Pope Francis is unlikely to face a “fraternal correction”, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), has said.
He was interviewed by the Italian news channel TGCom24 about a formal request to Pope Francis from four cardinals asking for clarification of Amoris Laetitia.
Cardinal Müller said that Amoris Laetitia asks priests “to discern the situation of these persons living in an irregular union – that is, not in accordance with the doctrine of the Church on marriage”. Such people should be integrated in accord with Catholic doctrine, the cardinal said.
Cardinal Müller has repeatedly said that previous Church teaching is still valid. St John Paul II and Benedict XVI both taught that the divorced and remarried could not receive Communion unless they endeavoured to live “as brother and sister”.
This week, Edward Pentin of National Catholic Register reported that the CDF suggested 20 pages of corrections to Amoris Laetitia when it was passed to them in draft form, but none were made.
Mr Pentin also said that 30 cardinals had expressed concerns to the Pope about the document before its publication in April, concerns since echoed by several episcopal conferences.
In the papal document, the cardinal said in the new interview, “on one side we have the clear doctrine on matrimony, and on the other the obligation of the Church to care for these people in difficulty”.
Cardinal Müller told the Italian TV station that “a possible fraternal correction of the Pope seems very remote at this time.”
American psychiatrists have come out against euthanasia for those who are not terminally ill.
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) approved a statement at the end of December saying: “A psychiatrist should not prescribe or administer any intervention to a non-terminally ill person for the purpose of causing death.”
The APA is America’s largest organisation for psychiatrists, with 25,000 members. The World Psychiatric Association is reported to be considering a similar statement.
Direct euthanasia, where a doctor gives a lethal injection to a patient, is not legal in the United States, but in five states it is legal for a doctor to prescribe a lethal drug which patients with a terminal illness can then take themselves.
Critics say phrases such as “unbearable suffering” might be used to extend euthanasia to people with mental illnesses such as depression. In Belgium this is legal. In 2014 and 2015, 124 patients with “mental or behavioural disorder” were killed.
In Canada, physician-assisted suicide was legalised for physical illnesses last June, and the country is considering extending this to include people with mental illnesses.
Pope Francis has urged parents to guard the faith given to their children at baptism. He spoke while baptising 28 infants in the Sistine Chapel. He said that faith was not only reciting the Creed at Sunday Mass.
“Faith is believing that which is the truth: God the Father who has sent his Son and the Spirit which gives us life,” he said.
As some of the babies started to cry, the Pope said they might be hungry, adding: “Mothers, nurse them without fear, like Our Lady nursed Jesus.”
World leaders need to break the bad habits of war and injustice, Pope Francis has said in his annual address to diplomats.
No conflict exists that is “a habit impossible to break”, the Pope said in his speech on Monday. But he underlined that kicking such a habit requires greater efforts to rectify social injustice, protect religious freedom, jump-start peace talks, end the arms trade, and cooperate in responding to climate change and the immigration and refugee crises.
In a 45-minute speech to diplomats accredited to the Holy See, the Pope underlined what he saw as the real “enemies of peace” and the best responses that could be made by today’s religious and political leaders. One enemy of peace, he said, was seeing the human person as a means to an end, which “opens the way to the spread of injustice, social inequality and corruption”. The waste, “greedy exploitation” and inequitable distribution of the world’s resources provoke conflict, he said, and human trafficking, especially the abuse and exploitation of children, must not be overlooked.
Another enemy of peace, the Pope said, were ideologies that exploited “social unrest in order to foment contempt and hate” and targeted others as enemies to be eliminated.
“Under the guise of promising great benefits, [such ideologies] instead leave a trail of poverty, division, social tensions, suffering and, not infrequently, death,” he said.
What peace requires, he said, is “a vision of human beings capable of promoting an integral development respectful of their transcendent dignity”, as well as the courage to seek to build peace together every day.
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