IMAGE: CNS photo/Tyler Orsburn
By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Cardinal-designate Kevin J. Farrell
believes the U.S. bishops as a whole should have discussed pastoral guidelines
for implementing Pope Francis’ exhortation on the family before individual
bishops began issuing guidelines for their own dioceses.
Implementing the pope’s exhortation, “Amoris
Laetitia,” he said, “has to be done in communion with our bishops. I
think that it would have been wiser to wait for the gathering of the conference
of bishops where all the bishops of the United States or all the bishops of a
country would sit down and discuss these things.”
A conference-wide discussion, he told Catholic News Service
Nov. 15, would ensure “an approach that would not cause as much division
among bishops and dioceses, and misunderstandings.”
The cardinal-designate was asked specifically about pastoral
guidelines issued for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia by Archbishop Charles J.
Chaput, who also is head of a U.S. bishops’ ad hoc committee for implementing
“Amoris Laetitia. ” Among other things, the Philadelphia guidelines
state that while divorced and civilly remarried couples should be welcome in
parishes and accompanied by priests, they may not receive Communion unless they
live as brother and sister.
Cardinal-designate Farrell was bishop of Dallas and a member
of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops until September when he became
prefect of the new Vatican Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life.
“I don’t share the view of what Archbishop Chaput did,
no,” the cardinal-designate said. “I think there are all kinds of
different circumstances and situations that we have to look at — each case as
it is presented to us.”
“I think that is what our Holy Father is speaking about,
is when we talk about accompanying, it is not a decision that is made
irrespective of the couple,” he said. “Obviously, there is an
objective moral law,” he said, but you will never find two couples who
have the same reason for being divorced and remarried.
Catholic News Service attempted to contact Archbishop Chaput, who was unavailable for comment.
Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation on the family was
published in early April. The pope continually has insisted that the
document is about the importance and beauty of marriage and family life and the
church’s obligation to support and strengthen it.
But much of the debate has focused on the document’s eighth
chapter that speaks of ministry to and access to the sacraments for couples in
what the Catholic Church traditionally defined as “irregular
situations,” particularly people who were divorced and civilly remarried
without an annulment.
Cardinal-designate Farrell insisted “Amoris
Laetitia” is “so important” because of the way it explains and
affirms the church’s vision of the joy and beauty of family life and the way it
encourages better ways to share that teaching, especially in marriage
preparation programs.
“The most important part of ‘Amoris Laetitia’ is not
Chapter 8” on accompanying those in irregular situations, he said.
“We need to explain marriage, we need to explain human love in a much
better and more dynamic way. And we need laypeople to do that.”
“We don’t deny the difficulties” some couples
experience or the fact that there are many divorced and remarried Catholics,
who “go to our churches in the United States every weekend,” he said.
“We have to try to find ways to bring them into full communion.”
Obviously, there are limits to what the church can do
because of its firm faith that marriage is indissoluble, he said. “But it
is better to say to the couple, ‘Let’s work together and let’s walk together’
— as Pope Francis would say — ‘through this process and see how far we
arrive.'”
The Catholic Church cannot react by “closing the doors
before we even listen to the circumstances and the people,” the
cardinal-designate said. “That’s not the way to go.”
While a few cardinals and bishops have disagreed with the
general interpretation of Pope Francis’ exhortation, “I think the bishops
are unified,” Cardinal-designate Farrell said.
“Each bishop in his diocese has to set certain rules
and parameters, but at the same time, I think that they need to be open to
listening to the Holy Spirit and open to what the bishops of the world” discussed
at the synods on the family in 2014 and 2015.
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Contributing to this story were Carol Glatz and Robert
Duncan.
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