Cardinal Marx ‘surprised’ at Pope’s decision on German intercommunion proposal

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The official Vatican news website entitled its report on the CDF letter with the words “Pope: Communion for Protestants married to Catholics requires further study,” thus implying that in the future, such an intercommunion handout still might be published. With the same encouraging direction, the article also states:

Pope Francis has invited German bishops to await legislation that is applicable to the whole universal Church on the delicate question of allowing Protestants who are married to Catholics to receive Communion in Catholic Churches.

On the other hand, progressivist voices in Germany are indignant over this papal decision to halt – or delay – the German advance in favor of intercommunion, and they do not see any further encouragement for it. The German Catholic grassroot movement We Are Church (“Wir Sind Kirche”) posted a comment on June 5. “Many Catholics are very irritated” about this new CDF letter, they state, adding that the letter of the seven German bishops openly opposing the German intercommunion handout “was not a good sign.” The group regrets that “a minority of German bishops” still “so vehemently resists further visible signs of ecumenism,” and this in spite of the fact “that the Vatican had signaled, a year ago, that it would accept an opening with regard to the question of the last supper [sic], if the German bishops' conference would make concrete proposals.”

This last comment might be especially significant now because it was certainly not made public at the time that the Vatican had made such encouraging gestures toward a possible German intercommunion handout. LifeSiteNews reached out to We Are Church, requesting more information on this earlier encouragement from the Vatican. In a response to our request, the group said that it was Cardinal Walter Kasper who during the Luther Year 2017 signaled that he expected with regard to intercommunion some “concrete steps forward,” adding that “the decision is now up to the German bishops.” Since Cardinal Kasper works closely together with Pope Francis, his words might very well have been taken by some German bishops as a hint to move forward in this matter.

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https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/cardinal-marx-surprised-at-popes-demurral-over-german-intercommunion-propos