Pope Francis Just Made It a Little Easier for Catholics to Marry Jews

[Uncle Joe]

New Church document urges viewing intermarriage as an opportunity for cross-faith dialogue rather than for converting non-Catholic spouses.

MILAN – Though the pope stopped short Friday of granting Catholics his official permission to marry Jews and members of other faiths, he did significantly soften the Church’s stance on marriage between Catholics and members of other faiths. Interfaith marriage is on the rise anyway, Pope Francis acknowledged in his eagerly awaited apostolic exhortation on marriage and family. And besides, the Vatican no longer endorses actively trying to convert members of other religions to Catholicism – why not look at interfaith marriage as an opportunity to encourage dialogue between members of different religions?

Francis’ “Amoris Laetitia” (Latin for “The Joy of Love”) has gotten a lot of attention for its generally more lenient approach to divorce and gay marriage, but perhaps more significant to non-Catholics is the pope’s decrees on interfaith marriage – an issue with which the Jewish world is currently grappling as well.

In the 256-page Church document, Francis deals separately with the issues of marriage between Catholics and non-Catholic Christians, which the Vatican defines as “mixed marriages,” and those between Catholics and members of other religions. The latter are more problematic and pose more significant challenges, especially with regard to “the Christian identity of the family and the religious upbringing of the children,” he says. However, marriages to non-Christians are also “a privileged place for interreligious dialogue,” the pope declared – in other words, they are a chance for the Catholic church to strike up dialogue with different religions.

(snip)

“Nowadays the climate is very different: The Church is no longer endorsing a policy of missionary conversion, especially toward Jews. So interfaith marriages are seen as an ‘opportunity’ to start a positive dialogue [about faith] with the non-Catholic spouse, rather than an occasion to convert him or her,” he says.

Francis has repeatedly stated that Catholics should not try to convert Jews.


http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/features/.premium-1.713693

[MADem]

1. Amoris Laetitia is basically the recipe for the Secret Sauce.

It changes nothing, but it explains why Ted Kennedy took communion after divorcing Joan and marrying Vicki, it explains why Jackie Kennedy Onassis did the same after marrying/divorcing Onassis and "living in sin" in NYC.

It was always there--it just wasn't promulgated....