FRANCIS’ GUIDELINES FOR THE SYNOD
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The 2014 Synod is meant to generate the information necessary for Bishops to be aware of the modern moral problems of family life; the 2015 Synod is intended to have the Bishops decide a new approach of the Catholic Church on family morals.
A 20-couple-marriage
20 couples living in sin and giving public scandal surround
the Altar of the Confession at St. Peter's Basilica
The first bombastic initiative of Francis was to invite 20 couples from the Diocese of Rome to celebrate a solemn multiple wedding presided over by himself at St. Peter’s Basilica on Sunday, September 14, 2014.
Let me stress that this ceremony was not requested by the couples, who had little relationship among themselves, but directly by the Pope. He commanded his Vatican officials to invite those persons and select each particular case. By setting this out clearly, I am avoiding beforehand the eternal excuse of countless conservatives for anything you say about Bergoglio – “But, poor Pope Francis did not know about it…”
Among these couples selected by Francis were persons in three different types of irregular situations:
Couples in which one of the two had a civil divorce;
Couples cohabitating for a long period of time;
Couples with children out of the wedlock.
All of those persons were married simultaneously by Francis in a solemn Mass at the Vatican. The last such multiple marriage ceremony was in 2000 when John Paul II married eight couples from different parts of the world as part of the Jubilee for Families in the millennium.
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