Bishops recommend more Inclusion of divorced Catholics after 3 week summit on family

Catholic bishops called Saturday for a more welcoming
church for cohabitating couples, gays and Catholics who
have divorced and civilly remarried, endorsing Pope
Francis’ call for a more merciful and less judgmental
church.
Bishops from around the world adopted a final document
at the end of a divisive, three-week synod on providing
better pastoral care for Catholic families.
It emphasizes the role of discernment and individual
conscience in dealing with difficult family situations, in a
win for liberal bishops.
Conservatives had resisted offering any wiggle room in
determining, for example, whether civilly remarried
Catholics can receive Communion since church teaching
forbids it. While the document doesn’t chart any specific
path to receiving the sacraments as originally sought by
the liberals, the document opens the door to case-by-
case exceptions to church teaching by citing the role of
discernment and conscience.
The three paragraphs dealing with the issue barely
reached the two-thirds majority needed to pass, but
conservatives couldn’t muster enough votes to shoot
them down. That will give Francis the manoeuvring he
needs if he wants to push the issue further in a future
document of his own.
In a final speech to the synod, Francis took some clear
swipes at the conservatives who hold up church doctrine
above all else, and use it to cast judgment on others
who don’t measure up.
Francis said the synod had “laid bare the closed hearts
which frequently hide even behind the church’s
teachings and good intentions, in order to sit in the chair
of Moses and judge, sometimes with superiority and
superficiality, difficult cases and wounded families.”
“The synod experience also made us better
realize that the true defenders of doctrine are not
those who uphold its letter, but its spirit; not
ideas but people; not formulas but the free
availability of God’s love and forgiveness,” he
said.
The document is the culmination of a two-year process
launched by Francis to put in practice his call for a
church that is more a “field hospital for wounded souls”
than an exclusive club for the perfect.
The bishops took his direction, finding “positive
elements” in couples who live together even though they
are not married. Rather than condemning these couples
for living in sin, the document says pastors should look
at their commitment constructively and encourage them
to transform their union in a sacramental marriage.
On gays, the synod document repeats church teaching
that gays should be respected and loved and, in a
novelty, says families with gay members require
particular pastoral care. It strongly rejects gay marriage,
but omits references to church teaching that homosexual
acts are “intrinsically disordered.”
Only the 275 synod “fathers” were allowed to vote —
none of the handful of women invited to participate —
even though one of the “fathers” with voting rights
wasn’t even a priest, much less a bishop.
“If this synod were the church, I would say that
it’s the end of judging people, the end of a church
that passes judgment on all the situations,” said
Belgian Bishop Lucas Van Looy. “It’s a church
that welcomes, a church that accompanies, a
church that listens, a church that also speaks
with clarity.”