Catholic Herald skriver om flere biskopers synspunkter på dokumentet som ble produsert av den katolske bispesynoden sist lørdag. Her tar jeg med det kardinal Pell (fra Australia) sier – hør ham også i videoen over – og tar bort synspunktene til de fleste andre biskopene:
Australian Cardinal George Pell said the final report of the synod on the family did not create an opening for the divorced and civilly remarried to receive Communion.
Other synod members took a different view and acknowledged that the paragraph in question was being read differently.
“The text has certainly been significantly misunderstood,” Cardinal Pell, prefect of the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy, told Catholic News Service on Sunday.
“There is no reference in paragraph 85 or anywhere in the document to Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried; that is fundamental,” he said.
… Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna told reporters the final report was not a blanket “yes or no” to Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried, but a call to careful discernment, recognizing that the amount of blame different people bear for a broken marriage and the different situations which led them to remarry vary widely. Therefore, the consequences in terms of absolution and Communion vary as well, he said.
In response to such interpretations of the final report, Cardinal Pell said that “the discernment that is encouraged in paragraph 85 in these particular matters has to be based on the full teaching of Pope John Paul II” and the teaching of the Church in general.
Cardinal Pell said the document’s mention of the “internal forum,” which involves the primacy of one’s conscience before God in determining if access to the sacraments is possible, “cannot be used to deny objective truth.”
Asked why the document does not clearly say that the door is closed to Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried, Cardinal Pell replied: “I think that is a good question, and I think that the document does say that,” however not explicitly.
The ban on Communion for civilly remarried Catholics, he said, “is implicit, really present in the document, but not spelled out as much as some of the fathers would like.”
The paragraphs in the synod’s final report that deal with the question of pastoral care for civilly remarried Catholics received the largest number of “no” votes, but still gained the necessary two-thirds majority. Cardinal Pell said the synod fathers could have achieved “an even deeper consensus with a bit more clarity.”
The synod members themselves recognise the document is being read differently, said Archbishop Laurent Ulrich of Lille, France. Although no paragraphs were struck down in the final vote, “points of resistance remain,” he said.
… Asked whether the Pope will settle the issue of Communion and provide a definitive interpretation to the document, Cardinal Pell responded, “Whether he will or he won’t depends, I suppose, on how he sees this document; whether it is clear enough, whether it expresses adequately the mind of the church.”
“We don’t want it to be in the situation of some of the other Christian churches where one or two issues were fought about publicly for years and years and years,” he added. …