Divisons Loom over Gays and Divorce before Pope's Synod on Family

By Ruth Gledhill
Christian Today
September 29, 2015

http://www.christiantoday.com/article/divisons.loom.over.gays.and.divorce.before.popes.synod.on.family/66110.htm

Divisions are looming in advance of the Pope's Synod on the Family next month.


Nearly 800,000 Catholics, including more than 200 cardinals, bishops and archbishops, have written to the Pope appealing for clarity and warning of a "breach" in the Church over gays and marriage.

At the same time, an influential group of lesbian and gay Catholics from the UK have called in advance of the synod for the Church to take the opportunity of the coming Synod to look again at Church teachings because, the group says, they have "caused immense psychological, spiritual, and pastoral damage not only to homosexual persons, but also to their parents and families."

Pope Francis leading the synod of bishops at the Vatican in October last year. Communion for divorcees is one of a number of contentious issues that will be considered at this year's synod.

The conservative lay group Voice of the Family has submitted a 'Filial Appeal' signed by 790,190 Catholics, including 201 cardinals, archbishops and bishops, to Pope Francis calling on him to say "a clarifying word" to dissipate the "widespread confusion arising from the possibility that a breach has been opened within the Church that would accept adultery—by permitting divorced and then civilly remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion—and would virtually accept even homosexual unions when such practices are categorically condemned as being contrary to Divine and natural law."

The appeal was launched after the first Synod on the Family ended in October last year and has gained hundreds of thousands of signatures in the last few months.