Paul-André Durocher

Synod15: abandon the old nets

Circoli minori

Since the meetings in small groups (circuli minores) have been underway since yesterday afternoon, the main source of information about the Synod until the small groups publish their reports on the first part of the instrumentum laboris on Friday will be interviews and blog posts by the Synod Fathers.

An example of a much-talked interview here is that with Archbishop Durocher, who proposed that the question of women deacons should be considered, who also spoke out in support of women having decision making authority in the Church and who called for more protagonism of married couples too:

“I propose three other courses of action for this Synod.

That this Synod considers the possibility of granting to married men and women, well-trained and accompanied, permission to speak in homilies at Mass in order to show the link between the Word proclaimed and the lives of spouses and parents.

That in order to recognize the equal capacity of women to assume decision-making positions in the Church, the Synod recommends the appointment of women to positions they are able to occupy in the Roman Curia and in our diocesan curias.

Finally, concerning the permanent diaconate, that this Synod recommends the establishment of a process that could eventually open to women access to this order, which, as tradition says, is directed non ad sacerdotium, sed ad ministerium [“not to priesthood, but to ministry”].”

Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane, Australia, shared some important reflections about possible sources of disconnect between what the Church teaches and what those who listen to her hear:

“One fact that has struck me is that certain distinctions upon which the Church has long relied no longer work. […]

The first is the distinction between public and private. We have long held to a policy of speaking the truth in public, even when it can seem harsh, but negotiating mercy in private. The clarity of the pulpit has been tempered by the tenderness of the confessional. But that no longer works in cultures which prize transparency and authenticity and see such an approach as hypocritical and inauthentic. What we need now are public enactments of mercy, such as we see when Pope Francis says, “Who am I to judge?” in answer to a question about homosexuality, or when he washes the feet of a Muslim woman in a detention centre, or when he makes absolution for the sin of abortion less difficult during the Year of Mercy. He is very much the Pope of public mercy, and as such he points the way forward to the Church as we seek to reconfigure public and private, truth and mercy.

A second distinction that no longer works is the distinction between sin and sinner. We have long said that we condemn the sin but not the sinner. But this has broken down, especially in the area of sexuality. When we say that this or that act is “intrinsically disordered” or evil, we are taken to be saying that the person who commits the act is “intrinsically disordered” or evil. Because sexuality is no longer seen as being a matter of what a person does; it’s seen now as what a person is. It’s a matter of his or her whole being. So we can no longer condemn the sin but not the sinner. We need to think and act our way beyond that, and that’s not easy.

A third distinction I mention concerns the Church and her members. We have long said that the Church “in herself” is the sinless Bride of Christ but that her children can indeed be sinful and often are. It’s as if the Church has some ideal existence above and beyond her children. Of course there’s a way of explaining this theologically to make it sound perfectly sensible. The Church is more than her members; she is the Body of Christ who is the head of the Body. That’s true; but in the minds of most people these days, the distinction doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t work at the level of communication. So we need at least to find other more communicative ways to explain what we’re trying to say about sin and the Church.”

Next, Bishop Lucas Van Looy of Ghent and President of Caritas Europa published the 3-minute contribution he made to yesterday’s General Congregation, where he focused on the needs of migrants and refugees and posed the question of whether the permanent diaconate couldn’t provide greater service with the scope of God’s mercy:

“Migrant and refugee families suffer because of social exclusion. They live in poverty and can not take part in social life. It is hard to obtain civil rights in western countries. They have no income and are often not welcome in the area where they end up. Invisible suffering, poverty and anger are growing in our cities because of unemployment, especially among young people. We all know that commerce, industry, banks and technology are omnipresent today and that their free circulation knows no bounds. For people, on the other hands, there are strict boundaries. It is high time that we tell the world that people are the most important. We can not give up these migrant or refugee families and leave them to their own devices. How to give them credible hope? (EG 86).

