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NEWS ANALYSIS
OCTOBER 25, 2015
OUR SUNDAY VISITOR
SYNOD ON THE FAMILY
Letter intrigue eclipses improved methodology Private letter sent to Pope Francis illuminates synod tensions, overshadows good work being done By Austen Ivereigh
The end of the first week of the Ordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family in Rome was dominated above all by one story, which was in turn related to another at the start. It might be called, “Why the pope spoke out,” and involved the publication of a protest letter to him by 13 synod fathers that five of them later said they had never signed. The “Letter of the 13,” which appeared Oct. 12 on the website of a well-known Italian conservative blogger, helped to solve the mystery of why Pope Francis had decided, on the synod’s second day the week before, to warn against seeing plots and conspiracies where there were none (such a “hermeneutic of conspiracy,” he said, was both “sociologically weak and spiritually unhelpful”). The letter also shed light on the anxieties of a group of mostly Englishspeaking synod fathers concerned about a novel format they feared would skew the synod in favor of an outcome they regarded as unacceptable: an opening to readmit remarried divorcés to the sacraments. (Among its signatories were the leading opponents of that move: Archbishop Carlo Caffarra of Bologna; Australian Cardinal George Pell, head of the Secretariat for the Economy; German Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — who did not deny signing it, but was furious that it had leaked — and African Cardinal Robert Sarah, head of the Congregation for Divine Worship).
Letter content
While the letter’s existence was confirmed by Cardinal Pell, he added that there were errors in both “the content and the list of signatories.” Originally written in English, the letter criticized the decision to abandon the traditional synod format (which used to conclude with a series of prepositiones, or proposals to the pope), in favor of a final text that had been worked on in small groups. Claiming that “the absence of propositions and their related
discussions and voting seems to discourage open debate,” they said that “voting on the final document comes too late in the process for a full review and serious adjustment to the text.” They were especially concerned with the composition of the 10-man drafting commission responsible for sifting and integrating the amendments crafted in the small groups, which they said had been appointed “without consultation.” Their complaints, articulated by Cardinal Pell on the floor of the synod, had led the synod secretary-general, Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, to make a lengthy justification of the thinking behind the new method, and provoked Pope Francis into making three points: that their conspiracy lens was flawed, that Church doctrines were not at risk from the synod, and that the issues at stake could not be reduced to the question of access to the sacraments. Baldisseri pointed out that the final report in previous synods had always been drafted by an unelected commission, and that it had been Pope Francis’ decision to broaden it with representatives from the different continents.
Methodology
The media focus on that clash early on in the gathering has made it harder to see the real, if less exciting story, of the synod: that after an uncertain start, it has showed every sign of working well, and that the immense majority of the synod fathers regard the new methodology as an immense improvement on the previous model. Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, for example, spoke for many in describing it as a “huge step forward.” He told Vatican Radio: “At least half the time is spent in the language groups, the so-called circuli minores, which means far more intensive participation, far greater concentration on each topic, a far more effective way of working and thus far greater satisfaction.” This, at least, is the picture that emerges from both the small-group reports and in-
Each afternoon during the synod, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, papal spokesman, leads a news conference for the world’s media. CNS Photo by Paul Haring
VATICAN RESPONSE TO LETTER In a statement read Oct. 13, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, said it would be “inappropriate to allow [the letter to the pope from 13 cardinals] to have any influence,” as it was a private correspondence that several cardinals denied even signing, and as Pope Francis addressed the concerns raised in the letter early on in the synod gathering. To publish the text and list of letter signatories days later “constitutes a disruption that was not intended by the signatories,” Father Lombardi said. The overall climate of the synod is “without doubt positive,” Father Lombardi said. terviews given by the synod fathers. The criticisms of the method are largely confined to some of the English-speaking groups, where, for example, the group moderated by Cardinal Pell complained that they did not have a clear idea at whom the final document was aimed. “Are we writing to the Holy Father, to families of the Church or to the world?” they asked. Another signatory of the “Letter of the 13,” Cardinal Thomas Collins of Toronto, told Catholic News Service that “trying to get almost 300 people editing a text — it’s a very difficult thing to do in a short space of time.” Yet the Italian, Spanish, French and German groups seem to understand much better that the synod is not a text-drafting committee but a mechanism for ecclesial discernment, in which the text is the medium, rather than the object, of the process. The Spanish-language groups are the most enthusiastic, because most of them are Latin-Americans familiar with the similar method employed by the Latin-
American episcopal council, or CELAM, in its assemblies. The small groups in all languages proposed changes to the first part of the three-part working document, or instrumentum laboris, which is concerned with the challenges to family life. They call for a more nuanced discernment of the contemporary scene, one that sees the lights as well as the shadows (“Many young people still want to marry, and there are still remarkable families, many of them Christian, heroically so at times,” writes the group “English-C”.) They critique the excessively Western-centric focus of the document, noting that the challenge of “consumer cultures” — individualism, secularism, declining congregations — is not true of large parts of the world. And they call for a more grounded language, one rooted in family reality rather than the abstract categories of “churchspeak.”
