Polish Bishops Sidestep Communion Debate in New ‘Amoris Laetitia’ Guidelines

Crux ^ | 6/10/18 | Charles Collins

[marshmallow]

Bishops in Poland have said the Church needs to serve “people living in irregular relationships according to the pastoral criteria proposed by Pope Francis: Acceptance, accompaniment, discernment and integration.”

The statement came in a set of pastoral guidelines issued for Francis’s 2016 document on the family, Amoris Laetitia.

During their June 2017 plenary assembly, the Polish bishops issued a statement saying Amoris Laetitia had not changed Church doctrine on the practice of forbidding Communion to the divorced and civilly remarried, citing Pope John Paul II’s exhortation Familiaris Consortio.

However, the bishops in 2017 said they would be producing official guidelines at a later date.

After a year, these guidelines were adopted on June 8, 2018, while the Polish Bishops’ Conference held its 379th plenary meeting in Siedlce.

In the document, the bishops do not directly address the issue of giving Communion for divorced-and-civilly married Catholics, but the Polish hierarchy does devote an entire section to Amoris Laetitia’s controversial chapter 8, which seems to offer a cautious opening to changing Church practice.