The document had created waves for highlighting the "precious support" that committed gay couples lend to one another, using language that was far more open and welcoming than the Catholic Church has employed in the past when referring to homosexuals.

At the same time, the report suggested that remarried Catholics could receive communion after a period of penance. Currently, the church denies communion to Catholics who have remarried, unless their first marriage is annulled.

A final vote on the document showed broad support for the original sections regarding gays and remarried Catholics, but it fell short of the two-third majority needed to retain them in their original in the synod's final report.

As a result of the vote, both portions were revised. The section originally applauding the "precious support" sometimes found in same-sex unions was dropped, replaced by language simply saying that gays must be "welcomed with respect and delicacy." On the topic of remarried Catholics, the final document largely expresses the need for further study on a solution.

After the release of the interim report last Monday, a fierce and remarkably public debate has opened among the bishops attending the meeting.

EARLIER COVERAGE

More conservative bishops vocally criticized the report, expressing concerns that it opened the door to an abandonment of Catholic teachings. For instance, U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke spoke forcefully against the document, arguing that the synod should hold the line on its core teachings and issue a strong statement in support of them.

More liberal bishops instead argued that the church needs to express more mercy and understanding toward people who are at odds with Vatican doctrine, without repudiating Catholic teachings on social issues. In interviews and statements during news conferences over the last two weeks, many spoke of concern over Catholics' widespread repudiation of the church's position on issues such as same-sex unions, contraception and divorce. They also spoke about the difficulty of ministering to families in crisis and fresh problems arising from nontraditional families, such as how to minister to children of gay couples.

"We can't say that because you are a homosexual, you can't experience the gospel," said German Cardinal Reinhard Marx during a news conference Friday. "That is not possible for me...We can't divide people into first-class and second-class Christians."

Addressing the bishops following the tally, Pope Francis , who authorized the publication of the vote on each section of the document, frankly addressed the fault lines that ran through the bishops' two-week debate. He warned against "the temptation of hostile rigidity" on the part of "so-called traditionalists," as well as "deceptive mercy" by "so-called progressives."

One must be aware of "the temptation...to throw stones at sinners," the pontiff said. But church leaders must also avoid "giving in to the worldly spirit, instead of purifying it in God's spirit."

The synod's final document isn't binding and is meant to serve as a guide for a year-long debate to be held in parishes around the world that will culminate next October in another synod in Rome on the family. That will produce recommendations for Pope Francis, who will make any final decisions sometime afterward.

While the synod isn't expected to change any of the church's core doctrine on issues related to the family, it could result in new guidance for priests in dealing with problems on the ground, such as the question of baptism of children of gay couples.

Saturday's vote against the references to gays and remarried Catholics could be considered a repudiation of Pope Francis's call for the church to focus more on the everyday problems of Catholics rather than do battle on church teachings.

The pontiff has frequently reiterated his fidelity to church doctrine, but has struck a radically different tone during his 19-month papacy. He garnered world-wide attention among Catholics and non-Catholics last year for his remark that, "If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?"

While the public focus of the synod has coalesced around the question of divorce and homosexual couples, the bishops have been discussing problems ranging from polygamy to families broken by forced migration, poverty and violence--problems of particular importance for fast-growing Asian and African churches.

Write to Deborah Ball at deborah.ball@wsj.com

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VATICAN CITY: Bishops scrap welcome to gays in sign of split

By Associated Press
October 18, 2014

Catholic bishops scrapped their landmark welcome to gays Saturday, showing deep divisions at the end of a two-week meeting sought by Pope Francis to chart a more merciful approach to ministering to Catholic families.

The bishops approved a final report covering a host of issues related to Catholic family life, acknowledging there were "positive elements" in civil heterosexual unions outside the church and even in cases when men and women were living together outside marriage.

They also said the church must respect Catholics in their moral evaluation of "methods used to regulate births," a seemingly significant deviation from church teaching barring any form of artificial contraception.

But the bishops failed to reach consensus on a watered-down section on ministering to homosexuals. The new section had stripped away the welcoming tone of acceptance contained in a draft document earlier in the week.

Rather than considering gays as individuals who had gifts to offer the church, the revised paragraph referred to homosexuality as one of the problems Catholic families face. It said "people with homosexual tendencies must be welcomed with respect and sensitivity," but repeated church teaching that marriage is only between a man and a woman.

The revised paragraph failed to reach the two-thirds majority needed to pass.

The full article can be read here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/bishops-revise-document-on-gays-expect-approval/2014/10/18/ba1c59a4-56c6-11e4-b86d-184ac281388d_story.html

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Conservative Cardinal Who Clashed With Pope Francis Confirms He Has Been Ousted
The head of the Catholic Church's highest court speaks to BuzzFeed News from the Vatican

By J. Lester Feder
BuzzFeed Staff
Oct. 17, 2014

A top cardinal told BuzzFeed News on Friday that the worldwide meeting of church leaders coming to a close in Rome seemed to have been designed to "weaken the church's teaching and practice" with the apparent blessing of Pope Francis.

Cardinal Raymond Burke, an American who heads the Vatican's highest court of canon law, made the remarks in a phone interview from the Vatican, where a two-week Extraordinary Synod on the Family will conclude this weekend. An interim report of the discussions released on Monday, called the Relatio, produced a widespread backlash among conservative bishops who said it suggested a radical change to the church's teaching on questions like divorce and homosexuality, and Burke has been among the most publicly critical of the bishops picked by Pope Francis to lead the discussion.

