Updating Morality?

Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, president of the German Bishops’ Conference, declared to La Croix on December 1, 2013, that we need to find “a way to update the Church’s answer” to remarried divorcees who are not admitted to the sacraments. On November 23, Bishop Gebhard Fürst, bishop of Rottenburg-Stuttgart, announced that the German Bishops’ Conference could make its pastoral orientations for remarried divorcees known in March 2014, at its next plenary assembly. He recognized that an idea of these pastoral orientations can be gathered from the recent orientations proposed by the diocese of Freiburg-in-Breisgau. (see DICI#285, Nov. 22, 2013)

These are the propositions that Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, had asked Archbishop Zollitsch to “withdraw and revise”, recalling in an article in Osservatore Romano on October 23, that a “second chance” offered to divorcees was “incompatible with the will of God as clearly expressed in Jesus’ words on the indissolubility of marriage.” (see DICI #284, Nov. 8, 2013)

To this, Archbishop responded in La Croix: “As the German Bishops’ Conference, we will therefore make our voices heard, and as it is, we are in touch with the French and Swiss bishops on this point. When new questions come up, we have to ask ourselves if there are not new solutions.” – In other words, we must find a way to update the moral law according to the evolution of our day’s morals!

Fr. Alain Lorans