Pope advisor says remarried divorcees should be given communion

The advisor is seen as a progressive, and his views are strongly contested by more conservative prelates.
The Catholic Church should drop a ban on the Holy Communion for remarried divorcees, a senior cleric and close advisor to Pope Francis said in an interview on Tuesday.

German Cardinal, Walter Kasper, is the theologian that Pope Francis asked to give an introductory lecture at last month’s special meeting of cardinals, which debated the church’s stance towards divorcees and other controversial family issues.

“The church has to find a way to let a remarried divorcee back into the Sacraments, after a period of penance,” Mr. Kasper told the gathering.

“Every sin can be absolved. Indeed, it is not imaginable that a man can fall into a black hole from which God cannot rescue him,” he added.

Mr. Kasper is seen as a progressive, and his views are strongly contested by more conservative prelates, such as Reinhard Meisner, another German Cardinal.

A worldwide meeting of bishops, known as the Synod, is due to continue discussions on the matter in October.

The Pope has hinted that he favours a softening of church’s position on it.

Last month he said people whose marriages broke up should be “supported” and not “condemned”.

“When love fails, and it fails many times, we have to feel the pain of that failure; support the people who have felt the failure of their love,” the pope said on February 28. “Don’t condemn them! Walk with them.”

(dpa/NAN)