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"German Dioceses Respond To ‘Give Protestants Communion’ Guidelines"
onepeterfive.com
"At an astonishing pace, one third of the 27 German dioceses have already now come out with statements concerning the recently published controversial intercommunion guide of the German Bishops’ Conference. Only one diocese has, so far, declared that it will hold back on implementing the new guide allowing, in individual cases, Protestant spouses of Catholics to receive Holy Communion on a regular basis, and without converting to the Catholic Faith, and even without a prior sacramental confession.
The most troubling message came out just last week from the bishop of Würzburg, Franz Jung, who invited, for the weekend of 5 and 6 July, all Protestant spouses of Catholics to Holy Communion who celebrated their wedding anniversary (of 50 to 60 years) with him at his cathedral of St. Kilian. As he said during his homily on 6 July, every Protestant spouse was invited to Holy Communion. He added only these qualifying words: 'when they feel disposed to do so.' No earlier pastoral conversation prior to that event was required. Bishop Jung, moreover, had the backing of the diocesan council for this permissive approach.
As the German Catholic newspaper Die Tagespost now reports in its new edition, the Diocese of Würzburg responded to the paper’s request for further information with the statement that this unusual move is 'in accordance with the precepts of the Church’s law.'...
Hans-Josef Becker, Archbishop of Paderborn, was the first to declare, only three days after the publication of the controversial intercommunion document allowing some Protestant spouses of Catholics to receive Holy Communion, that he was to follow the guide in his diocese. Stefan Heße, archbishop of Hamburg, handed the intercommunion guide to his priests and recommended it to them 'as a possibility as to how there could be the reception of Holy Communion in individual cases.' Bishop Gerhard Feige, of Magdeburg, who is known to have co-authored the controversial document, also sent it out to all of his priests...
Additionally, Bishop Ulrich Neymeyr (Erfurt), Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck (Essen), and Bishop Karl-Heinz Wiesemann (Speyer) have all approved of the new approach to Communion for Protestant spouses of Catholics for their own dioceses.
As was to be expected, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the president of the German bishops, also announced that he will implement the intercommunion guide for his own Diocese of Freising-Munich.
Thus, it can be seen that many German bishops already treated this new 'guide' as if it were a fully official and authoritative document...
Archbishop Ludwig Schick, of Bamberg, now joins the supporters of the intercommunion guide, thus abandoning his former resistance, and he now allows now some Protestant spouses to receive Holy Communion...
In the middle of this new German 'pluralism,' Father Stefan Jürgens, a priest of the Diocese of Münster, made headlines by commenting in his own parish bulletin on the intercommunion debate with these words: 'In our parish, all those baptized who are admitted to the last supper in their own churches may come to Holy Communion. For that, one does not have to live in a mixed marriage, but simply has to be a Christian.'"
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