Disir
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ROME, December 31, 2015 – Like Fr. Antonio Spadaro in “la Civiltà Cattolica” before him, one of the other churchmen closest to Francis has launched a trial balloon in view of the conclusions that the pope will draw from the synod on the family.
His name is Marcello Semeraro. He is bishop of Albano, the diocese in which the pontifical villa of Castel Gandolfo stands. Jorge Mario Bergoglio had gotten to know and appreciate him before he was elected pope. And he wanted him among his close collaborators, first as secretary of the council of nine cardinals for the reform of the curia and Church governance, and then also as a member of the synod, among those charged with writing the final report.
In a booklet relesed at the end of the year, entitled “Il sinodo della famiglia raccontato alla mia Chiesa [The synod of the family as told to my Church]” and published by MiterThev, Semeraro maintains that the fundamental innovation of the synod was the “passage from the morality of the law to the morality of the person.”
And with regard to the readmission of the divorced and remarried to the sacraments, he writes:
“The synod abstained from presenting to the pope in a simply theoretical and abstract form the specific question of the possibility of admission to the sacraments of penance and the Eucharist for baptized faithful who are living conjugally in the condition of civilly divorced and remarried. It asked for attention to the person. It did not, however, dodge the problem, but laid the foundations for a solution already with the fact of having inserted the question on the discernment of imputability.”
In two footnotes Semeraro specifies better where he wants to arrive and above all where he hopes Pope Francis will arrive in the anticipated post-synodal exhortation.
In the first of the two footnotes, the bishop of Albano writes that when the final report of the synod speaks of solutions “in the internal forum,” these go beyond a decision of individual conscience. They constitute “a true process (‘forum’) that is conducted in the sacramental domain (‘internal,’ or in the sacrament of reconciliation and penance) and is carried out by a member of the faithful and an authorized minister of the Church.”
And in the second footnote he refers to a letter of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith addressed to the bishops on April 11, 1973, to show that already back then the Church was encouraging “a particular solicitude toward those who are living in an irregular union, applying in the solution of such cases, in addition to other just means, the approved praxis of the Church in the internal forum.”
The restrictions came afterward, Semeraro continues, when John Paul II imposed on irregular couples, as a condition for receiving sacramental communion, the duty of living “in complete abstinence.”
But now the bishop of Albano hopes for a return to the previous discipline, with a new openness to solutions permitted back then “in the internal forum.” And this is precisely what the synod - in his judgment - has already done, in remaining silent on the restrictions introduced by John Paul II and therefore “leaving ‘open’ a text that it wanted to entrusted to new discernment by the supreme pontiff.”
Nullity of Marriage. A Reform That Risks Sinking in the Dock
But even after all of that, it appears that the issue is going to show up in it's application depending on the nation-state.
His name is Marcello Semeraro. He is bishop of Albano, the diocese in which the pontifical villa of Castel Gandolfo stands. Jorge Mario Bergoglio had gotten to know and appreciate him before he was elected pope. And he wanted him among his close collaborators, first as secretary of the council of nine cardinals for the reform of the curia and Church governance, and then also as a member of the synod, among those charged with writing the final report.
In a booklet relesed at the end of the year, entitled “Il sinodo della famiglia raccontato alla mia Chiesa [The synod of the family as told to my Church]” and published by MiterThev, Semeraro maintains that the fundamental innovation of the synod was the “passage from the morality of the law to the morality of the person.”
And with regard to the readmission of the divorced and remarried to the sacraments, he writes:
“The synod abstained from presenting to the pope in a simply theoretical and abstract form the specific question of the possibility of admission to the sacraments of penance and the Eucharist for baptized faithful who are living conjugally in the condition of civilly divorced and remarried. It asked for attention to the person. It did not, however, dodge the problem, but laid the foundations for a solution already with the fact of having inserted the question on the discernment of imputability.”
In two footnotes Semeraro specifies better where he wants to arrive and above all where he hopes Pope Francis will arrive in the anticipated post-synodal exhortation.
In the first of the two footnotes, the bishop of Albano writes that when the final report of the synod speaks of solutions “in the internal forum,” these go beyond a decision of individual conscience. They constitute “a true process (‘forum’) that is conducted in the sacramental domain (‘internal,’ or in the sacrament of reconciliation and penance) and is carried out by a member of the faithful and an authorized minister of the Church.”
And in the second footnote he refers to a letter of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith addressed to the bishops on April 11, 1973, to show that already back then the Church was encouraging “a particular solicitude toward those who are living in an irregular union, applying in the solution of such cases, in addition to other just means, the approved praxis of the Church in the internal forum.”
The restrictions came afterward, Semeraro continues, when John Paul II imposed on irregular couples, as a condition for receiving sacramental communion, the duty of living “in complete abstinence.”
But now the bishop of Albano hopes for a return to the previous discipline, with a new openness to solutions permitted back then “in the internal forum.” And this is precisely what the synod - in his judgment - has already done, in remaining silent on the restrictions introduced by John Paul II and therefore “leaving ‘open’ a text that it wanted to entrusted to new discernment by the supreme pontiff.”
Nullity of Marriage. A Reform That Risks Sinking in the Dock
But even after all of that, it appears that the issue is going to show up in it's application depending on the nation-state.
