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Divorced, remarried Catholics can receive communion.
German Cardinal, Walter Kasper, says Amoris laetitia allows for a “changed pastoral practice”.
He also says “We must make Amoris laetitia an awakening of family pastoral ministry. Marriage and family must be the central theme in pastoral care because the family is the way of the Church.”
Kasper is the president emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity
“There is leeway in … the dogmatic principles’ …,” he says
His views are recorded in the November 2016 edition of Stimmen der Zeit, a monthly journal on Christian culture.
In the Stimmen article Kasper considers Pope Francis’s “apostolic exhortation” about marriage and the sacraments earlier this year, and the range of interpretations that may be given to them.
Kasper says American Cardinal Raymond Burke’s denial that Amoris laetitia is magisterially binding is wrong. He says this “formally contradicts the character of an apostolic exhortation as well as its content.”
He is also concerned that “alleged anxiety” about Amoris laetitia is coming from a group “which has alienated itself from a sense of faith and the life of the people of God.”
kasper himself sees Amoris laetitia as having “a new, fresh and honestly liberating tone.”
“Spiritual discernment demands spiritual competence,” he said.
“It is a gift of the Holy Spirit as well as a fruit of spiritual experience and of learning from the great masters of the spiritual life. This matter must be strongly accounted for in the formation and continuing education of clerics and pastoral ministers going forward.”
“We must make Amoris laetitia an awakening of family pastoral ministry,” he said. “Marriage and family must be the central theme in pastoral care because the family is the way of the Church.”
Source
- Crux
- Image: Church Citizens’ Voice
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