Communion for divorced and remarried “closed case,” says cardinal

Rome, Oct. 28, 2005 (CNA) - In an interview published Thursday in the Italian daily La Reppublica, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, said the issue of no Communion for the divorced and remarried is closed.

“The case is closed. There is no doubt. The divorced and remarried cannot receive Communion. It makes no sense to raise hopes that the position will be changed,” he said.

The cardinal noted that these cases represent “painful and dramatic situations, and they are a wound that we make our own. But everything has been considered with pastoral prudence and clarity of teaching.”
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Cardinal Lopez Trujillo noted that Pope Benedict XVI, when he was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, sent a letter to Cardinal Kasper and two other German bishops in which he pointed out that “no modification of this doctrine is possible.”

“The letter was signed by Cardinal Ratzinger and approved by John Paul II. You cannot put the current Pope in contradiction with Cardinal Ratzinger. No modification of this doctrine is possible. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith never left a door open. It is not a disputed or disputable question,” he stated.

Article here.