Signs of discord at synod on family

A leading cardinal, who previously insisted there can be no change in Catholic Church teaching on remarried divorced Catholics, has said he is sticking with Jesus on the issue.

Speaking as the extraordinary synod of bishops on the family continues in Rome, Cardinal George Pell said: “As Christians, we follow Christ. Some may wish Jesus might have been a little softer on divorce, but he wasn’t. And I’m sticking with him.”

At an event in Rome’s North American College, the prefect of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy, said: “We’ve got to be intellectually coherent and consistent. Catholics are people of tradition, and we believe in the development of doctrine, but not doctrinal backflips.”

What had struck him about the synod so far, “if I may be ecclesiastically incorrect,” he said, was “the level of trouble we’re in right around the world with marriage and the family. There are very few societies where the trend is running positively for family life.”

Cardinal Pell, with Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and Cardinal Raymond Burke, prefect of the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature, contributed to books published on October 1st in which they expressed outright opposition to any change in current Catholic teaching on marriage.

It is also understood that at one of the synod sessions Cardinal Müller pointed out that even the pope does not have the authority on his own to change Church teaching.

Last February, German Cardinal Walter Kasper, with the full approval of Pope Francis, called for some way in which divorced and remarried Catholics might be permitted to receive Communion, which is opposed by the three cardinals. At the same event in the North American College, Cardinal Timothy Dolan acknowledged that bishops at the synod were debating how to soften their language when discussing homosexuality and other topics affecting families.