VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Oct. 18, 2014

VATICAN CITY
Wrapping up his global meeting of Catholic bishops on family issues — which has seen both decisive shifts in tone from the Vatican and heated debates over the church’s direction — Pope Francis called on bishops to find a middle path between doctrine and reality.

Emphatically calling on the prelates to “feed the flock” and to search for lost sheep, the pontiff also directed them to avoid the temptation to become either a “hostile rigorist” concerned only with enforcing church doctrine or a “destructive do-gooder” that advocates “false mercy” instead of truth telling.

Saying the some 190 prelates at the meeting faced ”moments of desolation, tension and temptations,” the pope also warned against the temptation to “transform bread into stone and throw it against the sinners, the weak, and the sick — to turn…