Update on Cardinal Ratzinger and U.S. Communion Debate
I mentioned last week that Cardinal Ratzinger had taken some action, hitherto undisclosed, regarding the U.S. debate on withholding communion from dissenting politicians. There's been more fallout on that recently. Although no one is disclosing the actual text of the letter, several bishops have given divergent reports regarding its content, and Catholic World News even claims to have a copy, although even they will only summarize its contents. Here's an article with some links. I doubt we'll ever see the actual text, but that hasn't stopped every catholic news outlet in the country from speculating.
UPDATE: Here's a piece of correspondence by Phil Lawler of CWN, implying that he has evidence that Ratzinger has NOT encouraged U.S. bishops to take a "soft stance."
"Several media outlets, and even a couple of US bishops, have reported that in private conversations Cardinal Ratzinger urged the American bishops not to confront politicians. Our Vatican sources indicate those reports are inaccurate; he said no such thing."
# posted by Jamie : 8:50 AM
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