Service, diakonia, is for the Church the way towards credibility. Thanks to the Second Vatican Council we have permanent deacons. Should we not focus more on the diaconate and service to help separated families? How to give hope to broken families, whatever the reason for their break may be? The cry of families in need must be heard by the Christian community and by the parishes. People in great need are loved by God, the Good Shepherd. They deserve our full attention, regardless of their origin, gender, age, social status, religion or the broken situation they find themselves in. As the Good Shepherd, Jesus went looking for the lost sheep, lost by accident or on purpose. Moses, too, went back to the unfaithful people to lead it to the promised land.

This leads us to the topic of mercy. Who are we to judge, to exclude people who live in situations which make unity impossible? Who are we not to use the means that we have to bring hope and joy to families who have lost all their rights because of war and poverty? We must start from the fact that God sent His Son to all people to save them, not to judge them. His mercy fills our hearts when we encounter actual people who have been excluded and live in exile. What they need is our love, which comes from the love that God has for us.”

Cardinal Schönborn in an interview yesterday spoke with great clarity when asked whether faithfulness, truth and charity can come together:

“If this were not possible, the Church would not be possible, the Gospel would not be possible. The Gospel is a word of truth, but a word of truth in charity. Love without truth is soft and truth without love is hard. Therefore, uniting charity and truth is what the Gospel itself requires. Much has been spoken about conflicts before the Synod, let’s see whether they will be spoken about during the Synod … In any case, there is a climate of communion and there is fellowship.”

And finally, let’s conclude with Pope Francis’ catechesis from today’s General Audience, whose topic was the “indissoluble” relationship between Church and family, for the good of humanity and where Pope Francis called of an injection of family spirit into society. Particularly poignant here are the two concluding paragraphs, where a call for new nets must resonate strongly with the Synod Fathers as yet another indication of the pope’s will:

“When Jesus called Peter to follow him, he told him that he would make him a “fisher of men”, and for this, a new type of nets is needed. We could say that today families are one of the most important nets for the mission of Peter and of the Church. This is not a net that makes us prisoners. On the contrary, it frees from the evil waters of abandonment and indifference, which drown many human beings in the sea of loneliness and indifference. Families know well the dignity of feeling themselves children and not slaves or strangers, or just a number of an identity card.

From here, from the family, Jesus begins again his passage among human beings, to persuade them that God has not forgotten them. From here Peter gets the vigor for his ministry. From here, obeying the word of the Master, the Church goes out to fish in the deep certain that, if this happens, the fishing will be miraculous. May the enthusiasm of the Synod Fathers, animated by the Holy Spirit, foster the impetus of a Church that abandons the old nets and returns to fish trusting in the word of her Lord. Let us pray intensely for this! As for the rest, Christ has promised and encourages us: if even evil fathers do not refuse bread to their hungry children, just think if God will not give the Spirit to those that — though imperfect as they are — asked for it with impassioned insistence (cf. Luke 11:9-13)!”

Synod15: no to the ministers of rigidity

Sinodo della famiglia 2015 papa francesco

On Saturday, Cardinal Ravasi – one of the Synod Fathers, and head of the Pontifical Council for Culture – published a short reflection on the family, entitled “The room of pain,” whose English translation I’d like to share here next:

