Bar to divorced and remarried

Poland’s Bishops’ Conference has ruled out granting Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics, in advance of an official instruction on applying the Pope’s apostolic
exhortation  Amoris Laetitia, writes Jonathan Luxmoore. “We see no possibilities for them to receive Communion,” said bishops’ spokesman, Fr Pawel Rytel-Andrianik.

The priest was speaking to journalists during a conference plenary in Zakopane. A concluding statement said the Polish Church would continue to observe Pope St John Paul II’s 1981 apostolic exhortation, Familiaris Consortio, which warned that granting Communion to the divorced and remarried would lead Catholics “into error and confusion”.

Amoris Laetitia said not all Catholics in “irregular” unions could be said to be “in a state of mortal sin and deprived of sanctifying grace”.