Synod participants vote for final document © Ettore Ferrari
The World Synod of Bishops at the Vatican has called for greater integration of remarried divorcees into the church community. Those affected should in no way feel excommunicated.
The final document of the synod, which was adopted on Saturday, reads as follows. One must carefully examine which previous exclusions in the areas of liturgy, pastoral care, education and ecclesiastical administration are to be overcome.
At the same time, at the end of its three-week deliberations, the synod turned against any discrimination against homosexuals, but also against legislative proposals to put homosexual unions on an equal footing with the marriage of a man and a woman. Regardless of sexual orientation, every person deserves dignity and respect, Catholic bishops say. In particular, families with homosexual members should expect special attention.
Do not put local churches under prere on the ie of homosexual unions
But the synod stressed there was "no foundation for making similarities or analogies between homosexual unions and God's plan for marriage and the family". In any case, it is "unacceptable" to put prere on local churches on this ie.
Bishops call for careful consideration of different situations when marriage fails. There is a difference, he said, between someone who has been unjustly abandoned despite sincere efforts to save the first marriage and someone who, through grave fault, has destroyed a marriage that is valid under church law.
The text, totaling 94 paragraphs, was presented to Pope Francis at the end of the synod's deliberations Saturday evening. Participants linked it to a request that it be used to create a document on the family. The three-week synod concludes this morning with a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.
Pope Francis: decentralized solutions in dealing with marriage and family
Pope Francis called for decentralized solutions in dealing with marriage and family at the conclusion of the synod. "Every general principle must be translated into the culture in question if it is to be respected and applied," the pope told participants. He said the meeting showed that something that seems normal to the bishop of one continent can be considered a "scandal" to the bishop of another continent.
Francis stressed that church teaching should not be changed. An "inculturation" of the faith does not weaken its values, but shows their strength and makes them authentic. The church must always show a humane and merciful attitude, the church leader said. According to a Vatican spokesman, the approximately 270 people attending the meeting acknowledged the speech with a standing ovation.
The synod, the pope added, showed "that the true defenders of doctrine are not those who defend the letter, but the spirit; not the idea, but man; not formulas, but the gratuitous love of God and his forgiveness". Often a closedness of heart hides behind the teachings of the Church, he said. The most important task of the Church, however, is not to condemn, but to proclaim God's mercy, to call for conversion and to lead people to salvation.
Synod participants also encouraged the church to pay more attention to couples who are not married in church, but only under civil law, or who live together without a marriage certificate. The decision of such couples is often not the result of prejudice or a rejection of the sacrament of marriage at all, but of cultural factors or coincidences, the final document says. Often, he said, such a union results in a lasting relationship open to new life, or even a path to sacramental marriage.