Pope revisits 'punishing' rules on Catholic divorce

[rug]

Millions of devotees remain banned from receiving communion – but meeting of bishops raises hopes of ban being loosened

Lizzy Davies
The Observer, Saturday 27 September 2014 15.15 EDT

Elio Cirimbelli, a 66-year-old family counsellor from Bolzano in north-eastern Italy, goes to church most Sundays. He is a devout Roman Catholic but when he attends mass he cannot receive holy communion and must stay in the pew while the rest of the congregation goes up to receive the sacramental bread and wine. "It's very hard, let's put it that way," Cirimbelli says. "We have a church that can be a mother, but sometimes it is a mother which not does embrace but which punishes."

Millions of Catholics around the world are similarly affected by the church's ban on communion for those who have divorced – as Cirimbelli did in 1987 – and then remarried.

In a global community divided by headline-grabbing issues such as abortion, contraception and gay sex, divorce is far from the most inflammatory topic of conversation. But for a huge number of ordinary people it is a regular and painful reminder that their church considers them ineligible for a right it grants to almost all other Catholics – murderers included.

True to his image as the pontiff who listens to the people and wants to build a less hectoring and more inclusive church, Pope Francis now wants to start talking about it.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/27/vatican-pope-remarried-divorced-communion

[hrmjustin]

1. i hope they become merciful.

[rug]

2. How's your hiatus?

[hrmjustin]

3. Ok. i need the break. i posted way too much.

I am about to do an interfaith post.

Celebrating my birthday on drink beer day.

[rug]

4. Today?

[hrmjustin]

5. yep.

[rug]

8. Congrats. Justin!

[hrmjustin]

10. Thanks my friend.

[okasha]

12. Happy birthday!

I hope you've had a wonderful day.

:

[hrmjustin]

14. thanks! it was a good day with beer and football.

[okasha]

15. Here's wishing you another 364 just as good!

[No Vested Interest]

6. Happy B'day, Justin. Let it be a day when

you do whatever you feel like doing!

[hrmjustin]

7. thanks and i am drinking beer and enjoying it.

[No Vested Interest]

9. It's still early enough. Still time to celebrate any d--- way

you choose!

[hrmjustin]

11. lol.