Looking ahead
What possible outcomes of
this synod have emerged so far? In the sheer torrent of words and ideas unleashed by this remarkable global gathering, it is hard to detect patterns. Listening to dozens of three-minute speeches, one bishop wrote on his blog, “was like watching corn pop. Stuff was going off in all directions.” But three trends seem clear. The first is that there is an overwhelming desire for a new Church language that can better connect with the contemporary world. The second is the conviction that, faced with the collapse of support in law and culture for the Christian understanding of marriage, intense and lengthy marriage preparation will be necessary for future marriages to be valid. The third is that the notion of a one-size-fits-all pastoral strategy for radically different cultural contexts may be impossible, and that future deliberations like this one need to start with regional assemblies. Will these trends convert into concrete commitments? It is hard to tell. The tensions are great, and the disagreements obvious; but so, too, is the concern for the contemporary family and the desire for a new pastoral strategy to meet the challenge of the moment. At the halfway mark, one thing is for sure: the Holy Spirit has plenty of work still to do. Austen Ivereigh is the author of “The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope” (Henry Holt, $30).
PERSPECTIVES
OUR SUNDAY VISITOR
Wish to comment or respond to an editorial, article or letter you’ve read in OSV? Email us at osvletters@osv. com (put “Letters to the Editor” in subject line) or write to Letters to the Editor, Our Sunday Visitor, 200 Noll Plaza, Huntington, IN 46750. Letters must be concise and are subject to editing (maximum 300 words). Sender’s name, address and telephone number must be included, although anonymity may be requested.
OSV CROSSWORD PUZZLE
61 Deride 62 Addict 63 Implement 64 Prices paid 65 Rochester’s love
DOWN 1 Holy ___ 2 Wife of St. Joachim 3 Staffs 4 Horse’s gait 5 The Theological ___ 6 East 7 Some are magic 8 Aliens, briefly 9 A letter 10 Christian love SOLUTION FROM LAST WEEK 11 Speed-ofsound measure 12 High (comb.) 13 Ezekiel scattered this to the wind (Ez 5:1–2) 21 Tribe of Israel 22 “I believe in ___ God ...” 24 “Angels we have heard on ___ ...” 25 Genderless possessive 26 Position 27 Less common
19
EDITORIAL
SOMETHING TO SAY?
