Italian bishops' leader says Church should welcome 'unconventional couples' to sacraments
August 27, 2014
The secretary-general of the Italian bishops’ conference has said that the Church must make efforts to welcome “unconventional couples.”
"Couples in irregular matrimonial situations are also Christians, but they are sometimes looked upon with prejudice," said Bishop Nunzio Galantino of Cassano all’Jonio, who was appointed secretary-general of the Italian episcopal conference by Pope Francis.
According to Italy’s ANSA news service, Bishop Galantino went on to say that when couples in irregular marital situations are excluded from the sacraments, it “is an unjustified price to pay, in addition to de facto discrimination.”
In May, Bishop Galantino said that he hoped that Church leaders will “listen without any taboo to the arguments in favor of married priests, the Eucharist for the divorced, and homosexuality."
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Posted by: MAG -
Aug. 28, 2014 10:29 AM ET USA
The good bishop is another of the 60's flower children (b. 16 August 1948). At 66 years of age he represents a generation of prelates deeply infected with the smoke of modernism, exposed to the pathogen as he was during the 60's and 70's. Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: and let them that hate him flee from before his face. As smoke vanisheth, so let them vanish away: as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God.
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Posted by: jpthegr82109 -
Aug. 27, 2014 10:47 PM ET USA
What exactly is this pastor of the flock telling us to do? I can now live in a persistently sinful state with no intent to amend my life and still receive the sacraments?
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Posted by: koinonia -
Aug. 27, 2014 10:28 PM ET USA
In many of these public statements, prelates appear to be expressing a belief that these "irregular" situations simply happen as if randomly and without any control. It is as if these couples awoke one day to a new reality that simply happened without any complicity or intention on their parts. Very unsettling. Again, a reminder that we must "know ourselves" first, and we must live as Christians if we make the claim. Of course we are free to abandon the Christian life if we so choose.
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Posted by: Vincit omnia amor -
Aug. 27, 2014 8:55 PM ET USA
Okay, wait, you're gonna tell us this is a parody or something of that sort? Please!?
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Posted by: Defender -
Aug. 27, 2014 6:27 PM ET USA
Looks like there are bishops everywhere who don't understand what the Church teaches and WHY. Nothing ever seems to be done about these senior clerics (and it doesn't appear this pope will), the priests and religious, nor the laity (Canon law, what's that?). I would like to know how many people have left the Church because it isn't "Catholic" anymore because it is more Episcopalian (where they embrace all this heresy and insist on political correctness) or whatever.
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Posted by: Jim Hanink -
Aug. 27, 2014 5:59 PM ET USA
Bishop Galantino needs to think carefully about the nature of matrimony and human sexuality. He might begin with a review of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the teaching documents of St. John Paul II. In fact, we all need to carry out such a review from time to time.
