CARDINAL WALTER KASPER'S INTERVIEW ON THE SYNOD OF BISHOPS

WEDDING INVITATION. Pope Francis presides at the wedding of 20 couples on Sept. 14. 

My Dear Sisters and Brothers:

America magazine's Rome correspondent, Gerard O'Connell, conducted an interview with Cardinal Walter Kasper, the former president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Promotion of Christian Unity, one-time university professor and former bishop of Rottenberg-Stuttgard in Germany, several days before the Synod opened on October 5th. Kasper is an erudite scholar and theologian whom Pope Francis chose last February to address the Consistory of Cardinals about the issues and questions impacting the family around the world in preparation for the Synod.  

In response to a number of salient questions Kasper offered some hopeful and surprising answers. Regarding the delicate matter of permitting the reception of the Eucharist in certain cases for divorced Catholics who have entered a second marriage without an annulment the Cardinal envisaged a way forward for some such couples. However, Kasper also cautioned that "The problem of the divorced and remarried is one problem, but not the only one. Some media give the impression that there will be a breakthrough and started a campaign for it. I, too, hope there will be a responsible opening, but it's an open question, to be decided by the synod. We should be prudent with such fixations. Otherwise, if this doesn't happen, the reaction will be great disillusion."

On the question of changing doctrine, Kasper made a very clear and important statement. "Doctrine, insofar as it is official binding doctrine, cannot be changed. So nobody denies the indissolubility of marriage...but discipline can be changed. Discipline wants to apply a doctrine to concrete situations, which are contingent and can change. So also discipline can change and has already changed often, as we see in Church history."

Toward the close of his interview the Cardinal returned to the neuralgic issue of the divorced and remarried which appears to be changing a good deal in the Church. He said in response to this idea: "Yes, it is changing the whole atmosphere, the style in the Church, and gives the image of the Church as a dialogical Church. This goes back to what John XXIII wanted and also what

Paul Vi wanted in his first encyclical on the dialogue in the Church.

"In these last weeks I read again what Benedict said in his famous talk to the Roman Curia about the hermeneutics of continuity regarding the Second Vatican Council. He was very clear: (there is) continuity in the principles, but there is discontinuity in the application of the doctrine to concrete situations. He said there is continuity with newness and a discontinuity, because the principles have to be applied to a changing reality, as was done (at the council) in the question of religious freedom."

To read the entire interview with the Cardinal, please click here.