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Vatican City, May 3, 2018 / 01:58 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- After several German bishops appealed to the Vatican over an alleged proposal to allow non-Catholic spouses in mixed faith marriages to receive communion, the Church’s top authority on doctrine has sent the ball back, saying Pope Francis wants Germany’s bishops to come to an agreement among themselves.

Released after a 4-hour meeting between German bishops and the heads of certain curial offices, a Vatican communique said that Archbishop Luis Ladaria SJ, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, told the bishops that the pope “appreciates the ecumenical commitment of the German bishops” and asked them “to find, in a spirit of ecumenical communion, a possibly unanimous decision.”

It is not clear whether a “possibly unanimous decision” asks the German bishops’ conference for a fully unanimous vote on the issue, or asks for a nearly unanimous decision, or whether the bishops are simply being asked to discuss the matter further to see if they can resolve the issue themselves before a central authority steps in.

The Vatican declined to comment on the meaning of the phrase.

Announced over the weekend, the May 3 meeting followed reports, later denied by the German bishops’ conference, that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had rejected a proposal by the conference to publish guidelines allowing the non-Catholic spouses of Catholics to receive the Eucharist in certain limited circumstances.

In February, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, president of the German bishops conference, announced that the conference would publish a pastoral handout explaining that Protestant spouses of Catholics “in individual cases” and “under certain conditions” could receive Holy Communion, provided they “affirm the Catholic faith in the Eucharist.”

Marx’s statement concerned a draft version of the guidelines, which was adopted “after intensive debate” during a Feb. 19-22 general assembly of the conference..

The Vatican’s communique noted that while more than three-quarters of the German bishops voted in favor of the guidelines, “a not indifferent number” of voters, including seven diocesan bishops, “did not feel capable, for various reasons, of giving their consent.”

The bishops, the Vatican said, then appealed to the Vatican for an answer as to whether the question of Holy Communion for Protestant spouses in interdenominational marriages can be decided at a local level by a national bishops’ conference, or if a decision from the universal Church was required in the matter.

Specifically, they wrote to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Council for Legislative Texts.

Signatories, who did not consult Cardinal Marx before writing the letter, included: Archbishop Ludwig Schick of Bamberg; Bishop Gregor Hanke of Eichstätt; Bishop Konrad Zdarsa of Augsburg; Bishop Stefan Oster of Passau; Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer of Regensburg; Bishop Wolfgang Ipolt of Görlitz and Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, archbishop of Cologne.

None of the signatories, apart from Cardinal Woelki, were present for the May 3 meeting, which was held at the Vatican and conducted in German.

Members of the German delegation also included: Cardinal Marx; Bishop Felix Genn of Munster; Bishop Karl-Heinz Wiesemann of Speyer and president of the Doctrinal Commission for the German bishops conference; Bishop Gerhard Feige of Magdeburg and president of the German bishops’ Commission for Ecumenism and Fr. Hans Langendörfer SJ, secretary of the German bishops conference.

On the Vatican side, the meeting was attended by: Archbishop Ladaria; Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity; Msgr. Markus Graulich, undersecretary for the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts and Fr. Herman Geissler, who serves as a kind of office manager for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

During the meeting, several questions were discussed, centered around the relationship between faith and pastoral care.

Archbishop Ladaria will now inform Pope Francis about the discussion, which the Vatican said took place in a “cordial and fraternal atmosphere.”

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Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/ACI Prensa

Rome Newsroom, Jan 3, 2024 / 18:20 pm (CNA).
Amid significant confusion about the Vatican’s recent guidance on same-sex blessings, the document’s architect has lashed out at t… […]

Paris, France, Apr 15, 2019 / 05:14 pm (CNA).- Shortly after midnight Tuesday, firefighters said the main structure of Notre-Dame de Paris, the city’s cathedral, had been preserved from collapse.

“We now believe that the two towers of Notre-Dame have been saved,” Jean-Claude Gallet, Paris’ fire chief, said April 16. “We now consider that the main structure of Notre-Dame has been saved and preserved.”

Archbishop Michel Aupetit of Paris Tweeted: “As I speak, it seems that the towers of the facade of Notre-Dame are saved. The whole diocese prayed, and I joined the young people who were praying at Fontaine Saint-Michel. Let us remain united more than ever, in Hope.”

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said that “we will rebuild” the cathedral, and shared his relief that “the worst had been avoided,” while adding, “the next hours will be difficult.”

A fire broke out in the cathedral shortly before 7 pm April 15. The roof and the spire, which dated to the 19th century, were destroyed.

Some 400 firefighters worked to put out the blaze, and Reuters reported one firefighter has been seriously injured.

Firefighters will continue working overnight to prevent interior structures from collapsing.

Paris’ prosecutor has said it is inquiring into “accidental destruction by fire.”

Reports indicate that the major religious and artistic treasures of the cathedral were removed as the fire began, including a relic of the crown of thorns.

Etienne Loraillère, an editor at France’s KTO Catholic Television, reported that “Fr. Fournier, chaplain of the Paris Firefighters, went with the firefighters into Notre-Dame cathedral to save the crown of thorns and the Blessed Sacrament.”

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”fr” dir=”ltr”>Le père Fournier, aumônier des <a href=”https://twitter.com/PompiersParis?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@PompiersParis</a>, est allé avec des pompiers dans la cathédrale <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/NotreDame?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#NotreDame</a> pour sauver la couronne d’épines et le Saint-Sacrement… <a href=”https://t.co/4IoLVdoJZW”>pic.twitter.com/4IoLVdoJZW</a></p>&mdash; Etienne Loraillère ن (@Eloraillere) <a href=”https://twitter.com/Eloraillere/status/1117900607329714177?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>April 15, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>

Originally built between the twelfth through fourteenth centuries, the landmark cathedral in the French capital is one of the most recognizable churches in the world, receiving more than 12 million visitors each year.

The cathedral was undergoing some restorative work at the time the fire broke out, though it is unknown if the fire originated in the area of the work.

Officials had been in the process of a massive fundraising effort to renovate the cathedral against centuries of decay, pollution, and an inundation of visitors. French conservationists and the archdiocese announced in 2017 that the renovations needed for the building’s structural integrity could cost as much as $112 million to complete.

The Holy See press office stated that it has received the news of the fire “with shock and sadness,” calling Notre-Dame de Paris “a symbol of Christianity in France and in the world.”

“We express closeness to the Catholics of France and to the population of Paris and assure them of our prayers for the firemen and those doing everything possible in the face of this dramatic situation.”

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