Cathal BarryBishops to gather in Rome again in 12 months to look to the future
A key Rome meeting on challenges facing the family must be taken up by the Church in Ireland at local level, according to leading figures.
The Synod of Bishops ended with a challenge for Catholics to take up the debate on some of the most controversial Church teachings.
Bishop Kevin Doran said: “It is vitally important that the dialogue which has been opened up now at this synod continues at local level.”
Bishops are due to gather in Rome again in 12 months to look to the future.
The Bishop of Elphin warned that the focus now needs to be on “promoting an understanding of the meaning of Christian marriage.
“People are struggling to give Christian marriage and the Church needs to find ways to support those people in relating their reality to their faith.
“The point of this synod was not to look at ways to change Church teaching but to look at how the Church can respond to the many pastoral challenges that are facing families today,” he told The Irish Catholic.
Bishop Brendan Leahy of Limerick, who attended the synod’s concluding Mass on Sunday, said the synod was part of a “journey that now continues.
“It has laid the groundwork for the year ahead when we will be invited to reflect further in true discernment of what God is saying to us today as we face new challenges and opportunities,” he said.
Fr Eamonn Conway, an expert advisor at the 2012 synod which dealt with the transmission of the Faith, said this assembly was “a call to ongoing discernment for the whole Church.
“Ultimately, the synod achieved its attempt to bring the reality of the lives of people from the peripheries into dialogue with the unchanging teaching from the centre,” Fr Conway said.
Referring to the final document produced and voted on by the synod fathers, Fr Sean McDonagh of the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) said he was “disappointed there had been a row back on words of welcome for everyone” that featured in the mid-term report.
He acknowledged, however, that he was “absolutely thrilled that an open and honest discussion of some of the most contentious issues within the Catholic Church” had taken place.
Similarly, Fr Peter Rodgers, head of the Conference of Religious of Ireland (CORI) said it was “encouraging that people felt free to speak their minds” during the discussions at the synod.
“My hope now is that what was positive at this synod can be built on over the coming months and by the time the bishops gather again next year the signs of openness will have become more pronounced and will have gained a stronger foothold,” Capuchin Fr Rodgers said.
Fr Alan McGuckian SJ, director of Down and Connor’s Living Church office, commented that the heated debates between bishops during the synod did not come as a surprise. “There was always going to be a tension between the strong demands of the moral law and the Pope’s call to show everyone mercy.”
He said the synod was “a wonderful moment in the life of the Church. There is no suggestion that the Pope wants to compromise Church teaching”, he added.
Echoing calls for parishes to “take up, read, discuss and bring forward” the final synod report, Fr Vincent Twomey, SVD, warned “the journey ahead will be stormy.
“The issues at stake are fundamental to humanity and people’s happiness and holiness,” the priest-theologian said.
