Cologne, Germany, Feb 1, 2017 / 11:29 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The German bishops have published their own guidelines on Amoris laetitia allowing, in certain cases, for divorced-and-remarried Catholics to receive Communion.
The decision by the German bishops’ conference comes on the heels of a similar announcement made by the bishops of Malta.
While the German bishops emphasized that access to the sacraments is a question of each individual case, the new guidelines do allow the “possibility of receiving the sacraments in these situations.”
Titled “The joy of Love, which is lived in Families, is also the Joy of the Church,” the guidelines issed by the permanent council of the German bishops’ conference were released Feb. 1 and bear the subtitle “An invitation to a Renewed Marriage and Family Pastoral Care in Light of Amoris laetitia.”
The German bishops’ conference’s permanent council meets five or six times a year, and “each [German] diocesan bishop has seat [sic] and vote in the permanent council and can send an auxiliary bishop as his representative to the meetings.
In the document, the German bishops said that accompanying couples in crisis, divorce, and remarriage is “a great challenge and an opportunity to bring the Church and her understanding of marriage.”
“For the question of the reception of the sacraments, the bishops do not see in Amoris laetitia a general rule or an automatism, but rather, they are convinced that discerned solutions which do justice to the individual case are required,” they said.
In regards to Amoris laetitia, the bishops said they will proceed “from a process of discernment, accompanied by a pastoral worker.”
However, they also clarified that “not all faithful whose marriage is broken and who are divorced and civilly remarried, can receive the sacraments without distinction.”
In a statement released alongside the guidelines, the bishops praised Amoris laetitia for its “pastoral and theological benefits” and for introducing what they called four pillars “of a pastoral approach to marriage and family pastoral care.”
These pillars are: marriage preparation; marriage accompaniment; strengthening the family as a place of learning the faith; and dealing with fragility through accompaniment, discernment, and integration.
While the first three pillars are covered in just one or a few graphs, the fourth is the core of the new guidelines.
The bishops acknowledge that marriage is indissoluble, but at the same time argue that specific attention should be given to persons’ individual situations and that judgements “which do not take into account the complexity of the various situations” should be avoided.
Referencing sections 296 and 297 of Amoris laetitia, the German bishops said that “with the guiding concepts” of accompaniment, discernment, and integration, those affected “must be helped.”
While accompaniment requires “encouraging people on the way of life and the Gospel,” they said discernment should not stop at what the objective moral situation of those affected is.
On this point, they referenced footnote 351 of Amoris laetitia, in which Pope Francis wrote: “In certain cases, this can include the help of the sacraments. Hence, ‘I want to remind priests that the confessional must not be a torture chamber, but rather an encounter with the Lord’s mercy’. I would also point out that the Eucharist ‘is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak’.”
The German bishops’ conference commented: “At the end of such a spiritual process, which is always concerned with integration, not in every case will there be a reception of the sacraments of penance and the Eucharist.”
The bishops stressed that “the individual decision of whether one, under the respective circumstances, is able to receive the sacraments, deserve respect and recognition. However, the decision to receive the sacraments must also be respected.”
At the conclusion of the document the bishops encouraged those who want to pursue marriage and family life in the Church “to personally acquaint themselves with the groundbreaking text that is Amoris laetitia.”
A divided stance
Bishops from Germany who had already advocated admitting the divorced-and-remarried to Communion included Cardinal Walter Kasper; Cardinal Reinhard Marx; Bishop Franz-Josef Bode; and Archbishop Heiner Koch.
However, despite the factions of bishops who seem to be opening the door to a path to admitting divorced-and-remarried Catholics to Communion, many are still resistant to the idea, including some heavy-hitters who are themselves German.
Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, president emeritus of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, was one of four signatories of a letter containing five “dubia” submitted to the Pope in September asking him to clarify ambiguous parts of Amoris laetitia, and which was later published.
Other prelates with German roots who have been outspoken against the proposal to admit the divorced-and-remarried to Communion include Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI; Cardinal Paul Cordes; Bishop Stefan Oster; Bishop Konrad Zdarsa; Bishop Gregor Hanke; Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer; Bishop Friedhelm Hofmann; Bishop Wolfgang Ipolt; Archbishop Ludwig Schick; and Cardinal Joachim Meisner.
In addition, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has on multiple occasions maintained that Amoris laetitia is in continuity with Church teaching.
