"The countdown is on for Francis’ big decision on the family"

cruxnow.com

ROME — Pope Francis celebrated a Mass for the Holy Family on Sunday, designed as a reminder of the spiritual and pastoral importance of the family in the context of his Holy Year of Mercy. Plans called for similar Masses to be held around the world in basilicas where there’s a holy door for the jubilee year.

“Let us not lose confidence in the family!” Francis said, telling families gathered with him in St. Peter’s Basilica that the world and the Church need them “now more than ever.”

In terms of Church politics, however, Sunday’s Mass was also a reminder that we’re on a countdown to perhaps the biggest decision of Francis’ papacy, on a question that arises directly from his two recent Synods of Bishops on the family.

Sometime soon, Francis is expected to issue his own conclusions on the synods in the form of a document, technically known as an “apostolic exhortation.” Veteran Italian Vatican writer Marco Tosatti recently reported that the document could appear as early as February, while others suggest a March release date, perhaps tied to the feast of St. Joseph on March 19.

On Sunday, the official newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference restricted itself to saying the document is expected “in the spring.”

While the two synods, one held in October 2014 and the other this past October, touched on a wide variety of topics, by far the single most contested question was that of whether to allow divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion. It’s become a key test of exactly how far Francis is willing to go in terms of rethinking traditional Catholic teaching and practice.

It’s telling that after two synods debated the issue at length, agonizing over every comma in concluding language on the subject, it’s now a matter of controversy exactly what that language meant.

In November, the Rev. Antonio Spadaro, a Jesuit known to be close to Pope Francis, published an article in La Civiltà Cattolica saying that the 2015 bishops’ summit “laid the basis for access to the sacraments, opening a door that had remained closed in the preceding synod.”

That claim raised eyebrows, in part because the Jesuit-edited Civiltà Cattolica enjoys a semi-official status in the Vatican and is reviewed prior to publication, in part because Spadaro is rumored to be among an informal group advising Pope Francis on his document.