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Cardinal Walter Kasper hopes this year’s synod on the family will develop the Church’s tradition in the area of pastoral support of divorced people.
Cardinal Kasper was speaking at the England launch of his book “Pope Francis’s Revolution of Tenderness and Love”.
Bishops attending the synod, scheduled for October 4-25, will be called to discern ways the Church can communicate joy to all families, he said.
This will include families who have experienced the brokenness of a sacramental marriage, he said.
“Hopefully, the synod will be able to find a common answer, with a large majority, which will not be a rupture with tradition, but a doctrine that is a development of tradition,” the cardinal said.
He added that if the Church believes it has a “living tradition”, it means that there is room for it to develop.
Last February, Cardinal Kasper addressed a consistory of cardinals in Rome.
At the end of his speech, he mentioned possible ways that, in limited cases, divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, who had not had their first marriage annulled, might be able to come to Communion.
This was one of the topics of strong debate at last year’s extraordinary synod.
“The Pope and the synod [this year] must decide” what steps to take next, Cardinal Kasper said, “but decide after they listen”.
The cardinal said Catholics should pray that the Holy Spirit guides the synod’s deliberations because there is “a battle going on”.
Cardinal Kasper also spoke about Pope Francis’s preaching about the mercy of God and the Pope calling a special Holy Year of Mercy for 2015-16.
When the Pope speaks about God’s mercy, the cardinal said, it “captures the hearts of many people” because it is a source of joy and of hope.
“Mercy is, theologically, the expression of the inner nature of God: God is love.”
God cannot be other than merciful “if he is to be true to his own essence, he has to be merciful”, the cardinal said.
The Church, as the sacrament of God’s presence in the world, must spread God’s mercy, he said.
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