Under Francis, Catholic Leaders Prepare to Debate Whether Church Should Change
By JIM YARDLEY
OCT. 3, 2014
ROME From the outset of his papacy, Pope Francis has encouraged a robust and open debate over the contentious social issues that have long sundered the Roman Catholic Church. Now, with a critical meeting on the theme of family about to begin at the Vatican, he is seemingly getting what he wanted: a charged atmosphere with cardinals jousting over how and whether the church should change.
Conservatives, in particular, are trying to stop any prospects for allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive the sacrament of holy communion. A group of powerful conservative cardinals has released a handful of books timed to coincide with the opening of the Vatican meeting on Sunday that are fashioned as rebuttals to such proposals but that some analysts see as thinly veiled swipes at Francis.
The conservatives have already mobilized, said Marco Politi, a longtime Vatican analyst and the author of a new book, Francis Among the Wolves. Now it is up to the reformers to come out.
For Francis, the two-week gathering is the beginning of a yearlong process that could determine what sort of changes he will, or will not, bring to the churchs approach to social issues such as divorce, gay civil unions or single parents. The meeting, known as an Extraordinary Synod, is an open forum at which 191 bishops, cardinals and other church leaders are expected to debate these and other issues, and to set the agenda for a final, decisive synod next October.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/04/world/europe/under-francis-catholic-leaders-prepare-to-debate-whether-church-should-change.html?_r=0
Fortinbras Armstrong
(4,473 posts)I have said repeatedly that the Eucharist is not a reward for being good, but rather our spiritual food. To deny it to those who might be in need is unchristian. I was re-reading Pope Francis' Evangelii Gaudium, and discovered section 47
Here is footnote 51
Clearly, Pope Francis agrees with me.
okasha
(11,573 posts)And he's got the people behind him.
The hierarchy can lead, follow or get out of the way.