Cardinals at loggerheads over Kasper proposals for remarried divorcees

Ahead of the Synod on the Family that starts tomorrow, disagreements over the proposals of Cardinal Walter Kasper regarding remarried divorcees and their receiving of Communion have sharpened dramatically, write Christa Pongratz-Lippitt and James Roberts.

Cardinal Kasper has argued – he says with the encouragement of Pope Francis – that the Church should be more “merciful” to Catholics living in unorthodox relationships. While the doctrine on the indissolubility of marriage cannot change, he says, the discipline on who can receive Communion could be developed. However, Cardinal Raymond Burke, prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, said in a conference call with journalists on Tuesday that he found it “amazing” that Cardinal Kasper claimed to speak for the Pope. “The Pope ... can speak for himself. If this is what he wants, he will say so,” Cardinal Burke said, adding that whatever Francis thinks about a more lenient approach on remarried Catholics, he cannot change current church teaching – a view endorsed in the build-up to the synod by the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, and Cardinal George Pell, as well as other cardinals.

Speaking to the US Catholic publication America and Argentina’s leading daily La Nación on 26 September, Cardinal Kasper said he thought his opponents feared  “a domino effect, if you change one point all would collapse. This is linked to an ideological understanding of the Gospel, that it is like a penal code.”

Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich said it was “appalling” that discussions had focused solely on remarried divorcees.

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn told journalists in Vienna that he will propose to the synod a “theological key” aimed at helping couples in irregular situations. This would be like the “theological key” shaped at Vatican II for “unlocking” the Church’s relationship to other Christian Churches. That said Christ’s Church “subsists” in the Catholic Church but “many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside its visible confines”.