Pope Francis: welcome with compassion those who have remarried outside the Church

August 05, 2015

Following a month-long hiatus, Pope Francis resumed his Wednesday general audience on August 5 and called for a compassionate welcome to those who have remarried outside the Church.

In doing so, he made no mention of the upcoming Synod of Bishops nor of the controversial proposal to admit those in such situations to Holy Communion.

Citing statements on the same topic by his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, the Holy Father said that the Church should reach out to help those who are in irregular marital situations, aware that there are no "simple solutions" to their problems. Although the Church cannot approve of their marriages, they are "not excommunicated, by any means," he said, and the Church must help them.

“The Church knows well that such a situation contradicts the Christian sacrament,” Pope Francis told those assembled in Paul VI Audience Hall. The Church, he said, looks upon those in such situations with a maternal heart and “always looks for the good and the salvation of persons.”

Citing St. John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio (no. 84), Pope Francis said that the Church must distinguish between those who caused the breakup of the initial marriage and those who endured it.

Looking at the situation through the eyes of the young children of the new union, Pope Francis spoke of the “urgency of developing in our community a real welcome toward the persons who are living in such situations,” with a careful attention to “language” and “attitudes.”

If we “hold them at a distance from the life of the community, as if they were excommunicated,” the Pope added, how will the children be raised in the faith?

Pope Francis praised his predecessors’ efforts to reach out to those in such situations and cited a growing awareness that “we need a fraternal and attentive hospitality, in love and in truth, towards the baptized” who have established a new union.

Calling upon all members of the Church to manifest the attitude of the Good Shepherd, Pope Francis said pastors should “manifest openly and consistently the community's willingness to welcome” those in such unions, “that they may live and develop more” in their “belonging to Christ and the Church through prayer, through listening to the Word of God, through frequenting the liturgy, through the Christian education of children, through love and service to the poor, through the commitment to justice and peace.”

 

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Further information:

• L’Udienza Generale, 05.08.2015 (Holy See Press Office)
• Pope Francis General Audience 2015.08.05 (YouTube, Vatican)
• Pope: divorced and remarried people not excommunicated (Vatican Radio)
• Pope St. John Paul II: Familiaris Consortio (1981)