“The French writer Jules Renard, author of the famous novel Poil de carotte (1894), was right when he noted in his diary: “If we want to build the house of happiness, we must remember that the largest room must be the waiting room.” In fact, if we take a look at the biblical house of the family, we realize how large and populated is the room of pain. The Bible is a constant witness to this, from the brutal violence of Cain’s fratricide of Abel and the quarrels among the children and spouses of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, then moving on to the tragedy that has bloodied the family of David, with his son Absalom’s aspiring to parricide, to the many difficulties that pepper the familiar tale of the book of Tobit or to that bitter confession of Job: “My family has withdrawn from me, my friends are wholly estranged. … My breath is abhorrent to my wife; I am loathsome to my very children.”(19:13,17). Jesus himself is born in a refugee family, enters Peter’s house where the mother-in-law is ill, let’s himself be involved in the drama of death in the house of Jairus, or in that of Lazarus, hears the desperate cry of the widow of Nain. In their homes he meets tax collectors like Matthew-Levi and Zacchaeus, or sinners like the woman who is introduced in the house of Simon the leper; he knows the anxieties and tensions of families, pouring them into his parables: from children who leave home in search of adventure (Luke 15:11-32) up to difficult children (Matthew 21:28-31) or the victim of external violence (Mark 12:1-9). And he shows interest in a wedding that runs the risk of becoming embarrassing due to the absence of wine or of guests (John 2:1-10, Matthew 22:1-10), and he also knows the horror of the loss of a coin in a poor family (Luke 15:8-10). One could go on for a long time, describing the vastness of the room of pain, arriving at the present day. The list of the old wounds of divorces, rebellions, infidelities, pornography, abortions and so on is expanding to new socio-cultural phenomena such as individualism, privatization, the surprising and often disconcerting bioethical approaches to fertilization, the requests for recognition of new models of marriage, different from that between man and woman and their adoptions, of theories of “gender”, of cloning, of single parenthood and so on. A list that shakes the traditional system of family and turns the family “home” into something “liquid,” pliable into soft and changing forms. We stop here, leaving it to the Synod of Bishops on the family that opens this difficult visit to the space of questions and of questions. What remains, however, is the realization that the values that families preserve are great too. Next to the room of pain, in fact, there are bright rooms where the love between parents develops, where you can feel the joy of children, where windows are opened to listen to the cry for help of the poor and to go out to meet them.”

I feel a great sense of looking at the world with open eyes from Cardinal Ravasi’s words. A not looking away even when faced with suffering and a simultaneous bearing in mind also of all the good, true and beautiful that there is in that same, suffering world.

Another early reflection on the Synod that I have particularly liked comes from another of the Synod Fathers, the Canadian Archbishop Paul-André Durocher, who read the singing during the opening mass as a parallel to the challenges of the coming weeks:

“We sang [the Creed] in Latin, alternating with the men of the choir. […] I was sitting in the midst of the bishops who will be participating in the Synod, and I listened to them sing (as I sang along, naturally). One of the bishops would start the verse even before the organ had sounded the note; others sang more quickly than the rest; another, to the contrary, would always end after the rest; some were certain they had the correct rhythm and would sing louder, hoping to impose their rhythm to the others; a few didn’t know Latin or Gregorian Chant very well and were happy to simply murmur… or listen. For a song that was supposed to manifest the Church’s unity in the faith, I must admit it was a bit funny listening to this vocal struggle. Thankfully, we all sang the same words!

The Synod is a bit like that. Nearly 300 bishops gathered to discuss a fundamental issue: how to help Christian families live their mission in today’s world. Among the bishops, some want to go quickly, while others hesitate and want to move with great prudence. Some are certain that they know the correct rhythm and want to impose upon the group, lifting their voices and speaking out loudly. Others feel a bit lost: they listen, read, observe…

[…] I didn’t want to sing so loud that I would break what was left of the group’s harmony. Slowly, some bishops followed me in this search for unison, and we were able to adapt our rhythm to that of the organ and the boys. I think that, by the end of the Creed, we manifested the Church’s unity a bit more than we had at the beginning.

During the Synod, only one can give us the correct rhythm: the Holy Spirit. Our work as bishops is to discern this rhythm, this vital pulse that the Spirit want to give us.”

Cardinal Schönborn has also shared his hopes for the Synod in a reflection on the Gospel from the Synod’s opening mass:

“Jesus approaches the question of marriage in a much more fundamental way. He looks at what God originally intended with marriage: man and woman are made for each other, and the two should become one: “one flesh”, a couple: “They are no longer two, but one.” And forever, because “what God has joined together, man must not separate”. Isn’t that clear? Jesus shows why marriage forms an indissoluble bond: God himself has formed this covenant.

And if it does not work? Is there no way out in sight? Moses has allowed for the wife to be dismissed. Did Jesus forbid that? He does not deny that there are always separations. But he also calls out their deepest cause: “because you are so hard-hearted!” Yes, certainly, if we were all patient, understanding, didn’t hold grudges, kind, loving, then there would certainly be much fewer divorces.

