Rome — Pope Leo XIV summoned Catholic bishops to Rome on Thursday for a special meeting of ministering families, taking as a starting point Leo’s strong endorsement of one of Pope Francis’ most controversial policies on marriage and divorce.
Leo wrote a special message marking the 10th anniversary of Francis’ 2016 document “The Joy of Love.” He called the text “a bright message of hope” that is more relevant and urgent today than it was a decade ago.
When it was released, “The Joy of Love” immediately sparked controversy because it opened the door to allowing civilly remarried Catholics to receive communion.
Church teaching says that unless these Catholics have an annulment — the Church’s ruling that their first marriage is invalid — they cannot receive the sacraments, because they are living in sin and committing adultery.
Francis did not create a church-wide pass for these Catholics, but counseled bishops and priests on a case-by-case basis — in vague terms and in a strategic footnote — after accompanying them on a spiritual journey of discernment. Subsequent comments and writings made clear that Francis intended such wiggle room as part of his belief that God’s mercy extends specifically to sinners and that the Eucharist is not a reward for the perfect but nourishment for the weak.
The document was one of the most divisive of Francis’ pontificate and in many ways became a focal point of conservative opposition to his pontificate. It prompted a wave of criticism from mostly conservative Catholics, who said it sowed confusion among the faithful about the Church’s teaching on the indissolubility of marriage.
But in his message on Thursday marking the anniversary, Leo strongly endorsed Francis’ text. He referred to Chapter VIII, which contained Francis’ opening on the question of divorce, although he did not expressly refer to the Sacraments or Francis’ entry into footnote number 351.
In the text, Francis told priests that moral laws cannot be applied to people in “irregular” situations. Instead, he said, the church should help people in the technical state of sin, especially when there are mitigating factors at play.
Relevant footnote no. In 351, Francis explained that “in some cases, this includes the assistance of the sacraments.” He told priests that “confession should not be a torture chamber, but rather an encounter with God’s mercy” and that the Eucharist “is not a reward for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.”
“On this tenth anniversary, we give thanks to the Lord for the stimulus that has stimulated reflection and pastoral conversion in the Church and ask God for the courage to continue on this path,” Leo wrote.
He called the presidents of the bishops’ conferences to Rome for a meeting in October to determine the next steps to serve families today, taking into account “The Joy of Love” and what is currently being done in local churches.
Francis’s record sharply divided the church.
In the first year of publication, four conservative cardinals formally asked Francis to clarify certain questions, or “dubia,” raised by the text. He argued against church doctrine that Catholics who had remarried without an annulment were living in sin and could not receive the sacraments.
He never answered.
For various reasons, such annulments are not usually obtained, although Francis has issued a separate reform to simplify, streamline and speed up the process.
The following year, a petition by conservative Catholic theologians accused Francis of heresy.
But others accepted the text. The bishops of Francis’ native Buenos Aires issued a standard to apply Chapter VIII, which expressly allowed civilly remarried Catholics to receive communion, especially if the person in question was not responsible for the failed first marriage, stressing that it was not a free-for-all “as any situation sufficiently warrants it”.
Francis ordered the Argentine standards published as an official act of the Vatican and wrote a letter to bishops declaring his interpretation authoritative. “The document is excellent and clearly sets out the meaning of Chapter VIII,” he wrote. “There are no other interpretations.”
The Maltese Church, for its part, released its own guidelines published in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano in another indication of the Holy See’s approval.
If a Catholic in a new civil union, after a path of spiritual discernment seeking God’s will, believes he or she can be at peace with God, “he or she cannot be prevented from participating in the sacraments of reconciliation and the Eucharist,” state the Maltese guidelines.
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(tags to translate)Divorce
