The Bishop of Brentwood says he hopes the forthcoming Vatican Synod on Marriage and Family Life will decide to allow remarried divorcees to receive Communion in some circumstances, writes Christopher Lamb.
Bishop Thomas McMahon said provisions could be made for those Catholics to receive the Eucharist in the same way that non-Catholic Christians are permitted to share Communion. “I am hugely encouraged by the Pope saying that Holy Communion isn’t a reward for the good but rather food for the needy,” the bishop told The Tablet. “[The synod] may allow some exceptions just as ecumenically there are some exceptions on those lines. That may be a sort of beginning.”
Pointing to responses to the Vatican survey issued in the run-up to the synod, he said: “We all know that a great number of the responses would hope for some change because we are facing such a situation vis-à-vis marriage in the whole of Europe.”
The bishop added that it was a “slight contradiction” that the results of the survey – filled out by 16,500 in England and Wales – had not been published. His concerns were echoed by the retired by Bishop of Portsmouth, Crispian Hollis, who, in a letter to The Tablet, has said he is disappointed by the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales’ decision not to release the survey findings. Last week the Bishop of Menevia, Tom Burns, urged his confrères to publish.
(See Letters, page 16.)
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