In an interview with Italian monthly Il Timone published the same day the German bishops’ guidelines were released, the cardinal stressed that “it is not right that so many bishops are interpreting Amoris laetitia according to their way of understanding the pope’s teaching.”
“This does not keep to the line of Catholic doctrine,” he said, stressing that Amoris laetitia “must clearly be interpreted in the light of the whole doctrine of the Church.”
Having so many bishops split off with their own interpretations “does not keep to the line of Catholic doctrine,” he said, adding that the Pope’s magisterium is able to be interpreted only by him or by the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation.
“The Pope interprets the bishops, it is not the bishops who interpret the Pope; this would constitute an inversion of the structure of the Catholic Church,” he said, telling the bishops “who are talking too much” to first “study the doctrine (of the councils) on the papacy and the episcopate.”
As someone who teaches the Word of God to others, a bishop must himself “be the first to be well-formed so as not to fall into the risk of the blind leading the blind.”
Cardinal Müller pointed to Familiaris consortio, St. John Paul II’s 1981 exhortation on the Christian family in the modern world, in which the Polish Pope stipulated that the divorced-and-remarried who for serious reasons cannot separate, in order to receive absolution in confession which would open the way to receiving Communion, must take on the duty to live in complete continence.
This aspect of the text, Cardinal Müller said, “it is not dispensable, because it is not only a positive law of John Paul II, but he expressed an essential element of Christian moral theology and the theology of the sacraments.”
Confusion on this point, he said, stems from a failure to accept St. John Paul II’s 1993 encyclical Veritatis splendor, which taught that there are intrinsically evil acts, that absolute truths exist across various cultures, and urged sharp caution against moral relativism and the misuse of conscience to justify false or subjective morals.
For Christians, “marriage is the expression of participation in the unity between Christ the bridegroom and the Church his bride,” he said, adding that “this is not, as some said during thesynod, a simple vague analogy. No! This is the substance of the sacrament, and no power in heaven or on earth, neither an angel, nor the Pope, nor a council, nor a law of the bishops, has the faculty to change it.”
The prelate then suggested that in order to quell the confusion generated by the differing interpretations of Amoris laetitia, everyone ought to study the Church’s doctrine, beginning with Scripture, “which is very clear on marriage.”
He advised against “entering into any casuistry that can easily generate misunderstandings, above all that according to which if love dies, then the marriage bond is dead.”
“These are sophistries: the Word of God is very clear and the Church does not accept the secularization of marriage,” he said. The task of priests and bishops, then, “is not that of creating confusion, but of bringing clarity.”
Cardinal Müller stressed that amid the ongoing debate, “one cannot refer only to little passages” present in Amoris laetitia, but must read the document “as a whole, with the purpose of making the Gospel of marriage and the family more attractive for persons.”
“All of us must understand and accept the doctrine of Christ and of his Church, and at the same time be ready to help others to understand it and put it into practice even in difficult situations.”
Anian Christoph Wimmer contributed to this report.
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Would that there were an abundance of German bishops the likes of layman Marc Frings.
Would that there were a pope like this layman.
Would that there would be more Catholics like the Pope.
Fr. Peter Morello:
My understanding is that there are quite a number of bishops in the German formerly Catholic Church who are *precisely* the ilk of layman Frings.
Like Herr Frings, these bishops dispute the ancient teachings of the Church, revering sterile, lifeless, orgasmo-centric homosexual practices, placing them on a par with the generative and sacred marriage act.
Please, Fr. Peter, could you explain for me why so many Catholic leaders who defy the Church’s teachings and who dispute the revealed word of God in scripture, feel compelled to present themselves as Catholics?
When it’s blatantly obvious that their real objective is to destroy the Catholic Church.
Brineyman I’m aware of the faithful German bishops, Stefan Oster Passau, Rainer Woelki Koln and others. Perhaps we can attribute the reason why the radicals control German Church politics to Vatican support of the kingpin of German radicalism Cardinal Reinhard Marx, and a growing lax practice of laity, the many who quit the Church due to the tax system. Oblique support by Pope Francis [letters of admonition have zero effect if not followed by action] of radical theologian and chairman German Bishops Conference Bishop Georg Bätzing who promotes the Synodal Way is a key.
