Cathal BarryThe synod process will pave the way for bishops to make formal proposals about the Church’s pastoral care of families, writes Cathal Barry
Proving his credentials as the ‘Pope of Surprises’ in October 2013, Pope Francis called an extraordinary synod for only the third time in modern Church history.
Dubbed the ‘Synod on the Family’, this gathering of bishops and other key participants was held at the Vatican in October 2014.
That synod would open up discussion on controversial issues like whether or not the Church should offer Communion to divorced and remarried Catholics, paving the way for bishops to make formal proposals about the Church’s pastoral care of families at a second, larger gathering this year.
On the eve of that synod, which will advise the Pope on what he should say in a post-synodal apostolic exhortation, it is worth looking back at the last.
Under the leadership of Pope Francis, the synod process was always going to be different.
Biography
In his authoritative biography of Pope Francis, The Great Reformer, Austen Ivereigh notes that the synod would use a “wholly different method” to those of the past.
Beginning with a consultation of the local Church, a consistory of cardinals in February 2014 to whet the appetite for discussion, followed by two assemblies of hundreds of bishop delegates and invited lay experts, this would certainly be a synod like no other.
Francis’ aim, according to Ivereigh, has not been to alter the Church’s longstanding doctrine on whether the sacraments or the indissolubility of marriage”, rather to “find ways of reinstating those alienated from the life of the Church because of often tragic personal situations”.
“The big picture behind the synod is the sharp loss of the meaning of marriage in Western culture,” he says, noting that the Church for “too long relied on that culture to teach couples the meaning of marriage” while “its own preparation for couples has been inadequate to compensate”.
Ivereigh maintains that it is Francis’ view that the Church’s response to this cannot only be to improve its preparation and support for marriage, but that it has to “take responsibility for those now alienated from the Church”.
Francis’ reformed synod, according his biographer, seeks to “embed permanently” the dynamic of the Second Vatican Council, bringing to bear “the pastoral on to the doctrinal”.
“The synod is a mechanism of permanent reform. Reform means to recover the forma Christi, the Church that makes Christ more present, Ivereigh says.
“Permanent reform, for Francis, means ensuring that Christ, not the Church, remains the focus. And that means, in turn, putting God’s mercy front and centre of the Catholic offer.”
Seeking input ahead of the 2014 Synod on the Family, the Vatican issued an unprecedented worldwide survey on how parishes deal with sensitive issues such as contraception, same-sex unions, cohabitation by unmarried couples and divorce.
The poll was sent to national bishops’ conferences worldwide in October 2013 with a request from the Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, Archbishop Lorenzo Baldisseri, to “share it immediately as widely as possible to deaneries and parishes so that input from local sources can be received”.
In true Francis style, the survey reflected the Pope’s pledge to move away from what he called a “Vatican-centric” approach toward one where local Church leaders are more involved in decision-making.
A great number of detailed responses to the questions was submitted by the synods of the Eastern Catholic Churches sui iuris, the episcopal conferences, the departments of the Roman Curia and the Union of Superiors General. In addition, other responses – categorised as observations – were sent directly to the General Secretariat by a significant number of dioceses, parishes, movements, groups, ecclesial associations and families, not to mention academic institutions, specialists, both Catholic and non-Catholic, all interested in sharing their reflections.
The responses received formed the basis of a preparatory document known as the Instrumentum Laboris.
The synod itself was marked by days of animated debate, particularly after the publication of a controversial draft mid-term report.
Discussions both inside and outside the synod hall had grown heated after the delivery of a mid-term report that used strikingly conciliatory language toward people with ways of life contrary to Church teaching, including divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, cohabitating couples and those in same-sex unions.
The summaries of working-group discussions, published three days later, showed a majority of synod fathers wanted the final document to be clearer about relevant Church doctrine and give more attention to families whose lives exemplify that teaching.
The final report featured many more citations of scripture, as well as new references to the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Synod fathers voted on each of the document’s 62 paragraphs. All received a simple majority, but three failed to gain the two-thirds supermajority ordinarily required for approval of synodal documents.
Two of those paragraphs dealt with a controversial proposal by German Cardinal Walter Kasper that would make it easier for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion.
The document’s section on homosexuality, which also fell short of supermajority approval, was significantly changed from its counterpart in the mid-term report. The original section heading – “welcoming homosexuals” – was changed to “pastoral attention to persons with homosexual orientation”.
A statement that same-sex unions can be a “precious support in the life of the partners” was removed.
The final report quoted a 2003 document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: “There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.”
Fr Lombardi told reporters that the absence of a supermajority indicated a lack of consensus and a need for more discussion, but stressed that none of the document carried doctrinal weight.
Welcoming the final text, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin warned that it must be read in the context of Pope Francis’ final remarks to the synod, for which the Pontiff received a near five minute standing ovation.
Archbishop Martin said the Pope “from the very beginning wanted openness”.
“He trusted those present at the synod to take the discussions as far as they could and in all honesty,” he said.
Dr Martin said that Pope Francis helped everyone to understand the direction in which he wished the synod process to progress, when he mandated publication of details of the votes in the synod hall, paragraph by paragraph in a gesture of transparency.
The archbishop said the synod has been radically different as, thanks to the Pope, it has led to open dialogue and genuine debate.
Applause
The aforementioned lengthy applause for Francis was justified too – the Pope’s words were powerful.
“Personally, I would have been very worried and saddened if there hadn’t been these temptations and these animated discussions,” the Pope said, “if everybody had agreed or remained silent in a false and quietistic peace”.
“Instead, I have seen and I have heard – with joy and appreciation – speeches and interventions full of faith, of pastoral and doctrinal zeal, of wisdom, of frankness and of courage.
“So many commentators, or people who talk, imagined they saw the Church quarrelling, one part against the other, even doubting the Holy Spirit, the true promoter and guarantor of unity and harmony in the Church,” he said.
Reassuring the assembly that the Church’s unity was not in danger, Pope Francis warned against several temptations that he said had been present during the two-week synod.
One of the temptations he cited was that of “hostile rigidity” that seeks refuge in the letter of the law, “in the certainty of what we know and not of what we must still learn and achieve”. This temptation, he said, is characteristic of the “zealous, the scrupulous, the attentive and – today – of the so-called traditionalists and also of intellectuals”.
Another temptation for the synod fathers, the Pope said, was that of “destructive do-goodism, which in the name of a misguided mercy binds up wounds without first treating and medicating them; that treats symptoms and not causes and roots. It is the temptation of do-gooders, of the timorous and also of the so-called progressives and liberals.”
In conclusion, looking forward to the 2015 synod, which takes place this week, Pope Francis said those taking part in the synod “have one year to mature, with true spiritual discernment, the proposed ideas and to find concrete solutions to so many difficulties and innumerable challenges that families must confront”.
The 2014 synod posed the questions. The 2015 synod aims to provide the answers.