This Bishop is Wrong

In what is now becoming a civil war in the Catholic church, at least one Bishop is just plain wrong (assuming that his remarks are correctly reported.)

Amoris Laetitia opens a new door that goes beyond Familiaris Consortio and does away with unnecessarily harsh requirements from the Catholic Church with regard to chastity, according to a recent presentation on the Apostolic Exhortation by Bishop Marcello Semeraro in Spain....

(Significant is the fact that this address was delivered at a Jebby university, no?)

...Regarding the regulation for Catholics who have entered a second civil union after a prior sacramental marriage (and civil divorce) to live as brother and sister in order to receive the sacraments, Bishop Semeraro qualified: “What would it mean that people who have children live as brother and sister? The step forward of Amoris Laetitia, with respect to Familiaris Consortio, is that they [the civilly remarried] can express their affection in their situation, and this is where the accompaniment and guidance of the spiritual director would enter into play.” He added with more clarity: “It is not a brother and sister relationship but a conjugal relationship. They are people who have children and have responsibilities in their relationship.” He claimed to support his interpretation with earlier Church magisterial teaching: “Gaudium et spes says that spouses who abstain from marital relations endanger their relationship and may commit infidelities.”...

That is--without a doubt--the clearest piece of backwards logic I have ever seen from a Bishop, or anyone else, for that matter.  He claims that an adulterous relationship demands sexual 'expression' according to Familiaris--or expressed the other way around, that Famliaris requires conjugal relations even in an adulterous relationship.

Stunning.  And wrong.