The Pontiff made the comments in a wide-ranging interview by Argentine daily, La Nacion.

Addressing the turmoil his papacy is causing with conservative-minded groups, Francis says he's pleased the issues are in the open.

It's a "good sign" that there isn't "hidden mumbling when there is disagreement", he said.

Pastoral care of homosexuals

Asked about the Synod itself and especially about homosexuals, Francis said the Synod did not talk about same-sex marriage but how to accompany gay people.

"Nobody mentioned homosexual marriage at the synod; it did not cross our minds. What we did talk about was of how a family with a homosexual child, whether a son or a daughter, goes about educating that child, how the family bears up, how to help that family to deal with that somewhat unusual situation.

"We have to find a way to help that father or that mother to stand by their son or daughter. That's what the synod addressed. That's why someone mentioned positive factors in the first draft. But this was just a draft."

On the question of divorced and remarried Catholics, Francis said that these people are treated as though they are excommunicated and the Synod considered what door can the Church open to these people.

Divorce and remarriage

"In the case of divorcees who have remarried, we posed the question, what do we do with them? What door can we allow them to open? This was a pastoral concern: will we allow them to go to Communion?

"Communion alone is no solution.

"The solution is integration.

"They have not been excommunicated, true. But they cannot be godfathers to any child being baptized, mass readings are not for divorcees, they cannot give communion, they cannot teach Sunday school, there are about seven things that they cannot do, I have the list over there.

"Come on! If I disclose any of this it will seem that they have been excommunicated in fact!

"Thus, let us open the doors a bit more.

"Why cant they be godfathers and godmothers? 'No, no, no, what testimony will they be giving their godson?'

"The testimony of a man and a woman saying "my dear, I made a mistake, I was wrong here, but I believe our Lord loves me, I want to follow God, I was not defeated by sin, I want to move on.

"Anything more Christian than that?

"And what if one of the political crooks among us, corrupt people, are chosen to be somebody's godfather.

"If they are properly wedded by the Church, would we accept them? What kind of testimony will they give to their godson? A testimony of corruption?

"Things need to change, our standards need to change.

Personal life, Curia reform and Cardinal Burke

Francis also talked frankly about aspects of his personal life, the upcoming reform of the Vatican bureaucracy and the new position for Cardinal Burke.

Acknowledging that reforming the Curia is complex and will take a little longer than people might expect, Pope Francis confirmed the decision to transfer Cardinal Burke was decided long before the Synod.

"So it is not true that I removed him because of how he had behaved in the Synod", the pontiff said.

Sources

• The Independent
• Irish Times
• NCR
• Image: Modern Thrill

Francis made the comments during a press conference to journalists during a 46 minute in-flight journey on the way home from a three day trip to Turkey.

"The Synod is a path, it is a journey, firstly.

"Secondly the synod is not a Parliament. It's a protected space in which the Holy Spirit may speak," the pontiff said when asked about the phrasing of the synod's controversial mid-term report regarding homosexuals.

Covering off the variety of opinion expressed in the media, Francis said differing opinions meant there were contrasting things said.

However, he observed, everything was summed up in the midterm report.

"The substantial part remains but everything had to be reduced. Everything. Everything. Everything. And what remained of the substantial part was what became the final relatio.

"But it isn't over," he said, reminding journalists that the final document of the 2014 is the starting point for the 2015 synod.

"It's (the synod) a path.... (and) you can't take (the) opinion of one person or draft. The Synod has to be seen in its totality," he explained.

"Also, I don't agree - and this is a personal opinion which I don't want to impose - but I don't agree with saying that 'Today, this Father said this,' or 'Today, this Father said this...if someone wants to say something, let them say what was said but not who said it. Why? Because, I repeat, the synod is not a parliament, it's a protected ecclesial space."

He concluded by saying the Holy Spirit works through the group.

Sources

• CNA
• Inage: CNA

The decision, reported Monday, comes in the wake of what they see as a confusing part one of the Synod held in October 2014.

The US Bishops are of a view that the October 2014 Synod sent mixed messages to Catholics around the world.

Conference president, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville and Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston have "impeccable orthodox credentials" and "were certainties to attend", reports Breitbart.

Kurtz and DiNardo are being joined by Philadelphia's Archbishop Charles Chaput and his protégé, Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez.