But what if we do not succeed, despite all efforts to stay together? Does Jesus have no advice then? Is there no way out of such an emergency? Here children come into play. Jesus says, “Let the children come to me; do not stop them.” I see it as the prayer of Jesus to take care of children. They are often the first victims of divorce. They need the unity of their parents, so as to feel secure. It is hard-hearted when parents wage their marital wars on the backs of their children. What does Jesus want from us? That we are all more merciful with one another, even when a marriage falls into crisis or breaks. This is the message that I hope to hear from the Synod that begins today.”

Turning to the General Congregations, yesterday afternoon and this morning saw both scheduled contributions and “free” ones during the evening session. During the press conference this lunchtime, Fr. Lombardi provided some statistics also about the languages used by the speakers. The majority (over 20) were in Italian, closely followed by also more than 20 speakers using English. Furthermore, this morning Pope Francis addressed the Synod (unlike last year, where he only spoke at the beginning and very end of the Synod), making two points: first that the Church’s teaching on marriage has not been questioned either during last year’s Synod or the year that has passed since and that it remains fully in force and, second, that the Synod mustn’t focus solely on the question of communion for the divorced and civilly remarried since there is a broad range of important topics to be dealt with. Pope Francis also emphasized the importance of work in small groups this year and the continuity between last year’s Synod from which three formal documents are carried forward: his opening and closing speeches and the Relatio Sinodi.

Fr. Lombardi then provided an overview of the topics that were discussed, mentioning the question of what language is most appropriate for describing various situations of the family and, importantly, to avoid giving the impression of judging persons and situations negatively. Some have pointed to Pope Francis’ catecheses as a positive example of how to speak simply, concretely and positively about the reality of the family in the world of today. Many have also emphasized the importance of growth in the Christian life of couples and families and about the accompanying that is necessary for helping such growth.

Fr. Rosica, the English-speaking assistant to Fr. Lombardi, who is the Vatican’s spokesperson, then underlined that there has been an emphasis on the family being the main protagonist of evangelization. Poverty, unemployment, war and the refugee crisis all put pressure on the family. “There must be an end to exclusionary language and an emphasis on embracing reality as it is, and we should not be afraid of new and complex situations.” “We deal with the people as they are and lead them forward.” The need for a renewed language was also linked to the Jubilee of Mercy that starts soon and that will also require such a new language. “In particular, when speaking about homosexual or gay persons we do not pity gay persons but we recognize them for who they are: they are our sons and daughters and brothers and sisters and neighbors and colleagues. […] These are our children, family members – they are not outsiders, they are our flesh and blood. How do we speak about them and how do we offer a hand of welcome to them?”

Archbishop Durocher, who was one of the two Synod Fathers at the press conference – alongside Cardinal Celli, shared his perspective on how to relate the Church’s teaching to the reality of the world:

“There is a great unanimity in recognizing that there is a growing distance between the cultural vision of marriage and family life and what the Church proposes and teaches growing out of the teaching of Jesus. And that growing gulf involves different ways of reaction. One reaction is to emphasize what the teaching is, for fear that as the culture moves away from the vision, our own understanding gets diluted. The other fear is that we lose contact with that culture and that we close in on ourselves and become a kind of a ghetto or a sect that no longer has an impact in culture. And all the bishops, I think, agree that the teaching of the Church, coming from Jesus, is a gift for the world, it is not just for a select few. We really believe that the teaching, the vision of marriage which is ours is a good news for the world. So, how, on the one hand, do we hold on to the teaching without it being diluted, and at the same time entering into dialogue with that world in a way that will speak to the world and will provoke its imagination and its interest. And so some of the bishops will emphasize the teaching and others will emphasize the importance of the dialogue and I think that’s why its important that this is a collegial exercise in the sense that we do this together, because we need to hold both those together. I think Cardinal Erdő’s talk was a beautiful, classical presentation of the Church’s teaching and I think there are other bishops who are thinking this is important, we need to hold onto this, now how do we enter into dialogue with this world, and what we have been hearing in the various interventions is that loving look upon the world to try and discern where it is that the message of the Gospel can the men and women of today’s world and the families that are ours.”

