Argentine Directives in AAS - A Canon Lawyer's Assessment



Edward Peters, the Canon Lawyer, has just posted a blog on the appearance of the pope’s letter to the Argentine bishops in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis as I reported yesterday here.
"Unless Canon 915 itself is directly revoked, gutted, or neutered, it binds ministers of holy Communion to withhold that most august sacrament from, among others, divorced-and-remarried Catholics except where such couples live as brother-sister and without scandal to the community.
Nothing I have seen to date, including the appearance of the pope’s and Argentine bishops’ letters in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, makes me think that Canon 915 has suffered such a fate."
Dr. Peters seems to be saying that, basically, the pope's inclusion of this in the AAS holds no authority as it does not address Canon 915, although this is a legal rather than a theological approach to the question. Equally one could say that it cannot be binding on Catholics because it is either unclear or contradicts what we are already bound to believe.

So now we have a Pope who is at odds with Canon Law?

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