Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna has criticised fellow cardinals who submitted a dubia requesting that Pope Francis clarify Amoris Laetitia.
Four cardinals asked the Pope a series of questions to clear up confusion about the document issued after the family synods.
Speaking during a visit to Ireland, Cardinal Schönborn said reception of Amoris was a “long process” that needed negotiation and discussion.
“That cardinals, who should be the closest collaborators of the Pope, try to force him and put pressure on him to give a public response to their publicised letter is absolutely inconvenient behaviour,” he said.
He told journalists: “I fear those who have rapid, clear answers in politics and economy and also in religion. Rigorists and laxists have clear and rapid answers, but they fail to look at life. The rigorist avoids the effort of discernment, of looking closely at reality. The laxist lets everything possible go, and there is no discernment. They are the same but opposite.
“St Gregory the Great said the art of the pastoral accompaniment is the art of discernment. It is an art and it needs training.”
Addressing a conference called “Let’s Talk Family: Let’s Be Family”, Cardinal Schönborn, whose own parents are divorced, described Chapter 8 of Amoris as the section that had been “most hotly debated”.
The chapter appears to cast doubt on the Church’s traditional teaching that the divorced and remarried may not receive Communion unless they live “as brother and sister”. But the cardinal said that Amoris Laetitia should not be narrowed “to one question”, since this obscured the document’s call for discernment.
Trump’s refugee cap dismays Catholics and Lutherans
A bishop in the United States has said the Church is “deeply troubled” by Donald Trump’s cap on the number of refugees allowed to enter the country.
The federal government suspended travel last week for refugee immigrants without close family connections after confirming that 50,000 refugees – the limit imposed by President Donald Trump in a March 6 executive order – had arrived on US soil. The limit lasts until September 30.
Bishop Joe Vasquez of Austin, Texas, chairman of the US bishops’ committee on migration, said: “We remain deeply troubled by the human consequences of the revised executive order on refugee admissions and the travel ban.
“Resettling only 50,000 refugees a year, down from 110,000, does not reflect the need, our compassion, and our capacity as a nation,” Bishop Vasquez added. “We have the ability to continue to assist the most vulnerable among us without sacrificing our values as Americans or the safety and security of our nation.”
Kay Bellor, vice president for programmes of Lutheran Immigrant and Refugee Service, said the refugee cap had an “immediate effect on our ability to conduct this lifesaving work”.
No whining, Francis tells visitors
Pope Francis has placed a sign on the door to his flat reading “No complaining”.
It warns visitors: “Violators are subject to a syndrome of always feeling like a victim and the consequent reduction of your sense of humour and capacity to solve problems.” The sign was given to the Pope at a general audience by Salvo Noe, a motivational speaker.
The Pope said he found the sign funny, according to Mr Noe, and promised to put it on his apartment door as a joke.
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