German Nuncio Contradicts Liberal President of Bishops' Council

The President of the German Bishops Conference expects that there will be a change with respect to the manner remarried divorced people are dealt with -- Nuncio Périsset: There's no such consideration.

Berlin (kath.net/KAP) The Apostolic Nuncio in Germany, Jean-Claude Périsset, has warned against overly high expectations about reforms in the Catholic Church. As is the case with the question of remarried people who are divorced "the teaching of the Church is clear" and "there is no such consideration", aid the representative of the Holy Father in Berlin on Friday to questions from the German Catholic News Agency KNA. The reason was a well attended interview with Archbishop Robert Zollitsch with the Hamburg "Zeit".

There the President of the German Bishops Conference said he expected reforms with respet to divorced people who remarry. According to current Catholic teaching people who are married, who remarry after divorcing, are not permitted to receive Holy Communion. If there could have been an exception, it would have been extolled for years. +Zollitsch tried to explain that it has to do with a "question of mercy" and that he expects a change in his lifetime. +Périsset weighed against this, insisting that not participating in Communion does not mean being shut out of the Church. "The mercy of God knows a diversity of ways", explained the Nuncio. It is a question of inner fidelity, after the breaking of marriage promises and even with bearing the pain. There are in some cases the possibility to evaluate the validity of marriage.

Link to kath.net...