"Amoris Laetitia" Was a "Breakthrough" for Church - Cardinal Schönborn

Pope Francis’ post-synodal apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, published on April 8, 2016, was a “breakthrough” for the Church. This was stated by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, 81, of Vienna, who had presented the document at the Vatican ten years ago, in an interview with Kathpress.at on March 30.

In a footnote, Francis "allowed" adulterers to grab Holy Communion using the case-by-case trick. Cardinal Schönborn commented: "That Pope Francis addressed the question of whether divorced and remarried persons may receive Communion only in a small footnote deeply moved me personally."

“When I take the document from my bookshelf or even just think about it, it still brings me to tears,” he added.

For many people in the Church - and for him personally - the document represented a “huge sigh of relief.” The reason, he explained, is that Francis speaks “about real life.”

Families in “difficult” situations should not be constrained or judged according to "rigid criteria". Instead, one "must recognize" a heroism with which they bring children into the world and raise them under challenging circumstances.

Cardinal Schönborn added that Familiaris Consortio by Pope John Paul II had disappointed many people “because it was often far removed from the reality of people’s lives.” Francis, by contrast, placed the focus precisely there. However, for Schönborn there is "no contradiction" between the two documents.

He sees Amoris Laetitia as providing a new key for interpreting Familiaris Consortio.

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