Last Sunday a few quotes from Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation The Joy of Love were featured. Today we feature a few comments about it.
The big problems are...
Answering journalists’ questions on the plane from Lesbos to Rome, Pope Francis said: “When I convoked the first synod, the great concern of the media was whether divorced and remarried Catholics would have access to communion.
“And since I am not a saint, this bothered me, and also made me rather sad, because I thought: Do you not realise that that is not the important problem? Don’t you realise that instead, the family throughout the world is in crisis? The family is the basis of society. Do you not realise that the young don’t want to marry? Don’t you realise that the falling birth rate in Europe is something to cry about? Don’t you realise that the lack of work or the little work available means that a mother has to get two jobs and her children grow up alone? These are the big problems.”
Burke: no change
Archconservative Cardinal Raymond Burke said: “The secular media and even some Catholic media describe the post-synodal apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia (Love in the Family) as a revolution in the Church, as a radical departure from the teaching and practice of the Church, up to now, regarding marriage and the family.
“Such a view of the document is both a source of wonder and confusion to the faithful and potentially a source of scandal, not only for the faithful but for others of goodwill. ...A post-synodal apostolic exhortation, by its very nature, does not propose new doctrine and discipline, but applies the perennial doctrine and discipline to the situation of the world at the time.”
Pope on change
Answering a question on whether he had called for a change on Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics, Pope Francis replied: “I could say ‘yes’, but it would be too brief an answer. I recommend to you to read the presentation by Cardinal Schönborn, who is a great theologian. He is a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and he knows the doctrine of the Church well. In that presentation your question will be answered.”
Light in obscure world
Archbishop Arthur Roche said: “It’s very easily read, and it’s a very joyful read, because it’s a very encouraging message that the Holy Father is giving to the world on marriage and the family.
“It’s a light in a very obscure world which really doesn’t believe in the family and in marriage as much as the Church does, so it will be of enormous encouragement to people throughout the world as they make their steps towards marriage – particularly young couples who live in a world full of challenges and full of change – because here we have a document which is joyful, and brings to them, really, the tenderness of God.”
‘Irregular’ situations
Just before stating that integration into the life of the Church “presupposes the acceptance of the doctrine of the Church and respect for canonical norms”, Cardinal Ricardo Blázquez Pérez of Valladolid said:
“In close and faithful dialogue with other Christians, and in a movement of humble return to God, [one in an irregular situation] is able to be admitted by the minister of ecclesial communion into the life of the Church, up to the point where, with sincere conscience and Gospel fidelity, the priest and the Christian who finds himself in that ‘irregular’ situation judge opportune.”
(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)