Vatican Synod: Who won?

After three weeks of debate and  public disputes among  270 cardinals and bishops, the Vatican Synod on the family was finally concluded last October 25. It is clear that among the Church’s hierarchy, there is a clear division between the traditionalists and the progressives.

Pope Francis may be considered a progressive but he must tread a very careful balancing act or else risk a possible open conflict within the ranks of the Church’s hierarchy or even a schism – a formal division of the Church.

 Church scholars and even non Catholic pundits are now reviewing the Synod as if it was a contest. The questions asked are: Who won and who lost? Since the Synod was a recommendatory body, the next question is which of the two groups will influence the final document that Pope Francis will issue?

There were contentious issues debated within the Church focusing on divorced and gay Catholics. Many will try to interpret the statements of Pope Francis in the coming months. Here are excerpts from the Pope’s final address:

 Surely, it [ the Synod] was not about finding exhaustive solutions for all the difficulties and uncertainties which challenge and threaten the family.... carefully studying them and  confronting them fearlessly without burying our heads in the sand.... .It was about showing the vitality of the Catholic Church, which is not afraid to stir dulled consciences or to soil her hands with lively and frank discussions about the family.....it was about trying to view and interpret realities, today’s realities, through God’s eyes, so as to kindle the flame of faith and enlighten people’s hearts, in times marked by discouragement, social, economic, and moral crisis and growing pessimism.”

It seemed Pope Francis was asking the bishops to accept the modern world. This is not a new issue dividing the Church. In 1967, the famous Catholic author, Reverend Andrew Greeley posed the question: “ Can and ought the Church to trust the modern world?”

He distinguished the two sides of the issue saying: “The negative answer views the contemporary society and culture as pagan, secularist, materialist, anti-Christian and atheistic. Rather than compromise with it, at the risk of corruption, the Church must maintain the purity and immutability of its doctrines, structures, religious practices and style of handling critical questions; it must sit in judgment on the world.”

According to Greely, there was another side to the issue: “The other alternative sees the modern world as being basically good – though, like all human ventures, imperfect. It views science, technology, art, political democracy, the mass media, material abundance, belief in progress, yearning for self fulfilment as historical developments with which the Church should have made peace long ago; they represent real progress and are profoundly if implicitly Christian.”

Those words were written 48 years ago. The difference is that now it is a Pope that is resurrecting the same topic. Here are two excerpts from Pope Francis’s closing speech at the Synod:

“ It [ Synod] was also about laying closed hearts, which bare the closed hearts, which frequently hide even behind the Church’s teachings or good intentions, in order to sit in the chair of Moses and judge, sometimes with superiority and superficiality, difficult cases and wounded families.” He is saying that broken families should not be excluded from the Church.

Pope Francis also asked the Church hierarchy to accept reality – that there is a multiplicity of cultures. It has long been said that the Church curia was always dominated by Europeans who looked at European culture and values as the foundation for Catholic values and culture. Here is another statement from Pope Francis:

“ And – apart from dogmatic questions clearly defined by the Church’s Magisterium – we have also seen that what seems normal for a bishop on one continent, is considered strange and almost scandalous for a bishop from another; what is considered a violation of a right in one society is an evident and inviolable rule in another, what for some is freedom of conscience is for others simply confusion.”

Did Pope Francis criticize the Bishops in his speech at the Synod? The headlines used the term “excoriate” which means to censure strongly or to denounce. Perhaps, that is too strong a term. But certainly, based on the words he used, the Pope was very unhappy and displeased with those bishops with “closed” hearts.”

Who won?

It would seem the biggest winners were Catholics who divorced and remarried in civil ceremonies. The current church rules state that they cannot receive communion unless they abstain from sex with their new partner, because their first marriage is considered still valid and they are then living in adultery.

The Synod document said that a priest or bishop may work with a Catholic, who has divorced and remarried to decide...”.if he or she can be fully reintegrated into the Church.” This means allowing him or her to partake of the sacraments including Penance and the Holy Eucharist if permitted by a priest or bishop.  A divorced and remarried Catholic can simply go “shopping” for a priest or bishop who will be more liberal and grant him or her permission to receive communion.  It was reported that this was the most fought over articles reaching the two thirds majority needed by only a few votes. One article passed by only one vote.

After his first encyclical, people said Pope Francis was a breath of fresh air. After his next encyclical it may well be said that this Pope is a powerful wind that is bent on bringing the Church into the modern world.

Adult Writing Class

The Personal Essay with Paulynn Paredes Sicam on November 21, 2015 (1:30-5:30pm) at Fully Booked Bonifacio High Street.  Paulynn Paredes Sicam is a journalist and editor.  She writes a weekly column for the Philippine STAR.  For registration and fee details contact 0917-6240196/ [email protected].

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