Marco Tosatti
[Senior Religion Correspondent for Italian Daily] La Stampa
November 19, 2014
In Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s complete works, an article
from 1972 by the young theologian Father
Ratzinger, has been published minus a passage referring to the possibility of
Communion for the divorced and remarried.
This deletion is interesting since that passage has been quoted frequently by Cardinal Walter Kasper, who, as was noted at the Synod, is a an enthusiastic advocate of the divorced and remarried being admitted to the Eucharist.
According to the Irish Times, Father Vincent Twomey (a theologian, who studied under Professor Ratzinger) is of the opinion that the editorial modification is important; the theologian suggests that Pope Emeritus does not want his ideas as a young theologian, never repeated as Prefect for the Congregation of Faith nor as Pope, being manipulated.
In the original text of 1972, the then Father Joseph Ratzinger, wrote that marriage was indissoluble in the eyes of the Catholic Church. However, if “a second marriage showed evidence of having taken on a moral and ethical dimension and 'lived in the spirit of faith' with 'moral obligations' to the wife and children, then an opening toward [reception] of the Eucharist, after a period of probation, 'seems to be nothing more than fair and completely in keeping with the Church’s line of tradition.'”
According to Twomey, the omission “is an important attempt” on the part of Benedict to make sure that his words, written in another context, will not be used against him.
This deletion is interesting since that passage has been quoted frequently by Cardinal Walter Kasper, who, as was noted at the Synod, is a an enthusiastic advocate of the divorced and remarried being admitted to the Eucharist.
According to the Irish Times, Father Vincent Twomey (a theologian, who studied under Professor Ratzinger) is of the opinion that the editorial modification is important; the theologian suggests that Pope Emeritus does not want his ideas as a young theologian, never repeated as Prefect for the Congregation of Faith nor as Pope, being manipulated.
In the original text of 1972, the then Father Joseph Ratzinger, wrote that marriage was indissoluble in the eyes of the Catholic Church. However, if “a second marriage showed evidence of having taken on a moral and ethical dimension and 'lived in the spirit of faith' with 'moral obligations' to the wife and children, then an opening toward [reception] of the Eucharist, after a period of probation, 'seems to be nothing more than fair and completely in keeping with the Church’s line of tradition.'”
According to Twomey, the omission “is an important attempt” on the part of Benedict to make sure that his words, written in another context, will not be used against him.
