Going into the home stretch, there’s no doubt that the Synod of Bishops on the Family will be judged by what it has to say about Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried. Pope Francis and his allies want to allow it under a regime of penance, as proposed by German Cardinal Walter Kasper. Conservatives, led by the chief of the Vatican’s doctrine bureau, German Cardinal Gerhard Müller, really really don’t.
Outsiders like me have to work to understand the depth of the latter’s resistance to a proposal that would do away with the hypocrisy of many annulments and make possible full ecclesial inclusion of Catholics who are eager to be included. In his column yesterday, the New York Times‘ Ross Douthat, indulging fully in what Pope Francis has criticized as “the hermeneutic of conspiracy,” accused the pontiff himself of being the ringleader of a “Plot to Change Catholicism.” How to account for such an outburst from a conservative Catholic?
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