The Bishop of Portsmouth hopes next year's synod on the family will
offer mercy and reconciliation to Catholics who are divorced and
remarried.
Bishop Philip Egan said he would like the Extraordinary Synod of
Bishops in Rome next year called by Pope Francis to "give renewed
attention to the situation of those Catholics who find themselves in
‘irregular unions', or are divorced and remarried."
In a message to his diocese, the bishop asked: "is there some way of affording them mercy, help and reconciliation?"
Catholics who divorce and then remarry are not permitted to receive
communion. But for many years there have been calls for ways to be found
for those in such a situation to receive the sacraments.
The synod,
which has been given the theme "the pastoral challenges of the family in
the context of evangelisation", is guaranteed to discuss the topic when
it meets in October 2014.
The bishop later explained that because the Church's understanding of
marriage contrasted with contemporary culture this raised the question
of the "validity and nullity of the previous marriages" of those who are
divorced and remarried.
He hoped that in some cases such individuals
could have their situations "regularised" and therefore receive the
sacraments.
In his message, Bishop Egan said he hoped the synod would help
promote marriage in his diocese. He pointed out marriages in his diocese
have declined from 1,319 in 1962 to 566 in 2012.
This was despite the
fact that the Catholic population in the diocese rose by a quarter in
the same period.
Read Bishop Egan's message here.