NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

      VATICAN (CWNews.com) -- The Vatican library has produced a new 130-page book which brings together a series of official Church statements on the status of Catholics who divorce and remarry.

      The new volume--a project suggested by Pope John Paul II--includes only statements which have been previously published, but groups them under one heading in order to provide a single source of advice for priests working with divorced Catholics. The book was produced under the supervision of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the prefect of that dicastery, wrote an introduction.

      There are "certain ecclesial responsibilities" which Catholics who are divorced and remarried cannot exercise, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote, insofar as those activities require "a particular witness to Christian life." Nevertheless, Catholics who are living in irregular unions should be encouraged to participate in the life of the Church insofar as that is possible, he added. "Members of the faithful who divorce and remarry remain members of the People of God," the cardinal pointed out. While they cannot properly receive Holy Communion, he continued, "If they accept that situation with an interior conviction, they can thus bear witness in their own way to the indissolubility of marriage and their fidelity to the Church."