Cardinal Schönborn: Pope Francis has already changed church
by Christa Pongratz-Lippitt | Feb. 7, 2014
"It is fascinating to see how Pope Francis is encouraging, reviving and renewing the church. Our meeting with him was an excellent lesson on how to live the Gospel today," Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna said after a 90-minute audience with the pope during the Austrian bishops' "ad limina" visit to the Vatican in the last week of January.
The Austrian bishops took the results of the recent Vatican questionnaire to Rome with them. Responses showed that 95 percent of those who had filled out the questionnaire in Austria were in favor of allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive the sacraments.
The subject of family relationships today and how the church should deal with them played an important role at the Jan. 30 meeting with the pope, Schönborn said. "We cannot speak about people without speaking about families," Francis said, explaining that was why the subject of the coming Synod of Bishops in October had been altered from bioethics to the family.
Francis spoke of his experiences in Latin America, where the situation of marriage and the family was, to a certain extent, "far more dramatic" than in Europe, Schönborn said. It is important to realize that today many couples live together without getting married and have children, then later marry in a registry office, with some opting for a church marriage, the pope explained. The church must take this way of life seriously and accompany the couples on their way, Francis underlined. His basic message was "Don't judge, but look closely and listen very carefully," Schönborn said.
http://ncronline.org/news/global/cardinal-sch-nborn-pope-francis-has-already-changed-church
If nothing else he's gotten a Dominican to praise a Jesuit.