Poland: Bishops’ Plenary, final statement on “irregular” couples, reception of migrants, priests and child abuse

The need for better formation in seminaries, loving accompaniment for divorced persons, as well as the obligation to report religious who are accused of child abuse to civil authorities: these are the main issues addressed in the final statement released by the Polish Bishops at the end of their 376th plenary meeting. The Bishops have announced that the “Directory responsible for the pastoral care of irregular couples will be ready by the end of the year”. “There is no change in the doctrine concerning the administration of the Eucharist to people living in irregular unions”, the spokesperson for the Bishops, Fr. Pawel Rytel-Andrianik, declared after the meeting, recalling that “the state of sanctifying grace” is “a necessary prerequisite for receiving the Eucharist”. Reporting to civil authorities those religious who break the sixth Commandment with under-18s, by contrast, is to be seen as an effort to align the ecclesiastic laws with the more restrictive laws that will come into force in Poland in mid-July. Furthermore, the Bishops have reiterated their appeal to guarantee the legal protection of conceived children by recognising it as a Constitutional right. As regards the migration crisis and the “large presence of immigrants from the East and particularly from Ukraine”, the Bishops “urge to seek answers to these challenges in the Gospels”, reads the statement, which also deals with other issues regarding Poland, such as the pastoral programme for 2017-2018.

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