Chaput is one of the most conservative voices in the US Bishops' Conference and Gomez is a member of Opus Dei.

Chaput, who did not attend the first part of the synod, seemed to indicate the devil inculcated the Synod's communication.

"I was very disturbed by what happened" he said.

"I think confusion is of the devil, and I think the public image that came across was one of confusion."

Chaput is joined by many conservative Catholics who say the October 2014 Synod sent mixed signals around the world and call the communication "botched", reports Breitbart.

However Synod heavy-weights German Cardinal Reinhard Marx and Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin disagree.

Marx told the Synod that those saying that the doctrine will never change have a very restrictive view of things and while the Gospel remains core to Church teaching he doubts the Church and society have discovered everything.

Archbishop Martin of Dublin decried Synod critics who said there was confusion.

Making accusations of confusion where such confusion did not exist actually foments confusion, said the Archbishop.

New Zealand Archbishop John Dew acknowledged the sharp divisions among synod members. However he welcomed the freedom of speech granted by Pope Francis, saying the 2014 Synod was very different to the one held nine years ago.

The 2014 synod made global headlines when it released a working document summarizing its first week of discussions calling on the church to listen more and to apply mercy much more widely; in particular to homosexual relations, extramarital sex and communion for divorced and re-married Catholics.

Sources

• Breitbart
• NCR
• NCR
• Image: Breitbart

The former Cardinal Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura made the comments while addressing more than 300 delegates at a family and marriage conference organised by Catholic Voice, Limerick, Ireland.

Cardinal Burke told the gathering the issues of Holy Communion for the divorced and remarried, cohabitation and same-sex marriage had distracted from the 2014 October Synod.

Warning that Satan was sowing confusion and error about matrimony, Cardinal Burke said, "Even within the church there are those who would obscure the truth of the indissolubility of marriage in the name of mercy."

Cardinal Burke said that he could not reconcile the Church's clear teaching on marriage with the proposal to allow Communion to divorced and remarried Catholics.

He went on to argue that a clear affirmation of marriage is needed in a culture afflicted by pornography, a contraceptive mentality, and an "incredibly aggressive homosexual agenda."

The Cardinal is recommending that rather than focussing on hot-button issues, next year's synod devote itself to promoting the church's teaching on marriage.

He recommends the faithful write to Pope Francis and local Church officials to make their views known.

Once the Vatican's top canon lawyer, Cardinal Burke is critical of Pope Francis, telling Buzzfeed News that the 2014 Synod on the Family "seemed to have been designed to 'weaken the church's teaching and practice' with the apparent blessing of Pope Francis."

Confirming he had been removed as head of the Vatican's highest court he told Buzzfeed News he had enjoyed being of service, he'd enjoyed his work and was disappointed to leave.

Asked who had told him he would be removed, Burke replied: "Who do you think?"

Sources

• Catholic Herald
• Buzzfeed News
• Interview with Cardinal Burke
• Image: CBS News

The Catholic Church retaining some of the attributes of a royal court in its mode of governance provides its senior prelates with every opportunity to emulate the tone and substance of the remarks and the ambiguity of approach of the one they call "the Holy Father".

The Pope has the opportunity even when convening a synod of 190 bishops to handpick those who steer the synod process, write the minutes and manage the media statements to the world.

A working document

On Monday, Cardinal Peter Erdo, the chief reporter (general rapporteur) of the Synod on the Family released the 'relatio post disceptionem' after the first week of the Synod.

This is not a final text.

It is simply a working document "intended to raise questions and indicate perspectives that will have to be matured and made clearer by the reflection of the local Churches" in the year ahead.

The document shows the way things are going, and that way is very different from any dictated path approved by the late St John Paul II and simplistically reaffirmed by those prelates who say they too like mercy but prefer the indisputable teachings of Jesus.

The document, which starts with a section on "listening: the context and challenges to the family" before then describing "the gaze on Christ: the Gospel of the family", lacks the judgmental certainty of the past and displays the moral ambiguity of any pastoral approach which is truly attentive to the complexity, and often the mess, of families and human relationships.

The starting point is a vision of the Church not as the pure bride of Christ armed with the magisterium but as the people of God hungry for food, seeking forgiveness with the words at the Eucharist: "Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, say but the word and my soul shall be healed."