Beyond the press conference, a gem coming from the Synod today have been the tweets of Fr. Antonio Spadaro, SJ – director of La Civiltà Cattolica and directly appointed Synod Father by Pope Francis – of which I’d like to share four here:

“Discernment helps us not to see the demon in what are only our fears and our obsessions.

During #Synod15, when we speak about the family, we are in fact speaking about Gaudium et spes, that is about what the relationship is between the Church and the world.

I have to admit with humility that at times today we are called to face challenges that we don’t understand well yet.

We have to always be careful that, with the excuse of defending faith, it is not just our own ideas that get defended.”

And, finally, what better way to conclude an overview of the day’s events at the Synod than with Pope Francis’ homily from this morning’s mass at Santa Marta, where he reflects on the first reading from the book of Jonah (3:1-10):

“He really performs a miracle, because in this case he has left his stubbornness behind and has obeyed the will of God, and has done what the Lord had commanded him.

The story of Jonah and Nineveh, consists therefore of three chapters: the first is the resistance to the mission that the Lord entrusted to him; the second is obedience, and when he obeys he performs miracles. He obeys God’s will and Nineveh repents. In the third chapter, there is resistance to the mercy of God:

Those words, ‘Lord, was not this what I said when I was in my country? For you are a merciful and gracious God’, and I have done all that work of preaching, I have done my job well, and you forgive them? It is the heart with that hardness that does not let in the mercy of God. My sermon is more important, my thoughts are more important, more important is that list of all the commandments that I must observe, everything, everything, everything is more important than God’s mercy.

And Jesus too experienced this drama with the Doctors of the Law, who did not understand why he did not let the adulteress be stoned, why he went to dinner with tax collectors and sinners, they did not understand. They did not understand mercy. ‘You are merciful and gracious’. The Psalm that we prayed today suggests that we “wait for the Lord because with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.”

Where the Lord is there is mercy. And St. Ambrose added: ‘And where there is rigidity there are his ministers’. Stubbornness that defies mission, that challenges mercy.”

Synod14: We aren’t the bosses of God’s mercy

Francis kids

Since the close of yesterday’s sessions of the Extraordinary Synod on the Family, several interviews with or full texts of interventions by some Synod Fathers have been published.

The first of these I’d like to share is by Cardinal Godfried Danneels, the archbishop emeritus of Brussels, who’s contribution to the Synod was a plea for greater care for the divorced and remarried:

“God is just and merciful. He can’t contradict himself. He can separate good and evil in a great straddle. We, we have difficulty because we are only poor ballet dancers for a moment in the whole of history. […]

In the first place we are invited to greatly respect our brothers and sisters, the divorced and remarried. Mercy starts where we have unconditional respect for all who want to live within the Church but can’t marry again for the Church and receive Communion. […]

It is so important to speak with them, to let them speak about the beauty of marriage and the Christian family. Beauty is so powerful! This is obviously not esthetic beauty, but beauty who is the sister of truth and goodness. According to Aristotle “beauty is truth in all its glory”. Pulchrum est splendor veri.

Among our contemporaries there is much scepticism about the truth; even goodness can discourage, but beauty disarms. Beauty heals. Archimedes said about our world today, “Give me a place to stand and I will lift the world.”

The divorced and remarried are not the only suffering children, but there are far more than we think. My appeal – in all simplicity – is: to love God’s children. Their pain and suffering is often great. They don’t immediately ask for the regulations of the Church to change. Their cry is rather one to the shepherds with their hearts in the right place, why carry the wounded lamb on their shoulders. Beauty disarms. We hold the cards: there is indeed nothing more beautiful than Christian marriage and a deeply faithful family. But we must communicate the truth to divorced and remarried people – delicately – with the words of Saint Francis in mind, which he spoke to the superiors of his small communities, “never let anyone leave you in sadness”.”