We’re overshadowed in America by a cloud of apostasy promoted by a nucleus of key appointments to the cardinalate Tobin, Farrell, Cupich, Gregory, McElroy who possess political power directly from Rome promoting the Vatican secularist approach to the faith. Primarily it’s political control exerted from the Vatican.
Insofar as strong orthodox commitment to the faith there are the known nucleus of Cordileone, Naumann, Aquila, just a handful, the majority who express doctrinal orthodoxy are also weak and fearful of reprisal, preferring to remain token and comfortable. It all comes down to papal leadership, that leadership taking us in the opposite direction of Benedict and John Paul II.
It seems what’s occurring is a form of chastisement [ancient Israel was frequently permitted to degrade itself punished then restored] for overall laxity among Catholics.
I think you have misread Herr Fringes. He is actively supporting changing the catechism. Why would you want German bishops like him?
I had the same reaction and the same question. And, unfortunately, It seems that there is already an abundance of quisling German Bishops like Herr Frings.
Precisely, DUANE and Tom.
It seems that a huge number of Catholics — including bishops — don’t actually believe what the Catholic Church teaches.
With so many non-Catholic churches out there, why don’t these anti-Catholic Catholics just join another, more forward-thinking, now-a-go-go faith community?
I’m sure they could find one that preaches just about any gospel they like. Including the insemination of whatever body cavity they desire.
cc: Archbishop Wilton Gregory, Washington, D.C.
Why doesn’t the German Catholic Church get on with it and separate itself from the Catholic Church? It’s inevitable, so why belabor it?
Follow the money…
As long as the churchy tribe in Germania remains part of the Catholic Church it is eligible for the 7-8% surcharge on the annual personal income tax collected by the state and then sent to the German bishops’ conference. Therefore, now that the tribe has crossed the Rubicon in faith and morals, Rome should inform the Federal Republic of Germany that the tribe is no longer part of the universal Catholic Church.
Several consequences might follow:
1. Those fewer dioceses openly loyal to the universal Catholic Church would continue to receive the state-collected (and reduced, see #4) financial support, at least 13 judging from earlier synodal voting (Historically, it would be the ugly 1648 Peace of Westphalia all over again!)
2. Parishes loyal to the Church, but located in self-amputated dioceses, still could be identified as mission parishes attached to the nearest Catholic diocese, regardless of defunct diocesan boundaries.
3. Because the self-amputated dioceses are no longer part of the Church, Catholics who in the past have been automatically excommunicated (for refusing to be financially complicit in the betrayal of the Body of Christ) would find their excommunications either moot or lifted by Rome. (And loved ones who have been denied the sacrament of Catholic burial would receive justice from the restored and intact Church.)
4. Since the “indefensible” penalty (wording from the writings of emeritus Pope Benedict) has been removed, parishioners of Catholic dioceses and parishes could refuse the tax without penalty, and instead could contribute directly to the Church.
Yes, just a fantasy. And, more sober minds than mine surely will find a less risky exit strategy from today’s standoff, but follow the money.
Brilliant!
As background reading, we might consider what the International Theological Commission had to say about synods, compared to the synodal workbook. This language from the ITC (“Synodality in the life and mission of the Church,” 2018):
“…It is essential that, taken as a whole, the participants give a meaningful and balanced image of the local Church, reflecting different vocations, ministries, charisms, competencies, social status and geographical origin. The bishop, the successor of the apostles and shepherd of his flock who convokes and presides over the local Church synod, is called to exercise there the ministry of unity and leadership [!] with the authority which belongs to him [!].” (n. 79).
By comparison, the vademecum portrays the bishops—the successors of the apostles—not so much with authority or even leadership but, instead, “primarily as facilitators.” Beware, it warns, of the “scourge of clericalism.” What then of the apostolic Church?