ACROSS 1 Elvis Presley co-star who became a nun 5 Promised 10 Indian nursemaid 14 ___ about 15 Angry 16 Inaugural event 17 Disentangle 18 Word on a shampoo bottle 19 Globe opening 20 Said again 22 Wealthy biblical land 23 There ain’t none when she’s gone 26 Isaiah or Jeremiah 30 Israel ending 31 EMS procedure 34 Spoons 35 OT bk. that precedes Ruth 36 Decoy 37 Like a loud crowd 38 Play-___ 39 St. Goretti 40 Kind of mail (abbr.) 41 Eve beginner 42 “Jesus Christ, Son of God, ___” 43 EMTs’ destinations 44 Catechism question: ___ made me? 45 Rifle 46 Denial of faith 48 Desert food 51 Surpass 56 Dash 57 Peter’s ___ 59 By memory 60 Aleutian island
OCTOBER 25, 2015
28 Smells 29 Plot of ground 31 Administrative arm of the Catholic Church 32 Head of a monastery 33 Equip again 35 Character of the Old Testament who retained his faith, though severely tested 36 Wash 38 God, to Pedro 39 Magdalene and the sister of Martha 41 Second Greek letter in a title for Jesus 42 Rachel and Leah 44 One of Roosevelt’s alphabet agencies 45 Tap 46 Declare a marriage invalid 47 Shades 48 Friday in Lent no-no food 49 Certain voice 50 Western pact 52 “Light from light, ___ God from ...” 53 Going well 54 Road to the Colosseum 55 Paris pop 57 Low-rank inits. 58 “Xanadu” band, briefly
A narrative of distrust
T
here’s been a lot of good going on in Rome this month, where the world’s bishops have gathered for a synod on family life at the Vatican. Many synod participants rightfully have called attention to the strong Catholic families in the Church. Despite the difficulties and challenges that inevitably make up their daily lives, such families work hard to remain faithful to Christ. As Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York wrote recently, there are many Catholics who “strive for virtue and fidelity” and who are looking to the Church for “support and encouragement, a warm sense of inclusion.” We applaud these bishops, and we add our voice to theirs. The backbone of the U.S. and universal Church, Catholic families who live the Faith quietly each day deserve a multitude of accolades. As several bishops in one of the English-language working groups said at the end of the first week of the synod: “We need to underline the fact If attention does that many Christian families serve not remain on the as a counter-witness to negative trends in the world by the way they task at-hand — on faithfully live the Catholic vision of marriage and the family. These the pastoral care families need to be recognized, of the family — a honored and encouraged.” great opportunity But, as we know, family life is will have been lost. not without its challenges, some of which are severe. The family is under attack from every angle. The result is that fewer couples are getting married in the Church and fewer children are being baptized. Divorce is widespread. Nontraditional families, including those with same-sex parents, are increasing in number, particularly in the West. The family synod, which ends Oct. 25, offers a unique opportunity to address some of these challenges head-on. With hundreds of bishops and dozens more auditors, including many married couples, the synod offers a forum to engage in the dialogue, encounter and exchange of thought on family life so valued by Pope Francis. But this opportunity is in danger of being squandered. Reports from the synod are painting a picture of an individualistic, divided landscape that seems more political than ecclesiastical. Spurred on by a nonstop news cycle, reporters are on the prowl for stories, and many synod observers and participants are happy to oblige. Sometimes the results are informative and balanced. Too often, though, the media and their interviewees seem more concerned with drawing battle lines and strategizing individual advances than working together in search of the truth and the common good. More than anything, what is lacking in the reports on the synod is clarity. Unnamed sources are liberally quoted. Contradictory information is released (see Page 4), and few clarifications are made. Observers are left with breathless stories of competing interests and narratives put forward by interest groups and agenda-setting press releases. We recognize that the challenge facing the Vatican is real: It is difficult to strike a balance between maintaining transparency and, at the same time, providing an opportunity for free discussion unhindered by the glare of the world’s media spotlight. At the same time, a polarized synod combined with anecdotes of contradiction and confusion is feeding into a narrative of distrust. If attention does not remain on the task at-hand — on the pastoral care of the family — a great opportunity will have been lost. After the freewheeling dialogue that Pope Francis has asked for, it will be critically important that Church leaders focus on what is truly important: How to strengthen and support the Catholic family in a time of great challenge and change. Editorial Board: Greg Erlandson, publisher; Msgr. Owen F. Campion, associate publisher; Beth McNamara, editorial director; Gretchen R. Crowe, editor
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NEWS ANALYSIS
NOVEMBER 8, 2015
OUR SUNDAY VISITOR
SYNOD ON THE FAMILY
Synod ends with new pastoral tone, direction On complex issues, bishops opt for individual discernment without the option of changing doctrine By Austen Ivereigh
