WHAT IS INTERCOMMUNION?
\nThe president of German bishops, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, and the archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, are meeting with the Vatican this week to clarify doubts involving intercommunion. <\/p>\n
It involves deciding whether Protestant spouses of Catholics who have faith in the Eucharist may receive Communion. <\/p>\n
WHY MEET AT THE VATICAN?
\nAs its already practiced in Germany, Cardinal Marx, president of the bishops, prepared a pastoral guide to assist these couples in which he authorizes intercommunion \u201cin some cases\u201d and \u201cunder certain conditions.\u201d For example, when they share the Catholic faith in the Eucharist and have explained their situation to the priest. <\/p>\n
The guide was approved by two-thirds of the country's bishops. <\/p>\n
The cardinal of Cologne, who voted against the guide, believes it involves a doctrinal issue and not a pastoral one, and that it cannot be unilaterally decided by an episcopal conference. Thus, he urged the Vatican to intervene and give clarification. Cardinal Marx, who had not been informed of the request, expressed his discontent and said he wished to personally explain the terms of the matter to the pope. <\/p>\n
WHO WILL PARTICIPATE IN THE MEETING?
\nPope Francis will not attend the meeting at the Vatican. It will be handled by high-ranking officials \u2013 such as the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Luis Ladaria; Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity; and Markus Graulich, under-secretary of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts. <\/p>\n
WHAT HAVE POPES SAID ABOUT INTERCOMMUNION? The pope admitted he had asked himself this question, and said theologians should give an answer. <\/p>\n POPE FRANCIS<\/strong> In his encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia, John Paul II authorized non-Catholic Christians receiving Communion in \u201cspecial circumstances\u201d in order to \u201csatisfy a grave spiritual need for eternal salvation of the faithful,\u201d but he added that \u201cintercommunion is not possible without re-establishment of all the visible bonds of ecclesial communion.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" May 3, 2018. They're considering that if they share the faith in the Eucharist and accompany their spouses, they may also be able to receive Communion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":23310,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"acf":{"video":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/zH_FQBaRcXU","video_descarga":"http:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/bclavesintercomunioneng.mp4","international_url":"http:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/bclavesintercomunionint.mp4","type":"rrp","newsletter":"si"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49430"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong>This woman asked Pope Francis about intercommunion during the Holy Father's visit to a Protestant church. <\/p>\n
\n\u201cI ask myself: Is sharing the Lord's Supper the end of the path or the travel allowance to walk together? I'll leave the question to the theologians, who are the ones that know. It's true that in a certain sense, sharing is like saying there are no longer differences between us, that we have the same doctrine \u2013 I highlight that word, hard to understand. But I wonder, don't we have the same baptism? If we have the same baptism, we must walk together.\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n