Chesterton says "the reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right."

The Cardinal is right in saying that there is a problem now--loyal Catholics have been divorcing and remarrying in disturbing numbers. His solution, however, is dead wrong: Wave the magic wand of conscience--and the problem will go away.

The important question is why this problem of divorced/remarried Catholics is happening. Most--even liberals--say it's due to the pressures of contemporary post-modern culture. Why is the Church so vulnerable to cultural influences? The obvious answer is enculturation, especially enculturated (vernacular) liturgy.

According to Vat II, it is the liturgy that is the source of Christian life.

If I hadn't seen this, I don't think I would have ever realized what Cardinal Kasper's actual position was. Watching catholic media- I thought he was trying to say that the church should allow all divorced and remarried to receive communion after a penitential period, and that second marriages are possible.

It turns out he is neither denying that the first marriage was valid, nor that a second marriage is invalid. He upholds this completely.

What he is suggesting is rather that in certain special cases to allow people to communion, not because the second marriage is valid (which it isn't, and he doesn't deny it isn't) but because the circumstances they are under make it such that their current state is not a state of mortal sin. In other words he is saying that two people who are not married can have sex under certain circumstances and it is not a mortal sin that would prevent them from receiving communion.

This is not what catholic media made me think his position was. I feel like they have presented him inaccurately.

However, according to the catechism, any deliberately chosen sexual act outside of a marriage is a mortal sin- hence even in the case where the woman's husband abandons her and she needs a man to take care of her, even in these circumstances I think it would still be a mortal sin, at least as far as the catechism teaches and therefore they couldn't receive communion.

If the woman in this example really needed a man to take care of her, she could have an asexual relationship with a man who lives with her and acts as her partner, but without any sexual contact. If the woman who brought her daughter to first communion was like this with her 'second husband', then the church would not be wrong in giving communion under these circumstances.

But otherwise it seems very clear in the church's teachings that deliberately chosen sexual acts outside of lawful marriage do necessarily prevent people from taking communion.