(CNN—Jill Filipovic) – Is Catholicism about faith and
compassion, or rigid doctrine and exclusion? According to a group of
conservative Catholics who just accused Pope Francis of spreading heresy,
it's the latter.
Sixty-two (somewhat marginal) Catholic
scholars and clergy have signed a letter that disputes Francis' signaling of
his willingness to allow divorced and remarried people to receive communion.
This, they say, is immoral and heretical, a sign of Francis "misleading
the flock." Far better, in this retrograde reading of doctrine, to
ostracize and shame the remarried as "adulterers" and the divorced as
sinful failures.
Really?
I've seen how this "old way"
played out in my own family, and it puts Pope Francis' more reform-minded
church in useful perspective. My grandparents were devout Catholics, married
young, and had five children; my grandfather also beat my grandmother. She eventually
left -- a painful and terrifying decision for a woman with only a high school
degree in 1950s America. She supported the five kids by working multiple
low-wage jobs at once. He did his damnedest to skirt financial responsibility,
and she struggled her entire life.
