Schönborn thinks remarried divorcees can be accommodated

In interviews on the eve of his departure for the Austrian bishops’ ad limina visit in Rome, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn said he was certain that under Pope Francis the Church would find new ways of incorporating remarried divorcees in the life of the Church, writes Christa Pongratz-Lippitt.

“This Pope speaks so much about mercy, that I’m sure that a new way of coping with failure will be found,” Cardinal Schönborn said. “One thing is clear: the Church must pay far greater attention to those whose marriages fail and must reach out to them. No one must get the feeling that their life in the Catholic community has come to an end because their marriage has failed.”

Ninety-five per cent of those Austrians who had filled in the Vatican questionnaire on the family were in favour of allowing remarried divorcees to receive the sacraments, Cardinal Schönborn said, adding that the Austrian bishops would be handing over the questionnaire results in Rome.

The Church must adopt a more rational, down-to-earth approach as far as the reality of life was concerned, the cardinal warned. “For the most part, the Church approaches the [family] issue unhistorically. The ‘traditional’ pattern of the family is a special case historically. People have always lived together in various ways. And today, we in the Church tacitly live with the fact that the majority of young people, including those who have close ties to the Church, quite naturally live together.
“The simple fact is that the environment has changed,” he said. This was “in no way” a call to change canon law on his part, but he wanted to show how difficult it was to bring the ideal family model into line with reality. “The decisive thing is not to condemn the way most people actually live together, but to ask ‘How do we cope with failure?’,”he emphasised.

Schönborn admitted that in the past the Austrian bishops had lacked the courage to speak out openly on controversial issues such as the problem of remarried divorcees. They had also been “too hesitant” on the necessity of decentralisation and allowing local Churches greater independence. “I beat my own breast here. We certainly didn’t have sufficient courage to speak out openly,” he said.