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Remarried German president raises divorce issue with pope
Sep 22, 2011, 10:28 GMT
Berlin - Germany President Christian Wulff, a Catholic who has remarried, appealed to the pope Thursday to treat divorced people 'charitably.'
'The church is not a parallel society. It lives in the midst of this society, in the midst of this world, in the midst of these times. This is why it is always challenged by new issues,' Wulff said as he greeted Pope Benedict XVI in Berlin.
'How charitably does it deal with break-ups in the life-stories of people, with the break-ups in its own history, and with the bad behaviour of its own dignitaries?' he said, referring to Catholic rules which do not recognize remarriage as valid.
The pope, who sat and listened quietly as Wulff spoke, had earlier shaken hands with Wulff's second wife, Bettina, as the Wulffs welcomed him to the presidential palace in Berlin.
German churches often make exceptions to the canon-law rule barring remarried people from receiving Holy Communion at mass, but the issue is one of the most fractious ones among German Catholics.
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