The consensus document that emerged from a vigorous and at times bare-knuckled three-week Synod of Bishops on the Family seemed a miracle after a two-year process that had exposed raw disagreements among the world’s bishops. Each of the 94 paragraphs of the final report was passed Oct. 24 by 265 voting delegates, although the two-thirds majority was hairline-thin in the case of the section that outlined a pathway of integration for the divorced and remarried. The paragraphs had been carefully constructed to enable agreement, although at the cost of ambiguity. Bishops on all sides of the debate have since offered contrasting interpretations of whether paragraph 85 opens the way to the divorced and remarried receiving the Eucharist or reaffirms existing practice preventing it. Australian Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s finance chief who emerged at the synod as leader of the opposition to the proposal, said the absence of any reference to Communion was “fundamental” and that any suggestion of a change to existing practice was “misguided.” But Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, a leading figure in the College of Cardinals who is close to Pope Francis, said the issue was not “yes or no” but of a matter of distinguishing between different real-life situations, as Pope St. John Paul II’s 1981 encyclical on the family, Familiaris Consortio, urges. “They don’t get specifically into holy Communion,” Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said of the report. “They get into what it means to walk with and accompany people.”
The internal forum
Even before it began, the synod had mostly decided to reject the so-called “Kasper solution” — a public path of penance that would lead back to the sacraments, as in the Orthodox Church — because it involved
creating new law and risked eroding the teaching against divorce. They chose instead to look within their own pastoral tradition for ways that allow for case-by-case discernment without changing doctrine or sacramental discipline, through a “pathway of discernment” in the internal forum. The internal forum refers to what takes place in the confidential realm of spiritual guidance, confession and conscience. It does not alter law but allows priests flexibility in applying rules for the sake of the health of souls, taking into account particular circumstances. The report spells out a process of spiritual guidance with a series of conscience-searching questions about the past to help develop “a correct judgment on what obstacles exist to a fuller participation in the life of the Church and on the steps that can encourage that participation and make it grow.” The proposal comes out of a dense theological debate in the German-language group, which included both advocates of change such as the German bishops’ president, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, as well as its most high-profile opponent, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith prefect, Cardinal Gerhard Müller. Aware that the rest of the synod was looking to them, the group’s unanimous agreement on an internal-forum examination of conscience process was the breakthrough that paved the way for sufficient consensus.
Intentional ambiguity
That consensus looked impossible following the smallgroup reports in Week 3. The Spanish-speaking group led by Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez de Maradiaga, president of Pope Francis’ “C9” Council of Cardinals, had also urged some kind of pathway of reintegration, as did the English-language group moderated by Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster, president of the bishops of England and Wales. But two groups moderated by curial cardinals — George Pell and Robert Sarah — rejected any change to
English-speaking delegates at the Synod of Bishops on the Family meet Oct. 19 at the Vatican. CNS photo/L’Osservatore Romano
CONCLUDING SPEECH On Oct. 24, Pope Francis spoke to the Synod of Bishops on the Family. Here is an excerpt from his speech. “Certainly, the synod was not about ... finding exhaustive solutions for all the difficulties and uncertainties which challenge and threaten the family, but rather about seeing these difficulties and uncertainties in the light of the Faith, carefully studying them and confronting them fearlessly, without burying our heads in the sand.” existing discipline, while many of the others were paralyzed. In the Archbishop of Montevideo’s Italian-speaking group there were “two completely opposed positions,” Cardinal Daniel Sturla told Our Sunday Visitor. Cardinal Nichols, who has been elected to the synod council alongside Cardinal Pell and Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, told reporters that the report had “quite deliberately set aside the question of admission to the Eucharist” in order to avoid conditioning the freedom of discernment. He said the discipline and steps laid out in the report “are precisely to help us to avoid that temptation of slapping on a quick plaster and then underneath something is still festering away.” In many cases, he said, a person would conclude in conscience that they should not receive Communion. But if they did? “It’s their decision,” he said. “That is not prejudged or pre-empted.” Whatever the precise implications of paragraph 85, the synod document overall marks a significant shift since last year’s synod toward embracing and integrating those who are divorced and remarried.