Archbishop Denis Hart, the President of the Australian Bishop’s Conference, commented on the need for a new language – a “language of love” – and underlined the Church’s concern for all who suffer:

“[The] Catechism of the Catholic Church [speaks] about people being ‘disordered’, things being ‘intrinsically evil’. You say that to a parent who has a gay son or daughter and they just cannot understand that this child whom they love and who they have nurtured – might have chosen a thing that they don’t approve of – but is to be totally rejected because of that. And I think we have to be faithful to our doctrine and our teaching and practice have to go hand in hand, but we can do so with mercy and love and help people to realize that whatever may be the challenges that our in their life, they are respected and loved by the Church. […]

There are people who are separated and divorced, there are people who are same-sex attracted, there are people who are really struggling in their marriage, and wondering how they will go. The bishops have been emphasizing that we are pastors. When our people suffer we feel for them, when our people are bereaved we cry with them, when our people are burdened with sickness we struggle with them, when people are uncertain about where they can go or are suffering terrible material poverty the Church has to be there with them. I think this is the genius of Pope Francis. The great thing that concerns us in this is Synod is our love for our people and our ability to walk with them.”

There are, however, also voices at the Synod, like that of Cardinal Raymond Burke – the current Cardinal Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura (whom Pope Francis removed from the Congregation for Bishops last year), who are opposed to a renewal of pastoral practice, e.g., saying that “[i]f homosexual relations are intrinsically disordered, which indeed they are — reason teaches us that and also our faith — then, what would it mean to grandchildren to have present at a family gathering a family member who is living [in] a disordered relationship with another person?”

There is also an important presence of members of other churches, religions and those who hold no religious beliefs at the Synod, who make important contributions. For example, the Anglican Rev. Paul Buttler, provided the following great synthesis of what the Synod is about:

“I think we actually need to reimagine family life again and help people grasp how important steadfastness, faithfulness to one another really is and offer much more support in times of difficulty. We have to be honest – the difficulties happen.”

Last night I also discovered a great blog by the Archbishop Droucher, president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, where he recounts his experiences of the Synod, including a summary of his own intervention:

“What I especially wanted to say was that we should not only focus on what is negative in the world which is ours. True, there are many broken families, abandoned children, deeply wounded individuals. It is true that sexuality is often lived more as a leisure activity than as a true loving language of deep self-giving to another. It is also true that less and less couples are choosing marriage today. However, there are also positive realities in our world today. I named the commitment to equality between men and women in marriage, the refusal of all violence to children and women, the growing role of fathers in the affective life of their children, the place given to communication, mutual respect and healthy relationships. All of this is good and should be recognized and celebrated by Church leaders, creating openings for dialogue with society where the Church can proclaim its humanizing teaching on family, marriage and sexuality.”

I also liked Archbishop Droucher’s immediacy in his blog, where the follows his intervention’s summary by saying “And thus did I finish my four minutes of great nervousness (my hands were shaking) and adrenaline rush.” 🙂

Yesterday afternoon’s (8th) session was then focused on Christian education, where the French couple, Olivier and Xristilla Roussy, shared in their opening testimony that:

“Our mission as parents is above all to awaken our children to holiness. Like all of us, they too face the many temptations of the world and, with humility, we try to make them grow in freedom and generosity, to teach them the senses of discernment, decision making and perseverance. We help them develop their life project under the gaze of God. In spite of the difficult pace of modern life, we seek to be attentive to each one of them and give them plenty of time, both all together and individually.”

The notes provided about the following discussion started with:

“an invitation to the faithful to deepen their knowledge of Paul VI’s encyclical, Humanae Vitae, thus better understanding the meaning of the use of natural methods of fertility control and the non-acceptance of contraception. Union and procreation, it was said, are not separate from the conjugal act.”

The importance of appropriate marriage preparation was revisited, and – I believe, importantly – linked to the preparation for religious life:

“as its celebration seems to be increasingly reduced to the social and legal status, rather than a religious and spiritual bond. The preparatory course, it was noted, is often perceived by couples as an imposition, a task to complete without conviction, and as a result it is too brief. Since marriage is a vocation for life, preparation for it should be long and detailed, as in the case of preparation for religious life.”

