In an address to the World Congress of Accountants, Pope Francis said: “Always place man and his dignity at the centre. It is not enough to give concrete answers to economic and material questions; it is necessary to promote and cultivate the ethics of the economy, finance and work; it is necessary to keep alive the value of solidarity as a moral attitude, an expression of attention to others and all their legitimate needs.
“If we wish to hand our environmental, economic, cultural and social patrimony to future generations in a better condition than that in which we have inherited it, we must assume the responsibility of working for a globalisation of solidarity. …And the social doctrine of the Church teaches us that the principle of solidarity works in harmony with that of subsidiarity. Thanks to the effect of these two principles, processes are placed at the services of humanity and enable the growth of justice, without which there cannot be true, lasting peace.”
CDF’s official position
In a letter written three days after the end of the recent synod of bishops, Archbishop Luis Ladaria Ferrer, the secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, affirmed St John Paul II’s teaching on absolution for those who have remarried outside the Church.
Ferrer said “we cannot exclude a priori the remarried divorced faithful from a penitential process that would lead to a sacramental reconciliation with God and, therefore, also to Eucharistic Communion”. The archbishop was answering a French priest who asked whether absolution can be granted to a person who is divorced and remarried without an annulment.
He continued saying that this “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.”
Sins against Creator
In an address to the Association of Italian Catholic Medical Doctors, Pope Francis said: “The dominant thinking sometimes suggests a false compassion, that which believes it is helpful to women to promote abortion; an act of dignity to provide euthanasia; a scientific breakthrough to produce a child and consider it to be a right, rather than a gift to welcome; or to use human lives as guinea pigs, presumably to save others. …We are living in a time of experimentation with life. But a bad experiment. Making children rather than accepting them as a gift, as I said. Playing with life.
“Be careful, because this is a sin against the Creator: against God the creator, who created things this way.”
O’Malley’s dig at Finn
The Holy See has to urgently address what to do with Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City, the US. This opinion was expressed by Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley during an interview with CBS television programme 60 Minutes. O’Malley, who heads a new Vatican commission on abuse, said Pope Francis is keenly aware of the problem. Finn has been convicted of endangering children because of his failure to report abuse charges.
The cardinal said his commission will give great importance to the issue of accountability and that they are “looking at how the Church can have protocols on how to respond when a bishop has not been responsible for protection of children in his diocese”.
(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)