Orsy highlights a third way for remarried divorcees

The distinguished theologian Professor Ladislas Orsy has recommended the Church adopt a proposal once put forward by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI to allow divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion, writes Sarah Mac Donald.

The Jesuit theologian referred to an argument mooted by then Professor Joseph Ratzinger in 1972 which references oikonomia – described as “good spiritual housekeeping” and part of the Eastern Church tradition.

The proposal – which, later, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he stepped back from – argued that Communion could be given to those in second marriages provided the first had broken down irrevocably, penance had been performed and the second union was filled with a spirit of faith. In a lecture at the Milltown Institute in Dublin, Professor Orsy said that Ratzinger’s argument was a different approach from that of Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, who opposes Communion for remarried people, and Cardinal Walter Kasper, who has said it could be given in some circumstances.