Pope: Keep door open to divorced Catholics who remarry | Inquirer News

Pope: Keep door open to divorced Catholics who remarry

/ 05:41 PM August 05, 2015

FILE - In this Tuesday, July 21, 2015 file photo, Pope Francis delivers his speech in the Synod Hall during a conference on Modern Slavery and Climate Change at the Vatican. Francis' first visit to the U.S. in September 2015 will take place against the backdrop of the broad unfinished business of the molestation scandal. The crisis erupted in 2002 with the case of one pedophile priest in the Archdiocese of Boston before spreading nationwide, then engulfing the Roman Catholic Church. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

In this July 21 photo, Pope Francis delivers his speech in the Synod Hall during a conference on Modern Slavery and Climate Change at the Vatican. AP

VATICAN CITY—Pope Francis says divorced Catholics who remarry and their children deserve better treatment from the Catholic Church.

Francis reminded pastors in a speech Wednesday that such Catholics aren’t excommunicated, even though they’re sometimes treated as if they are.

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Catholic teaching says divorced Catholics who remarry are living in sin and are not allowed to receive Communion.

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Francis’ emphasis on the importance of mercy in church leadership has raised hope among many divorced Catholics that he might lift the Communion ban.

In his speech, Francis didn’t go that far. But he said these couples’ children suffer because estrangement from full participation in the church makes it harder for the parents to raise their children as Catholics.

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He said pastors shouldn’t “add more weight” to what these children suffer from failed marriages.

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TAGS: Catholicism, divorce, Pope Francis, Vatican

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