That door referred to the possibility, in some extraordinary cases, of divorced and remarried Catholics receiving Communion—a door which had previously been closed by Pope John Paul II.
Many articles and blogs were subsequently written about whether or not Francis had the authority to “open” that door, and the debate became highly technical.
Often lacking in these commentaries, however, was a clear understanding of Francis’ pastoral approach that led him and the bishops at the 2015 synod on the family to make such a move.
Pope Francis did not “open the door” to Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics because he desired that outcome per se. He opened that door because it’s the natural consequence of an incarnational pastoral accompaniment of persons living in complex situations.
This principle “calls for rejecting the various means of masking reality: angelic forms of purity, dictatorships of relativism, empty rhetoric, objectives more ideal than real, brands of ahistorical fundamentalism, ethical systems bereft of kindness, intellectual discourse bereft of wisdom,” Francis writes in Evangelii Gaudium 231.
This principle can be applied to other reforms Francis has instituted, like the reform of the annulment process in 2015. The Francis Impact (to be released in the coming months) tells the story of a couple who had difficulty moving through the annulment process prior to Francis’ reforms. The process took years.
The reforms, which Fr. Frank helped draft, streamlined the annulment process and assuaged the consciences of countless Catholics seeking a judgement.
Fr. Frank’s #TFImoment captures one of the most important principles for Pope Francis: reality is greater than ideas. It’s the hermeneutical key that has opened many of the doors we’ve walked through over the passed five and a half years.