Pope Leo Opens Week-Long Vatican Meeting on Family Life; Remarriage and LGBT Questions Expected to Surface
VATICAN CITY, Oct. 7 — Pope Leo XIV on Oct. 7 opened a week-long meeting at the Vatican with some 150 bishops from around the world to discuss the Church's teachings on family life — his biggest gathering of Church leaders so far — according to Reuters. The assembly, running through Oct. 14, is expected to touch on contested topics such as the Church's treatment of LGBT members and of Catholics who have divorced and remarried, although those issues are not formally on the agenda.
The participants are presidents of the world's bishops conferences, from more than 115 countries, including two from China. Leo called the assembly to mark the 10th anniversary of Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), the 2016 document by his predecessor Pope Francis, which urged the Church to be less strict and more compassionate toward 'imperfect' Catholics such as the divorced and remarried. Under current teaching, remarried Catholics cannot receive communion unless they abstain from sex with their new partner; Francis appeared to open a door in a footnote but never laid out a clear universal policy.
Leo asked that God would 'give us the freedom to listen to one another, the wisdom to recognise his work among his people, and the courage to follow where he leads us,' and said the Church must recognise the work of grace even in situations marked by limits, wounds and apparent failure, without specifically naming the remarriage question.
At the same day's general audience in St. Peter's Square, the pope continued his catechesis on the documents of the Second Vatican Council, saying Christians cannot accept the oppression of the weak and the poor, and that watering down Christianity's demands will not make it more attractive, according to the National Catholic Register. Source: Reuters, Oct. 7; National Catholic Register, Oct. 7. Faith news, carried in the Faith channel only.
Photo: Italy-3234 - St. Peter's Basilica — archer10 (Dennis) / CC BY-SA 2.0 (via Openverse)
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: Italy-3234 - St. Peter's Basilica — archer10 (Dennis) / CC BY-SA 2.0 (via Openverse)
