“Do you really believe, Cardinal, that a proposal to undermine marriage, in the West where everything is already falling apart, may serve to make anyone happy?” an Italian columnist asks.
The Catholic bishop of Middleborough hopes for "development" in Church teaching on "contraception, homosexuality, divorce and remarriage, cohabitation; even the position of women in the Church.”
The head of Pope Francis' commission of eight cardinals has accused the prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith of using "black and white" thinking in his defense of Church teaching on marriage.
Most Reverend Robert Zollitsch, Archbishop Emeritus of Freiburg, believes the German bishops’ proposal has the support of Pope Francis despite the opposition of the Pope’s doctrine chief. “A Prefect is not the Pope,” says Zollitsch.
Cardinal Walter Kasper has said bluntly, and in direct opposition to the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), that the rules will shortly be changed.
If the Vatican is surveying general acceptance of Catholic teaching among Catholics, much of the work has been done for them by polling organisations that have shown a steady plummet in nearly all indicators since the 1960s.