First, in his Jan. 24 essay published in America magazine, the San Diego bishop argued that the Church’s characterization of all sexual acts outside of marriage as “objectively grave sin” has led to a pastoral practice that is focused “disproportionately upon sexual activity.” As a result, those engaged in sexual sin — particularly the divorced-and-civilly remarried and persons engaging in same-sex sexual activity — are unduly excluded from the life of the Church, including the Eucharist.

Expanding on these comments in a Feb. 3 interview with America’s Jesuitical podcast, Cardinal McElroy said, “My problem is, we have cast the violations for which you need to not go to the Eucharist, or need to go to confession first, largely in terms of sexual things.” The cardinal stated that he was not arguing for a change in teaching, but a new “framework” in the Church’s “pastoral theology.” Cardinal McElroy reiterated many of these claims in his Feb. 22 talk at Sacred Heart University.

In an interview on the general claim that a new “framework” of the Church’s pastoral theology on sexual sin is needed, the moral theologian Father Thomas Berg told the Register that the Church already has “well-established best practices in accompanying the faithful and helping them gradually come to an ever-fuller embrace of the Church’s moral teaching without watering down that teaching or creating special moral carve-outs for each person.”