Paul KeenanGermany – A German bishop has signalled that plans to offer Communion to divorced-remarried Catholics will go ahead despite a recent warning from Rome.
In an address to a lay group Bishop Gebhard Fürst of Stuttgart said that he and his fellow prelates have already drawn up guidelines on the issue and are hopeful that these will meet with approval next March. His words came after Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued instructions to the Archdiocese of Freiburg to withdraw such proposals. Bishop Fürst has insisted that the German bishops are responding to a massive demand from the faithful for the extension of the sacrament to those currently barred.