VATICAN CITY
The Guardian (UK)
Lizzy Davies in Rome
The Guardian, Thursday 26 June 2014
The Vatican has blamed a pernicious mixture of insensitive priests, “conspicuously lavish” clerical lifestyles, the sex abuse scandal and a morally-lax modern culture dominated by the mass media for large numbers of Catholics no longer living their private lives according to church teachings.
In a document seen as the working paper for a hotly-anticipated meeting later this year, the Vatican said responses to a questionnaire it sent out globally last year showed that many ordinary believers were either ignorant of teachings on topics such as marriage and divorce or regarded them as overly intrusive.
The document found that insufficiently clear explanations, bad homilies and ill-prepared priests sometimes appeared to be to blame for the gulf between theory and practice. But it added: “On the other hand, many respondents confirmed that, even when the Church’s teachings about marriage and the family is known, many Christians have difficulty accepting it in its entirety.”
Pope Francis announced last year that the theme of October’s extraordinary session of the bishops’ synod would be devoted to the family, and the challenges the church faces when trying to connect with its flock on issues such as abortion, gay rights and artificial contraception.
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