"The Pope Is Not Answering the Four Cardinals. But Few Justify Him" by Sandro Magister

Bridget Mary's Response: Most Catholics support Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics. Pope Francis basically affirmed the primacy of conscience and provided a more compassionate approach than the present rigid rules permit. 

In my view, the institutional church should get out of the "marriage" annulment business. Only the couple know if their marriage is valid and sacramental. Let's honor their consciences. As we know, the couple and the family celebrated marriages in the early centuries of Christianity. The church was not involved. 

For more information on the history of marriage in the Roman Catholic Church, read Joseph Martos, Deconstructing Sacramental Theology, Reconstructing Catholic Ritual.

https://www.amazon.com/Deconstructing-Sacramental-Theology-Reconstructing-Catholic/dp/1498221793

http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1351432?eng=y&refresh_ce

ROME, December 21, 2016 – “They are only four cardinals,” Brazilian cardinal Cláudio Hummes, a chief elector of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, has said of the authors of the letter to the pope with the “dubia” on the controversial points of “Amoris Laetitia.” “Only four against more than two hundred, an enormous group that instead is giving all its support to the pope”:

> Hummes: “¿Las críticas al Papa? Son sólo cuatro cardenales. Todo el colegio cardenalicio está con él”

In reality, the landscape appears quite a bit more uneven, to judge by all those among the cardinals and bishops who have spoken out about the “dubia” after their publication on November 14 by cardinals Walter Brandmüller, Raymond L. Burke, Carlo Caffarra, and Joachim Meisner.

There are eighteen cardinals and bishops so far who have spoken on the issue. And of these not more than seven have taken the pope’s side in lashing out against the four authors of the “dubia.”

In any case, there has by no means been the outbreak of collective and universal defense of Pope Francis presented as a certainty by Hummes.

Not only that. The first to lash out against the four cardinals did so with such virulence as to find himself isolated in turn, with respect to the other supporters of Pope Francis.

It was the bishop emeritus of Syros, Fragkiskos Papamanolis, president of the tiny Greek episcopal conference, who in an open letter on November 20 taxed with nothing less than heresy and apostasy the four authors of the “scandal,” unworthy of being part of the college of cardinals:...