Pope Francis will on Friday issue new
guidelines on the Church’s approach to love, sex and marriage in what is
being billed as one of the defining moments of his tenure.
Is he gay-friendly and relaxed about
divorce and cohabitation? Or is the pontiff a conservative who
understands the need to sidestep issues that put the Church at odds with
how many believers live in the 21st Century?
The verdict on the 79-year-old
Argentine’s legacy will in large part be framed by the contents of the
document on the family that will be published on the stroke of noon.
Officially referred to as an “apostolic
exhortation”, the 200-page text is effectively a letter to the world’s
1.2 billion Roman Catholics that lays down revised foundations for
Church teaching and pastoral practice on a host of issues related to
family life.
The hopes of Catholic radicals for
significant changes to official doctrine were quashed during the 2014
and 2015 synods of bishops, the conclusions of which will inform without
dictating the content of Francis’s missive.
But the document will also inevitably
reflect the current pontiff’s instinctive tendency to try to make the
Church seem a more merciful, less judgemental body in relation to those
faithful who find themselves in “irregular” situations.
Influential German cardinal Walter Kasper has predicted that the exhortation will mark a “turning of the page” for the Church.
Francis said , “Who am I to judge?”,
early in his papacy when asked about how the Church should deal with gay
believers who, some Catholic theologians now think, have no choice
about their sexuality.
That comment and the radical language
contained in an early draft of conclusions from the first synod on the
family raised progressive hopes of a great leap forward in Catholic
teaching on vexed questions such as whether divorced and civilly
remarried believers should be allowed to take communion.
But the strength of conservative
opposition — led by bishops from the developing world — to a substantial
relaxation of the Church’s model of what the ideal family looks like
has made it unlikely that will happen.
Francis, say those who know him best, is
nothing if not a pragmatist and the last thing he wants on his watch is
a schism over what he once called “below the belt issues” which he
regards as having assumed far too much importance in the life of the
Church.
The exhortation, entitled “Amoris
Laetitia”, is to be presented at the Vatican by Cardinal Christoph
Schoenborn, the archbishop of Vienna who is seen as a moderniser and is
himself the son of divorced parents.
It will also be unveiled in dioceses
around the world with local bishops having already been sent guidelines
on how to explain the changes to their congregations.
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