The other side of the marriage preparation coin – that of the adequate preparation of priests to lead it – was addressed next:

“The Assembly went on to insist on the importance of good preparation for priests in relation to the pastoral care of marriage and the family, and remarked that homilies can be used as a special and effective moment for proclaiming the Gospel of the family to the faithful. It was commented that there is a need for formation and information, as the spiritual holiness of the priest, his creativity and his direct relationship with families are particularly appreciated by the faithful.”

This morning then saw experiences shared by couples and lay experts, who are not voting participants but “listeners” instead. Here the notes point to themes that were very much the same as during the preceding days, with an added emphasis on the need for closer collaboration between the laity and the Church’s hierarchy, also in the context of the laity’s involvement in public and secular life. The challenge of caring for the growing number of people living in solitude (irrespective of their association with the Church) was also highlighted during the following press conference. Importantly, Fr. Lombardi, also mentioned Pope Pius X’s “revolutionary” changes to the reception of the Eucharist by children as opposed to only adults as was previous practice. It was emphasized that this is a different context to the questions facing the divorced and remarried, but that there is precedent to substantial changes. The difficult effects of divorce on children were also lamented, of “ping-pong children” who are oscillating between their parents (and their new partners) and lack stability.

Fr. Manuel Dorantes, reporting on the Spanish speaking Synod Fathers’ contributions (with aplomb, I might add), quoted one of them as saying:

“Above all we must kneel before the Holy Spirit and remember that we aren’t the bosses of God’s mercy. We must remember that the mission that Jesus entrusted to his apostles, and by extension to us as their successors, is to evangelize and to heal. And this means, spreading the Good News.”

Calls for a greater involvement of lay persons, and women in particular, in ecclesiastical tribunals were also reported. Fr. Dorantes then quoted another of the Synod Fathers calling for a greater focus on children: “Brothers, I am the son of divorced parents and I, as their son, experienced the stigma of divorce directed at my parents and directed at me.”

This afternoon the Synod is hearing from “fraternal delegates” – i.e., representatives of other churches and religions, about which there will be a press conference tomorrow and on Monday, Cardinal Erdő will present the report reflecting the week’s contributions.

Synod14: A paternal home for everyone

Francis cap kid

Yesterday afternoon, the third day of the Extraordinary Synod on the Family saw contributions about difficult pastoral situations. Cardinal Raymundo Damasceno Assis, who chaired this, 6th session of the Synod, said that these are situations there is a “need to be accompanied by the Church, since the people involved in them live experiences of deep wounds to their own humanity, to their relationship with others and with God.” Here, the Church is called to learn the art of accompanying, as Pope Francis says in Evangelii Gaudium (§169) that “this accompaniment must be steady and reassuring, reflecting our closeness and our compassionate gaze which also heals, liberates and encourages growth in the Christian life.”

Cardinal Assis then proceeded to listing the various “difficult pastoral situations” that are mentioned in the Instrumentum Laboris, including cohabitation, civil unions, separation, divorce and same-sex union, and goes on to insisting that:

“Far from locking ourselves into a legalist perspective, we would like to immerse ourselves into the depths of these difficult situations, to welcome all those who are involved in them and so that the Church may be the paternal home where there is room for everyone, with their strenuous lives.”

The notes on the following discussion, shared by the Vatican’s press office, then show a reiteration of Cardinal Assis’ words, saying that:

“the Church is not a customs [checkpoint], but rather the house of the Father, and must therefore offer patient accompaniment to all people, including those who find themselves in difficult pastoral situations. The true Catholic Church encompasses healthy families and families in crisis, and therefore in her daily effort of sanctification must not show indifference in relation to weakness, as patience implies actively helping the weakest.”

Applying the above to the divorced and remarried, the Synod Fathers called for an approach rooted in mercy:

“It was strongly emphasised that an attitude of respect must be adopted in relation to divorced and remarried persons, as they often live in situations of unease or social injustice, suffer in silence and in many cases seek a gradual path to fuller participation in ecclesial life. Pastoral care must not therefore be repressive, but full of mercy.”