“Aside from the issue of sacramental Communion, what we needed was a change of attitude and a change of language,” said Bishop Alfonso Miranda Guardiola, an auxiliary of Monterrey, Mexico, who has pastored to the divorced and remarried for many years. “I believe that’s what we got, and that’s why I’m leaving completely satisfied and totally happy,” Bishop Guardiola told Vatican Insider.
Shift in tone
The early part of the report calls for the Church to adopt broad catechumenate-style faith-formation programs of “vocational discernment” to prepare couples for marriage and support them in their early years, reflecting a key theme of the synod that culture and law can no longer supply marriage’s meaning. But mostly, the report is remarkable for a shift in focus and tone, seeking to help and heal rather than reject and condemn on a huge range of complex and painful situations triggered by family and marriage breakdown. While reaffirming the importance of clear doctrine, the document warns against making judgments that fail to ac-
count for the complexity of individual situations and calls on the Church to be attentive to the ways in which people “live and suffer as result of their condition.” Not everyone was willing to go that route. The Archbishop of Brisbane, Australia, Mark Coleridge, deplored on his widely read blog “the apocalyptic vision” of synod fathers ardently opposed to a more humane and compassionate approach. On homosexuality, the report merely repeats Church statements against same-sex marriage and treating gay people with respect, because for many of the Africans and Eastern Europeans, this was a topic too far. Belgian Bishop Johan Bonny told reporters that “there was no way of discussing [the question of same-sex unions] in a peaceful way” in his Frenchspeaking group moderated by Cardinal Sarah, the African curial cardinal who in his speech likened gay rights to the threat from ISIS. “That is a point for next time,” Bonny said. Pope Francis clearly had in mind this forceful minority when he told the synod following the vote that different opinions had been expressed “at times, unfortunately, not in entirely well-meaning ways.” He said, “the true defenders of doctrine are not those who uphold its letter but its spirit; not ideas but people; not formulae but the gratuitousness of God’s love and forgiveness.” But in the end, his attempt to move the Church further in the direction of what he calls in Evangelii Gaudium “a missionary and pastoral conversion” paid off. The synods of 2014-2015 may be remembered for their intense debates and occasional melodramas, but the more open, honest format in the end delivered not only a new direction for the Church but a new way of acting. “You had all this open discussion about issues that the Church is struggling with,” Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington said. “You’re not going to be able to close that door in the future.” Austen Ivereigh is the author of “The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope” (Henry Holt, $30).
NEWS ANALYSIS
OCTOBER 25, 2015
OUR SUNDAY VISITOR
SYNOD ON THE FAMILY
Letter intrigue eclipses improved methodology Private letter sent to Pope Francis illuminates synod tensions, overshadows good work being done By Austen Ivereigh
The end of the first week of the Ordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family in Rome was dominated above all by one story, which was in turn related to another at the start. It might be called, “Why the pope spoke out,” and involved the publication of a protest letter to him by 13 synod fathers that five of them later said they had never signed. The “Letter of the 13,” which appeared Oct. 12 on the website of a well-known Italian conservative blogger, helped to solve the mystery of why Pope Francis had decided, on the synod’s second day the week before, to warn against seeing plots and conspiracies where there were none (such a “hermeneutic of conspiracy,” he said, was both “sociologically weak and spiritually unhelpful”). The letter also shed light on the anxieties of a group of mostly Englishspeaking synod fathers concerned about a novel format they feared would skew the synod in favor of an outcome they regarded as unacceptable: an opening to readmit remarried divorcés to the sacraments. (Among its signatories were the leading opponents of that move: Archbishop Carlo Caffarra of Bologna; Australian Cardinal George Pell, head of the Secretariat for the Economy; German Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — who did not deny signing it, but was furious that it had leaked — and African Cardinal Robert Sarah, head of the Congregation for Divine Worship).
