{"id":1561,"date":"2018-06-05T04:48:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-05T04:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=1561"},"modified":"2025-09-29T17:10:20","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T17:10:20","slug":"pope-francis-says-no-to-german-intercommunion-proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=1561","title":{"rendered":"Pope Francis says no to German intercommunion proposal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pope<\/a><\/p>\n

This is an interesting article which goes a long way in presenting Catholic teaching on reception of the Eucharist.<\/p>\n

One month after Vatican and German delegates met in Rome to discuss a proposal put forward by German bishops to allow Protestant spouses in inter-denominational marriages to receive the Eucharist in certain circumstances, Pope Francis has rejected it.<\/a><\/p>\n

In a letter dated May 25 and addressed to Cardinal Reinhard Marx, archbishop of Munich and president of the German bishops conference, Cardinal-elect Luis Ladaria SJ, the Vatican\u2019s top authority on matters of doctrine, said the text of the German proposal \u201craises a series of problems of considerable importance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The letter <\/a>was published June 4 on the blog of veteran Vatican journalist Sandro Magister.<\/p>\n

The Holy See press office has confirmed the authenticity of the letter, which was also sent to members of the German delegation who attended a May 3 meeting between German prelates and Vatican official on the topic in Rome, including Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, archbishop of Cologne; Bishop Felix Genn of M\u00fcnster; Bishop Karl-Heinz Wieseman of Speyer; Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer of Regensburg and Bishop Gerhard Feige of Magdeburg.<\/p>\n

After speaking with Pope Francis about the matter in light of the May 3 discussion, Ladaria said the pope \u201ccame to the conclusion that the document is not mature enough to be published,\u201d and cited three main reasons for the decision.<\/p>\n

First, Ladaria stressed that admission to Communion of Protestant spouses in inter-confessional marriages \u201cis a topic that touches the faith of the Church and has relevance for the universal Church.\u201d<\/p>\n

Allowing non-Catholics to receive the Eucharist, even in certain limited conditions, would also have an impact on ecumenical relations with other Churches and ecclesial communities \u201cwhich should not be underestimated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, he said the question of Communion is a matter of Church law, and cited canon 844 of the Code of Canon Law, which deals with access to the Sacraments of the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n

Specifically, canon 844<\/a> states that \u201cCatholic ministers administer the sacraments licitly to Catholic members of the Christian faithful alone, who likewise receive them licitly from Catholic ministers alone,\u201d apart from a number of exceptions spelled out in the canon.<\/p>\n

These exceptions include allowing non-Catholic Christians to receive the sacraments of Confession, the Eucharist, and the Anointing of the Sick by non-Catholic ministers in churches where these sacraments are valid \u201cwhenever necessity requires it or true spiritual advantage suggests it, and provided that danger of error or of indifferentism is avoided.\u201d<\/p>\n

More if you hit the link above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is an interesting article which goes a long way in presenting Catholic teaching on reception of the Eucharist. One month after Vatican and German delegates met in Rome to discuss a proposal put forward by German bishops to allow Protestant spouses in inter-denominational marriages to receive the Eucharist in certain circumstances, Pope Francis has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7759,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561\/revisions\/7759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}