If Pope Francis had selected certain cardinals to steer the meeting to advance his personal views on matters like divorce and the treatment of LGBT people, Burke said, he would not be observing his mandate as the leader of the Catholic Church.

"According to my understanding of the church's teaching and discipline, no, it wouldn't be correct," Burke said, saying the pope had "done a lot of harm" by not stating "openly what his position is." Burke said the Pope had given the impression that he endorses some of the most controversial parts of the Relatio, especially on questions of divorce, because of a German cardinal who gave an important speech suggesting a path to allowing people who had divorced and remarried to receive communion, Cardinal Walter Kasper, to open the synod's discussion.

"The pope, more than anyone else as the pastor of the universal church, is bound to serve the truth," Burke said. "The pope is not free to change the church's teachings with regard to the immorality of homosexual acts or the insolubility of marriage or any other doctrine of the faith."

Burke has publicly clashed with the pope since Francis took office in 2013, and he has come to represent the sidelining of culture warriors elevated by Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict and as the top doctrinal official under Pope John Paul II. Burke, who caused controversy while bishop of St. Louis by saying Catholics who voted for politicians supportive of abortion rights should not receive communion, went on Catholic television in 2013 to rebut remarks Pope Francis made to an interviewer that the church had become "obsessed" with abortion and sexuality to the exclusion of other issues, saying, "We can never talk enough about that as long as in our society innocent and defenseless human life is being attacked in the most savage way," Burke said. While Francis famously responded to a question about homosexuality in 2013 by asking, "Who am I to judge?" Burke described homosexual "acts" as "always and everywhere wrong [and] evil" during an interview last week.

In the interview with BuzzFeed News, Burke confirmed publicly for the first time the rumors that he had been told Francis intended to demote him from the church's chief guardian of canon law to a minor post as patron to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

"I very much have enjoyed and have been happy to give this service, so it is a disappointment to leave it," Burke said, explaining that he hadn't yet received a formal notice of transfer. "On the other hand, in the church as priests, we always have to be ready to accept whatever assignment we're given. And so I trust, by accepting this assignment, I trust that God will bless me, and that's what's in the end most important."

When the pope first took office, his pivot away from an emphasis on questions of sexuality were more a matter of personal tone rather than changes in church policy or personnel. There were rumors that he was trying to oust the man chosen by Pope Benedict to head the church's office responsible for doctrine, Gerhard Müller, but last winter he instead elevated him from archbishop to cardinal. When word that Burke was on his way out began circulating last month, it signaled that Francis would take major steps to reshape the church. It coincided with the selection of a new archbishop of Chicago, Blase Cupich, whom Catholic progressives celebrated for positions like breaking with the American church hierarchy when it withheld its support for President Obama's health reform law over questions of abortion and contraception.

Internal discontent among conservatives inside church leadership began to simmer over in the weeks leading up to the synod. Just before it began, Burke, Müller, and other senior cardinals published a book in several languages attacking the ideaslaid out by Cardinal Walter Kasper on allowing those who had divorced and remarried to receive communion in a speech heartily praised by Pope Francis. It broke into open revolt at the midpoint of the synod, following publication of a document presented as a summary of discussions but that conservatives said misrepresented the debate by including passages on "welcoming homosexual persons" and discussing some of Kasper's proposal on divorce.

The backlash appeared to have been especially strong from the English-speaking world, which includes a large number of African and American bishops; in an apparent attempt to mollify anglophone conservatives, the Vatican released a new translation of the report that changed the phrase "welcoming homosexual persons" to "providing for homosexual persons" and made other small changes, while leaving the versions in all other languages unchanged.

The report is now being revised with feedback from small-group discussions held this week, and a final version is scheduled to be voted on on Saturday. Burke said he hoped that the committee writing the new report will produce a "worthy document," but said his "trust is a little bit shaken" by the language in the interim draft he said lacks "a good foundation either in the sacred scriptures or in the church's perennial teachings."

But there seems to be little middle ground between Pope Francis' worldview and Burke's. Francis was president of the Argentinian bishops conference when that country passed a marriage equality bill in 2010 and reportedly tried to convince his colleagues to support a civil union proposal instead. He lost the internal battle and gave voice to the hard-line consensus that the law was "sent by the devil." The fight over the bill left the church appearing out of step with the beliefs of many in Argentina, a country where 76% identify as Catholic but only 38.2% went to church in 2005, per the most recent data available from the Association of Religious Data Archives. While Francis has shown no sign he supports overhauling the church's teachings that homosexuality is sinful, he seems to have taken from this experience a desire to downplay conflicts over sexuality in order to broaden the church's message.

But, Burke said, the church must always call a "person who's involved in sinful acts ... to conversion in a loving way, but obviously, like a father or mother in a family, in a firm way for the person's own good." There cannot be "a difference between doctrine and practice" on questions like homosexuality or anything else, Burke said.

"The church doesn't exclude anyone who's of goodwill even if the person is suffering from same-sex attraction or even acting on that attraction," said Burke. "If people don't accept the church's teaching on these matters then they're not thinking with the church and they need to examine themselves on that and correct their thinking or leave the church if they absolutely can't accept. They're certainly not free to change the teaching of the church to suit their own ideas."

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