Divorced and remarried couples deserve understanding, leniency – Pope Francis

Pope FrancisDivorced people who have remarried “are still part of the Church” and should not be treated as if they have been excommunicated or cast out, Pope Francis said on Wednesday.

Speaking to a large crowd at the Vatican on Wednesday morning, Francis’ brief address focused primarily on Catholics who are divorced or remarried “outside the church”, or without getting an annulment to the first marriage.

Pope Francis has emphasized that there should be mercy, and there is hope that he might lift the communion ban. Catholics who divorce after a church marriage however do not take up a brand new union, corresponding to a second marriage, can obtain Communion.

In October, a synod of bishops will gather to follow up on a similar gathering last year on the topic of the family, with a top agenda item dealing with whether the church should change its approach to those divorced and remarried, or at least ease the access for annulments. Pope Francis greets a child as he arrives to lead his weekly audience in Paul VI hall at the Vatican August 5.

During a trip to Equador earlier this summer, Francis urged pilgrims to pray hard for “a miracle” at the synod, adding “families today need this miracle”.

“He wants the church to get over a psychology that if you’re divorced and remarried that you’re a lesser Catholic”, said Phillip Thompson, executive director of the Aquinas Center of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta.

The children of such couples suffer most and deserve particular care, the pope said. But Francis said there are plenty of ways they and their children should still be embraced by the church.

“These people are not excommunicated – they are not excommunicated!”

Resuming his Wednesday general audiences August. 5 after a month’s break, Pope Francis returned to the series of talks he has been giving on the family. “They are always part of the Church”. He said it does no good to try to keep them at a distance from the community.

Other than being widowed, the only possible way for Catholics to remarry is if they receive an annulment.

“If we look at these new unions through the eyes of small children… we see even more the urgency of developing in our communities a real welcome towards people who live in these situations”, he said. But he insisted on an attitude change in the church. One segment of the Catholic faithful is hoping that the synod with put an end to the ban on communion for divorced people.

The church also needs to also distinguish “between who underwent the separation in respect to how provoked it”, Francis said.