Rottweiler or German shepherd?

Papa Ratzi continues to surprise. First an encyclical on sex and love devoid of condemnations (though highlighting a few concerns and warnings) and now this: B16 encouraged the Roman Rota, the court responsible for annulments, to speed up the annulment process so that divorced and remarried Catholics can fully participate in the sacramental life of the church--specifically so that they can receive communion. Some people are having to wait as long as five years for decisions, though 90 percent of applications for annulments are eventually granted.

I still think we would do better to acknowledge that some marriages entered with the best of intentions do fail and stop penalizing those who divorce and remarry. Why a court in Rome is deciding the case of a couple in Kansas is totally beyond me; annulments would be far more efficiently and pastorally handled at the diocesan level anyway. Maybe we ought to take the resources poured into the annulment process and devote them to helping couples in second marriages succeed instead.

Still, though he's hardly an outside-the-box thinker on this one, I give Benedict marks for being pastoral. If not for that disastrous document on gay seminarians, I'd say he was off to a good start.