COMMENTARY: A decade on, Leo seems intent on recovering Francis’ vision of marriage and family rather than reheating the Communion debate.
This week Pope Leo will preside over a meeting of bishops to discuss the pastoral application of the post-synodal apostolic exhortation of Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia, which was promulgated on March 19, 2016.
After 10 years of reflection on this groundbreaking and controversial text, it seems to many that Pope Leo now wants to attempt a deeper discernment of Amoris that goes beyond the polemics that have marred its reception in the broader Church.
Specifically, the focus in the immediate aftermath of the text was on the question of Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried. Amoris seemed to open the door to allowing for a softening of the Catholic Church’s Eucharistic discipline in this matter, granting to pastors, after a period of “accompaniment” with the couples in question, the power to allow such couples to receive Communion in certain, very limited, circumstances, such as when living as “brother and sister” would harm the bond of a marriage in which children are involved (footnote 329):
In such situations, many people, knowing and accepting the possibility of living
