remarry to be living in sin. It says those Catholics can only receive Communion by abstaining from sex with their new spouses.
Feedback from a survey Francis had his bishops give last year confirmed the gap between pastors and parishioners on sexual matters.
Without elaborating, Francis lamented that “pastors lay intolerable burdens on the shoulders of others.” His homily Sunday spelled out the spirit he wants church leaders to bring to the synod, as the meeting is called.
“Synod gatherings are not meant to discuss beautiful and clever ideas, or to see who is more intelligent,” Francis said. Rather, it’s an opportunity to “work generously with authentic freedom and humble creativity.”
Conservatives want the synod to reinforce Vatican doctrine on sexual matters. Liberals hope the meeting will bring openness to the realities facing Catholic families.
Throughout his 1 ½-old papacy, Francis has stressed compassion and attention to the far reaches of his flock, including faithful who feel alienated from the institutional church. The synod provides an occasion to reflect on pastoral care for couples living together without marriage, gay unions and children in those families.
Francis also prayed for “peace for families and the entire world.”
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Pastors lay intolerable burdens on the shoulders of others because the official teachings of the Catholic Church are irrational, outdated, and above all, misogynistic.
“work generously with authentic freedom and humble creativity” sounds like a Sarah Palin world salad, although I grant in his case it probably was more elegant in the original language.
His subtext appears to be that he hopes priests will start ignoring Catholic teaching. In which case, why on earth doesn’t he change it?
Quandary: noun, plural quandaries.
On the one hand you want Francis’ initiative to succeed because of all the suffering the present course is causing. On the other hand, the RCC was doing such a good job of making itself completely irrelevant before that you are sorry to see it recuperate.
Watusie: it has to do with the edict of papal infallibility. A lot of decisions that are being challenged were made ex cathedra. If PF1 starts suggesting those decisions by his predecessors were wrong, he undermines the whole notion of papal infallibility, which paints him into a corner. Now, you can (legitimately) argue that papal infallibility is an absurd notion, but if you look at it from PF1’s perspective, I think you can see what he is trying to play both ends against the middle.
The Catholic church considers divorced Catholics who remarry to be living in sin. It says those Catholics can only receive Communion by abstaining from sex with their new spouses.
The Catholic church says ; not God/Jesus .
And next week Cardinal Dolan will deny the Pope said anything about it. . . . . .