Cathal BarryHowever, a moral theologian has described the issue of as “a distraction”
Baroness Nuala O’Loan has called on the Pope to find a way to ease the pain of divorced and remarried Catholics unable to receive the Eucharist, without harming the essential teaching of the Church.
Mrs O’Loan told The Irish Catholic she felt confident that Pope Francis “is determined to make a change of some kind” on the key issue that is facing the Synod of Bishops which is due to get underway in Rome next week.
In a series of pre-synod interviews, cardinals and bishops have appeared divided on the issue with some insisting that divorced and remarried Catholics who are serious about their faith should be admitted on a case-by-case basis, while others argued that such a change would undermine the Catholic belief that marriage is lifelong commitment.
Mrs O’Loan, who has staunchly defended the Church’s teaching on marriage and the right to life, told this newspaper “there is an awful lot of pain around the breakdown of marriages”.
“There are people who do not approach the sacraments and who want to do so. I can’t imagine the pain of that,” she said.
Expressing her belief that Pope Francis wants a relaxation of the current rules, Mrs O’Loan insisted “I don’t think he is going to turn away from the very essential teaching of the Church but I think what he is going to do is provide some sort of a mechanism which will enable case-by-case dealing with individual couples to bring them to a place where they are fully integrated again” in the life of the Church.
“I think the Church must act justly and love tenderly,” she said.
Distraction
However, moral theologian Fr Vincent Twomey described the issue of communion for divorced and remarried Catholics as “a distraction from the real problems facing the Church as a whole throughout the world”.
He said the real question facing the synod is why marriages are breaking down in the first place.
“It’s such a complex issue. This was debated at the last synod on the family and was dealt with in great detail by Pope John Paul II. I can’t see them reinventing the wheel.
“I can’t see any great movement happening on it. I may be wrong but I don’t think so,” Fr Twomey told The Irish Catholic.
Excluded
Meanwhile, Bishop of Limerick Brendan Leahy said the Church had to consider more creative ways to include couples in second relationships who may feel excluded.
“We have traditionally in the Church focussed a lot on the Eucharist as a presence of Jesus but let’s also remember, there are other presences of Jesus: the Word of God which we as Catholics have ignored a bit at times and we need to rediscover that.
“These can go part of the way to rediscovering that people in these situations aren’t actually so far outside things.
“They are very much still part of the community and they still have means to nourish themselves on such as the Word, the community.
“We have to discover new ways of broadening [the Church] so that people feel more welcome and feel more included,” Dr Leahy said.
Pope Francis has asked the synod to consider pastoral challenges facing the family in the contemporary world. Primate of All-Ireland Archbishop Eamon Martin and Dublin’s Archbishop Diarmuid Martin are the two Irish delegates at the three-week meeting which gets underway next Sunday.