Pope Francis’ road map for the future of the Church will far outlive his pontificate, a German theologian has predicted. Speaking in Austria during the second week of the recent synod on the family, Cardinal Walter Kasper said Francis is a “gift of God”. The Pope’s theology and his vision for the Church are centred Read more
German Cardinal Walter Kasper has said that African prelates should not tell the rest of the Church what to do about homosexual people. In an interview with Zenit on October 15, after the evening working groups’ discussions at the synod on the family, Cardinal Kasper said homosexuality is a taboo subject in Africa. “Africa is Read more
Cardinal Walter Kasper says some prelates who have taken a hard line ideological position prior to the synod on the family have got the Gospel all wrong. In an interview with America Magazine and Argentina’s La Nacion, Cardinal Kasper said some cardinals and bishops fear a domino-like collapse in the Church’s moral structure. “That’s their Read more
Cardinal Walter Kasper says hardliners opposed to his proposals for Communion for the divorced and remarried really have Pope Francis as a target. The German cardinal told the Italian daily Il Mattino that some of his fellow cardinals “. . . claim to know on their own what truth is, but Catholic doctrine is not a Read more
Cardinal George Pell says allowing Communion for Catholics who are divorced and remarried outside the Church is impossible. The cardinal said doing so would make pastoral practice incompatible with doctrine. The former Archbishop of Sydney wrote this in a foreword to a book titled “The Gospel of the Family” by Professor Stephan Kampowski and Fr Read more
A Belgian bishop has urged the synod on the family to have the courage to bring the Church’s moral teachings more in line with the lived experience of the laity. In a letter reported by The Tablet, Bishop Johan Bonny of Antwerp said there is a gap between the moral teachings of the Church and Read more
Five cardinals have joint-authored a book that finds current Church doctrine regarding divorced and remarried Catholics is the most merciful approach. “Remaining in the Truth of Christ: Marriage and Communion in the Catholic Church” has been written by Cardinals Gerhard Müller, Raymond Burke, Walter Brandmüller, Carlo Caffarra, and Velasio De Paolis. Four theologians and professors Read more
In Cardinal Walter Kasper’s recent address to the extraordinary Consistory of Cardinals (February 20-21, 2014), published in English with additional material as The Gospel of the Family (New York: Paulist, 2014), he makes mention of certain early Christian sources in the hope of suggesting “a way out of the dilemma” (p. 30) presented by the question of Read more
To hear Cardinal Walter Kasper tell it, he became the pope’s point man for reform in the Catholic Church thanks to a bit of serendipity, or, if you will, Providence, before anyone knew that Francis was going to be the next Roman pontiff. The genesis of their partnership, Kasper recalled during a recent trip to Read more
During his first Angelus address, Pope Francis recommended a work of theology that “has done me so much good” because it “says that mercy changes everything; it changes the world by making it less cold and more fair.” That book is Mercy: The Essence of the Gospel and the Key to Christian Life by Cardinal Read more