How long must I keep doing this!
Fr. Z links to a video from the Pope’s recent homily. In it Pope Francis laments couples who want to return to the Church and go to Mass but , due to their ‘mistakes’, must ‘stay right there’ and not go anywhere. The Pope blames the rule-makers, the ‘doctors of the law’ who destroy.
It seems to me the Pope is, characteristically, speaking both figuratively and directly at the same time. (He seems to do this so that everyone understands him except for those who don’t want to.) If I interpret him correctly, this is the first time he’s made it so clear that he thinks people in open mortal sin should go to Holy Communion, quite a frightening thing for a Pope to indicate. Fr. Z seems to agree:
Hmmm… it seems to me that there is something missing. Of course these are only off-the-cuff remarks that have no magisterial weight whatsoever and no preacher can be expected in a short time to hit every possible point. But it seems to me that he has set up a straw man: who the heck are these “doctors of the law” whom he has been disparaging with some frequency? I think he means those who argue that people who are divorced and civilly remarried should not be admitted to Holy Communion because they are objectively living in a state that is inconsistent with our understanding of the Eucharist.
It’s time to stop pretending the situation isn’t stark. Cardinal Burke seems to have gotten the message a while ago. Catholics must be prepared to resist.