Pope Francis today released a long-awaited report on “the family” which was initially expected to relax teachings on sexuality – but actually reaffirmed all of the church’s actively anti-LGBT teachings.
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The document, signed by the pontiff, said, “Every person, regardless of sexual orientation, ought to be respected in his or her dignity and treated with consideration…”
The document, formally known as an Apostolic Exhortation, followed two gatherings of Catholic bishops, or synods, that discussed family issued in 2014 and 2015. The church should embrace them. Such measures are unacceptable even in places with high birth rates, yet also in countries with disturbingly low birth rates we see politicians encouraging them. “Let us remember that a small step in the midst of great human limitations can be more pleasing to God than a life which appears outwardly in order but moves through the day without confronting great difficulties”.
“We were looking forward to it”, Libasci said, “and now it’s arrived”.
This issue doesn’t allow divorced and remarried Catholics to take the communion, one of the catholic’s most symbolics act.
The commentator said that Pope Francis “was never going to change doctrine” in the eagerly anticipated document.
“It is important that the divorced who have entered a new union should be made to feel part of the Church”. “Too often, he says, we speak in a way that is far too abstract, presenting an nearly artificial theological ideal of marriage, far removed from the concrete situations and the practical possibilities of real families”. “Generally, I think priests are pretty good about offering their time and experience and sitting down and talking”. “His view is really that it’s not helpful to people to hear the norm repeated from on high and especially when the norm is spoken by people who don’t know what life is like; real life is messy and complicated and ambiguous”. He wants to make sure that they are served well by the church.
He insists the church’s aim is to reintegrate and welcome all of its members.
Cupich said he will continue to study the document, and seek input from his advisors before giving any instructions to the priests in the nation’s third largest Archdiocese.
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That pastoral path, he said, could lead those who have remarried after a divorce to present themselves to the church tribunal for consideration of an annulment, a process that deeply examines the marriage, from its courtship to its unraveling. But I have gotten a lot of statements from advocates for gay people who were disappointed.