A discussion of the need to streamline processes of declaring the nullity of a marriage and of polygamy followed, after which the Synod Fathers shared experiences and “best practices” of care for divorced and remarried people in the form of “listening groups”:

“It was remarked that it is important to carefully avoid moral judgement or speaking of a “permanent state of sin”, seeking instead to enable understanding that not being admitted to the sacrament of the Eucharist does not entirely eliminate the possibility of grace in Christ and is due rather to the objective situation of remaining bound by a previous and indissoluble sacramental bond. In this respect, the importance of spiritual communion was emphasised repeatedly. It was also commented that there are evident limits to these proposals and that certainly there are no “easy” solutions to the problem.”

This model of “listening groups” and, more generally, of listening, was also emphasised with regard to homosexual people.

Like all the sessions of the Synod, this morning’s, 7th one also started with a testimony by a married couple. Arturo and Hermelinda As Zamberline from Brazil also spoke about the importance of a Christian understanding of sexuality and its role as an expression of love between husband and wife:

“The sexual act is rightful, loved and blessed by God, and the pleasure derived from it contributes to the joy of living and the healthy development of personality. It is the expression of love, which in the beginning may be passion, but which should gradually become more human. Couples who make love are expressing with their bodies what is in their hearts. To reach harmony, it is necessary to develop one’s desire and even a wholesome eroticism. It is necessary to stay passionate and attentive to each other.

How sexuality is lived is very important so that humans become ever more human. Father Caffarel [Founder of the Teams of Our Lady, whose members the Zamberlines are] proposes a fascinating journey: from sexuality to love. The couple is where the three functions of sexuality are expressed: its relational function, its pleasurable function and its reproductive function. The couple grows by combining these three dimensions in a balanced way.

Sexuality is lived in relation with others and with God. It’s called become a language of love, communion and life.”

The notes on the following discussions then start by reporting a re-affirmation of the doctrine on marriage, emphasising:

“the indissoluble nature of marriage, without compromise, based on the fact that the sacramental bond is an objective reality, the work of Christ in the Church. Such a value must be defended and cared for through adequate pre-matrimonial catechesis, so that engaged couples are fully aware of the sacramental character of the bond and its vocational nature.”

This was immediately followed by reiterating that “Pastoral care must not be exclusive, of an “all or nothing” type but must instead be merciful, as the mystery of the Church is a mystery of consolation.” A re-statement of the position with regard to same-sex unions then followed: “while emphasising the impossibility of recognising same sex marriage, the need for a respectful and non-discriminatory approach with regard to homosexuals was in any case underlined.”

The first part of the mooring session concluded with a return to the importance of language:

“so that the Church may involve believers, non-believers and all persons of good will to identify models of family life that promote the full development of the human person and societal wellbeing. It was suggested that the family should be spoken of using a “grammar of simplicity” that reaches the heart of the faithful.”

The theme of the second part of the morning session was openness to life, where:

“responsible parenthood was considered, emphasising that the gift of life (and the virtue of chastity) are basic values in Christian marriage, and underlining the seriousness of the crime of abortion. At the same time, mention was made of the numerous crises experienced by many families, for instance in certain Asian contexts, such as infanticide, violence towards women and human trafficking. The need to highlight the concept of justice among the fundamental virtues of the family was underlined.”

During the press conference at lunchtime, Archbishop Paul-André Durocher of of Gatineau, Quebec, made the following, very illuminating observation:

“In the Church there is a method of thinking and of reasoning that tends to start from principles and lead to conclusions […] the deductive method. And what’s happening within this Synod is we are seeing a more inductive way of reflecting. Starting from the true situations of people and trying to figure out what’s going on there. In a sense, finding that the lived experience of people is also a theological source, a place of theological reflection. Maybe a funny way of saying this is that we are learning to use the Harvard “case study” method in reflecting theologically on the lives of people. And we are only starting to learn how to do this as Church leaders. This is going to take time to learn and together to come to find, as we reflect on this, what is the way God is showing. In this sense, many voices are saying there is no kind of line that we will apply to all conditions because each person is a human person. Jesus did not meet general cases; Jesus met individuals. And he addressed individuals. And, so, for us it is to reflect on how do we do this as a Church, within the Church.”