March 28, 2024

Vatican City (CNS) – Cardinal-designate Kevin J. Farrell believes the U.S. bishops as a whole should have discussed pastoral guidelines for implementing Pope Francis’ exhortation on the family before individual bishops began issuing guidelines for their own dioceses. Implementing the pope’s exhortation, “Amoris Laetitia,” he said, “has to be done in communion with our bishops. I think that it would have been wiser to wait for the gathering of the conference of bishops where all the bishops of the United States or all the bishops of a country would sit down and discuss these things.” The committee that produced the report was headed by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia, head of the U.S. bishops’ ad hoc committee for implementing “Amoris Laetitia.” The archbishop attended the extraordinary and ordinary synods of bishops on the family, in 2014 and 2015. In July, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia issued its own pastoral guidelines on “Amoris Laetitia.” Since then other bishops have issued guidelines on the document and pastoral discernment and accompaniment of married couples.