We all come to the table of the banquet as sinners seeking mercy, forgiveness and the bread of life.

The document espouses "a missionary conversion: It is necessary not to stop at an announcement that is merely theoretical and has nothing to do with people's real problems".

Civil weddings, cohabitation and homosexuals

A true first for any Vatican document is that it calls for a new sensitivity in grasping the positive reality of civil weddings and of cohabitation.

While continuing to espouse the ideal of sacramental marriage, the prelates say they need also to "indicate the constructive elements in those situations that do not yet or no longer correspond to that ideal".

Another "first" is the heading in the Vatican document: "Welcoming homosexual persons".

The Catechism of the Catholic Church composed during the pontificate of John Paul categorically states: The homosexual inclination is "objectively disordered".

This claim has been constantly restated in Vatican documents for some time.

For example when Joseph Ratzinger was Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith during John Paul's papacy, this claim was restated in the CDF's 2003 document entitled "Considerations regarding proposals to give legal recognition to unions between homosexual persons".

That document also stated that all "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered" and that this moral judgment is "unanimously accepted by Catholic Tradition".

The genie's out...

This week's working document from the synod raises some rhetorical and not so rhetorical questions.

Regardless of how these questions are answered in the year ahead, the very posing of the questions shows that the genie is out of the bottle.

The Catholic Tradition as previously declared is no longer unanimously accepted.

Cardinal Erdo who read his text to the assembled prelates and those lay people invited to attend the Synod as non-voting members said: "Homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community: are we capable of welcoming these people, guaranteeing to them a fraternal space in our communities?

"Often they wish to encounter a Church that offers them a welcoming home.

"Are our communities capable of providing that, accepting and valuing their sexual orientation, without compromising Catholic doctrine on the family and matrimony?"

...and there's no going back

Presumably there is no going back to the Church position that was implacably opposed to accepting and valuing the homosexual orientation on the grounds that the orientation is disordered.

It is high time for some development in the Catholic doctrine on the family and matrimony.

The synod document puts it nicely: "Without denying the moral problems connected to homosexual unions it has to be noted that there are cases in which mutual aid to the point of sacrifice constitutes a precious support in the life of the partners."

Before the Synod, Johan Bonny, the bishop of Antwerp issued a pastoral letter in which he made the observation: "In these last months of preparation for the Synod, I have heard or read the following on numerous occasions: 'Agreed that the Synod should support greater pastoral flexibility, but it will not be able to touch Church doctrine'."

Pastoral care vs. doctrine

Some create the impression that the Synod will only be free to speak about the applicability of the Church's teaching and not about its content.

In my opinion, however, such an antithesis between 'pastoral care' and 'doctrine' is inappropriate in both theological and pastoral terms and it has no foundation in the tradition of the Church.

Pastoral care has everything to do with doctrine and doctrine has everything to do with pastoral care. Both will have to be dealt with during the Synod if the Church wants to open new avenues towards the evangelisation of marriage and family life in today's society.

Faith in God

There is plenty of work to be done over the next year as local churches reflect on the pastoral and doctrinal questions finally unleashed in Rome this last week.

Many of the 41 prelates who responded immediately to this document did express fears and concerns we are told.

However, it is only by acknowledging that the genie is out of the bottle and that there is a need for a comprehensive rethink by the Catholic Church on its teaching about marriage, sexuality, and reception of the Eucharist that we as Church will be able to "offer a meaningful word of hope" - this being the task the Synod Fathers have allocated themselves in the year ahead.

As a Church we have clung to judgmental certainty for too long in the face of people's every day searching for love, mercy, forgiveness and the food of life.

Now is the time for all Catholics to share "the courage of the faith and the humble and honest welcome of the truth in charity" for all persons approaching the table of the banquet.

- Fr Frank Brennan SJ, AO, and professor of law at the Australian Catholic University.

Sources

• Image: ABC
• First published in "Pearls and Irritations", the blog of John Menadue

Thankfully there is another year to go before we hear anything official from the Church.

The interim Synod document (Relatio Post Disceptationem) states that "Homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community."

And in the next paragraph, "Are our communities capable of providing [comfort], accepting and valuing their sexual orientation?"

To say because of their disorder homosexuals have something special to offer God's Church and add to Christ's teaching is a blasphemy.

