Cardinal: be welcoming to those married outside the Church without admitting them to Communion

July 21, 2015

Reflecting on the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the family, Cardinal Ennio Antonelli said in an interview that the Church can be welcoming to those who have remarried outside the Church without admitting them to Holy Communion.

"They have to be part of the life of the Church with concrete gestures of welcome, friendship, and respect," he told Rome Reports. "For example, with separated brothers, with Christians who are not Catholic, they can be in line for Communion to receive a blessing."

The prelate, who served as president of the Pontifical Council for the Family from 2008 until his retirement in 2012, recently wrote a short book strongly criticizing the proposal to admit persons in non-sacramental civil marriages to Holy Communion.

"There are many reasons for why marriage is in crisis, but some of them that stand out: we live in a secular culture dominated by individualism, relativism, consumerism, and hedonism," Cardinal Antonelli continued in the interview. "God is marginal, as if He wasn't relevant."

"The way society, the economy, or work is organized penalizes the family instead of supporting and promoting it," he added. "For proof we only have to see the married couples who spend lots of time far apart from each other because they must work."

 

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Further information:

• Cardinal Antonelli: We must show that marriage is beautiful (Rome Reports)
• Italian cardinal writes book criticizing Kasper proposal (CWN, 6/12)