From fully ten months ago and 5,000 miles away from Germania, here’s a CWR “opinion” piece on what has been abundantly obvious, from even a non-credential layman: https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2021/10/02/opinion-making-sense-of-synodal-steps-during-precarious-times/
Thank God that our Good Lord having foreseen the evils of our times , has also given us the remedy – as the revelations of the Divine Will , as expalined in the enthusiatic words of Rev.Fr.Jim Blount –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vibJv58LMs
The Book of Heaven and related writings , to help deal with the spirit of apostacy as manifested in the unholy demands , from the blatant denial of the role of The Spirit Sanctifier in The Church and the world .. ( ? Russian money and envy also at the root .. )
Well meaning persons in the German Church , starting a process to immerse all those who have become afflicted with the spirits of confusion / envy / hatreds ,
to get to read the above volumes .. Church speeding up the process to update the volumes in a manner so that same can be more widely used – ? Lord allowing these drunken howlings in the ‘Field hospital ‘ for The Church as a whole to be led in haste to the healing waters ..good to hear how the Holy Father used the innovative measures of lasers and magnet therapy for healing of the knee fracture ..The Light of the Divine Will and the grace to cherish its truths to choose to live same – may same bring speedy enough healings into all the broken and wounded lives in the Field hospital .
FIAT !
God tests us to see if our faith is strong and resilient. Will it withstand attacks of evil and will it endure for the sake of the church? The church is worth fighting for. Unrepentant sinners (after being warned three times) must be put out of the church. God in His mercy shows us the path. We should continue to pray for them, yet they have no kinship with those who strive for godliness and look to Jesus to cleans us of our unrighteousness.Words are one matter, actions can be the opposite. God judges the hear, we must be in submission to Christ.
Excommunication is there for a reason. Sone may argue it might begin with Marx. Yet, he appears to be a Papa favourite, Papa declining his resignation. Others may argue that he has gone from awful to abhorrent and yet, will Papa do what is required?
2 Timothy 3:13 While evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
Philippians 1:1-Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. …
Galatians 1:1-Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— and all the brothers who are with me, To the churches of Galatia: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. …
2 Timothy 3:12 Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
Blessings of discernment and honour.
“Defamatory and outdated statements of Church doctrine on sexuality and gender need to be revised on the basis of theological and human-scientific findings.”
This is the constant declarative statement made by the German Synod.
Where is the objective ‘outdatedness’ other than a desire to be in the constant and current culture?
And where are these ‘human-scientific findings’? The manipulative soft sciences of psychology and sociology?
Fear not. German Catholics opposed to the Bishops and groups who hijacked the German meetings, prepared a manifesto. Our Pope Francis arranged a public meeting with some of those who signed the manifesto thus showing a strong degree of papal support for this group. When the time comes, the views of the German Bishops and their backers in this attack against the Church, will be publicly rejected. This is why our Founder gave us this Rock and the Holy Spirit.
Can man error? Can those in exalted positions go astray? Censure has come from many quarters regarding Papa’s watch.
Jesus had his critics and He has is faithful followers. Hopefully we rebuke ourselves, and when our fellow man is admonished, it is an aid to his eternal soul. Loyalty is good, however fidelity to Christ is always best and expected from the born again Christian.
When we care for someone we pray for them that they may be guided aright. Let our prayers for Papa be constant, that he do all things according to Christ.
1 Corinthians 10:4 And all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.
1 Corinthians 3:11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Matthew 21:42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: “‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes’?
John 3:3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
John 3:7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’
1 Peter 1:23 Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;
Titus 3:5 He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
John 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
How do you read the words of our Lord?
Prayers and blessings as you walk honouring Christ.
The chastisement of the confusion that the German Church is facing , also allowed in aching patience by the Holy Father to manifest itself , ? from concern also for other cultures that face imbalances in male / female #s , brought on by other evils .
The Church still has the responsibility to take the Good News to such places too to help them to know The Truth that The Spirit as the Sanctifier has the Love and Power in Him to help do away with confusions such as in seeing lust as Love , that in The Heart of The Mother , there can be ever greater unity in The Spirit to Love God and others , with His Own Will and Love that ever multiplies and substitutes ..
the labor pains as fears and unholy demands allowed to be voiced out since these arguments could very well be fermenting in other cultures who could be attracted to the goodness that can be through The Church , yet afraid that it is an impossibilty to live in holiness ..
The Divine Will revelations and readings – given for our times for persons to grasp the richness and depth of what faith entails . The Church likely expecting same to get to be known better through various means , including from the concerns about the wounded in the field hospitals who are demanding anaesthetics / narcotics even when such can be deadly . Holy Father and The Church knows there are healthier choices – Light more powerful than Laser as the Flame of Love of The Mother to attract hearts with greater power than that of gravity to rise up in the Divine Will healed of fractures of hearts ,to live in the manner destined for the children .
FIAT !