Vatican City (AFP) - Divorced
people who have remarried "are still part of the Church" and should not
be treated as if they have been excommunicated or cast out, Pope Francis
said Wednesday.
Speaking
ahead of a highly anticipated global meeting on family life in October,
he said "awareness that a brotherly and attentive welcome... is needed
towards those who... have established a new relationship after the
failure of a marriage, has greatly increased".
"In
fact, these people are not excommunicated -- they are not
excommunicated! And they absolutely must not be treated as such. The are
still part of the Church," Francis said during his weekly general
audience at the Vatican.
"No
closed doors! Everyone can participate some way or another in the life
of the Church," he said, in a clear call for Catholic bishops and
priests to treat those in so-called "irregular situations" with greater
compassion.
People who are
excommunicated are expelled from the Church, unless they repent, and are
considered to be condemned to Hell in the afterlife.
The
issue of remarried divorcees is likely to be addressed during the
upcoming synod -- a gathering of bishops -- on the family, which Francis
hopes will help reconcile Catholic thinking with the realities of the
lives of believers in the 21st century.
A
first synod on the family last year saw riled conservative bishops
mobilise to block the approval of language heralding an unprecedented
opening on the treatment of divorced Catholics, who are currently not
able to take communion.
http://news.yahoo.com/remarried-divorcees-not-excommunicated-pope-tells-church-103228247.html
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