Minding our language

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin said the Church can't simply repeat what was said 20 years ago.

I ask, why not?

Sure you can change the language but as far as I know the Church has always taught that God is a God of love and loves all of humanity with a passion that we cannot begin to understand, all are welcome and He longs for all people to be with Him in Heaven.

When God sent his Son to earth it was not to change or loosen His laws but to explain them more fully and to correct the errors that people introduced.

Archbishop Durocher said. "It isn't that truth is a dogma and mercy is something on the sidelines of Christian teaching. We have to find real ways of bringing these together and it's not easy to."

What does he mean 'it isn't that truth is a dogma'; that's just a sardonic and only adds to the confusion.

Dogma is a truth appertaining to faith or morals, revealed by God, transmitted from the Apostles in the Scriptures or by tradition, and proposed by the Church for the acceptance of the faithful.

"If anyone says that it is possible that at some time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmas propounded by the Church which is different from that which the Church has understood and understands: let him be anathema." (Vatican I).

Hope for the remarried

"The fact that topics like Communion for the divorced and remarried are even being discussed is giving people hope", Archbishop John Dew said.

The Catechism number 1415 states. "Anyone who desires to receive Christ in Eucharistic communion must be in the state of grace. Anyone aware of having sinned mortally must not receive communion without having received absolution in the sacrament of penance."

The archbishop should remember also the teaching of St. Paul who said, "Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord." 1 Corinthians 11:27.

Apparitions and the Synod's "Relatio"

Pope Pius Xll said, "I am worried by the Blessed Virgin's messages to Lucy of Fatima.

This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church is a Divine warning against the suicide of altering the Faith, in Her liturgy, Her theology and Her soul. ... I hear all around me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the true Faith of the Church, reject Her ornaments and make Her feel remorse for Her historical past."

Sister Lucy said that a 'diabolical disorientation' would overtake the Church.

It seems that these princes of the church and I fear many others would like to change the Church's teaching to fit the sinner rather than change the sinner to fit the teaching of the Church.

God forgives those who ask for forgiveness.

- Joe Hannah

To assist them prepare for the Synod the Bishops of New Zealand have asked Catholics across New Zealand to respond to a marriage questionnaire.

The New Zealand Catholic reports that round 700 hundred people have already done so.

However, some people have found questions "complex and wordy", making it difficult them to engage with it. This is something that the New Zealand Catholic Bishops' Conference has acknowledged.

A simplified version of the questionnaire is available.

However it is not possible to use the simplified questions when making a submission; the official form or online survey the New Zealand Bishops have provided must be used.

The simplified form could be used as a preliminary exercise to gain a better understanding of the questions in the official survey.

The questions are based of the Consultation Document issued by the New Zealand Catholic Bishops' Conference, November 2013. The were originally adapted by Newman University, Birmingham and are used with permission.

Read simplified questions

• New Zealand Catholic Bishops' Conference online survey
• New Zealand Catholic Bishops' Conference Survey form
• Image: Catholic Exchange.co.

So far around 5,000 people from England and Wales have filled in the survey.

Elizabeth Davies, marriage and family life project officer, told the Catholic Herald that 15,000 people had accessed the survey so far but only a third of those had submitted responses to the questions.

About 11,500 had got as far as filling in their age.

She said a few responses had been "a bit mischievous" and some respondents had declared themselves to be non-Catholic. She emphasised, though, that the responses had been "very thoughtful".

Talking with BBC Breakfast, Archbishop Nichols society has moved to a different perspective on some issues.

"The Pope has led us to pay attention to the experiences of people," said Archbishop Nichols.

"On the one hand we must work to follow Christ, but on the other hand we have to face all of the ambitions of modern living."

"Listening never did us any harm," he said.

"God gave us one mouth and two ears. The fact that we may hear things that make us uncomfortable - that's fine."

The Council of the Synod of Bishops with the full backing of Pope Francis wants to get input from the Church's grassroots.

Rather than getting "a synthesis of what the bishops think on a subject" the purpose of the survey is" to get the pulse of the grassroots of the base of the Church", Archbishop Bruno Forte, secretary for the 2014 extraordinary synod synod on marriage and family, told Catholic Universe.

Sources

• BBC
• Catholic Herald
• Catholic Universe
• Image: Catholic News