Letter content
While the letter’s existence was confirmed by Cardinal Pell, he added that there were errors in both “the content and the list of signatories.” Originally written in English, the letter criticized the decision to abandon the traditional synod format (which used to conclude with a series of prepositiones, or proposals to the pope), in favor of a final text that had been worked on in small groups. Claiming that “the absence of propositions and their related
discussions and voting seems to discourage open debate,” they said that “voting on the final document comes too late in the process for a full review and serious adjustment to the text.” They were especially concerned with the composition of the 10-man drafting commission responsible for sifting and integrating the amendments crafted in the small groups, which they said had been appointed “without consultation.” Their complaints, articulated by Cardinal Pell on the floor of the synod, had led the synod secretary-general, Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, to make a lengthy justification of the thinking behind the new method, and provoked Pope Francis into making three points: that their conspiracy lens was flawed, that Church doctrines were not at risk from the synod, and that the issues at stake could not be reduced to the question of access to the sacraments. Baldisseri pointed out that the final report in previous synods had always been drafted by an unelected commission, and that it had been Pope Francis’ decision to broaden it with representatives from the different continents.
Methodology
The media focus on that clash early on in the gathering has made it harder to see the real, if less exciting story, of the synod: that after an uncertain start, it has showed every sign of working well, and that the immense majority of the synod fathers regard the new methodology as an immense improvement on the previous model. Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, for example, spoke for many in describing it as a “huge step forward.” He told Vatican Radio: “At least half the time is spent in the language groups, the so-called circuli minores, which means far more intensive participation, far greater concentration on each topic, a far more effective way of working and thus far greater satisfaction.” This, at least, is the picture that emerges from both the small-group reports and in-
Each afternoon during the synod, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, papal spokesman, leads a news conference for the world’s media. CNS Photo by Paul Haring
VATICAN RESPONSE TO LETTER In a statement read Oct. 13, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, said it would be “inappropriate to allow [the letter to the pope from 13 cardinals] to have any influence,” as it was a private correspondence that several cardinals denied even signing, and as Pope Francis addressed the concerns raised in the letter early on in the synod gathering. To publish the text and list of letter signatories days later “constitutes a disruption that was not intended by the signatories,” Father Lombardi said. The overall climate of the synod is “without doubt positive,” Father Lombardi said. terviews given by the synod fathers. The criticisms of the method are largely confined to some of the English-speaking groups, where, for example, the group moderated by Cardinal Pell complained that they did not have a clear idea at whom the final document was aimed. “Are we writing to the Holy Father, to families of the Church or to the world?” they asked. Another signatory of the “Letter of the 13,” Cardinal Thomas Collins of Toronto, told Catholic News Service that “trying to get almost 300 people editing a text — it’s a very difficult thing to do in a short space of time.” Yet the Italian, Spanish, French and German groups seem to understand much better that the synod is not a text-drafting committee but a mechanism for ecclesial discernment, in which the text is the medium, rather than the object, of the process. The Spanish-language groups are the most enthusiastic, because most of them are Latin-Americans familiar with the similar method employed by the Latin-
American episcopal council, or CELAM, in its assemblies. The small groups in all languages proposed changes to the first part of the three-part working document, or instrumentum laboris, which is concerned with the challenges to family life. They call for a more nuanced discernment of the contemporary scene, one that sees the lights as well as the shadows (“Many young people still want to marry, and there are still remarkable families, many of them Christian, heroically so at times,” writes the group “English-C”.) They critique the excessively Western-centric focus of the document, noting that the challenge of “consumer cultures” — individualism, secularism, declining congregations — is not true of large parts of the world. And they call for a more grounded language, one rooted in family reality rather than the abstract categories of “churchspeak.”
Looking ahead
What possible outcomes of
this synod have emerged so far? In the sheer torrent of words and ideas unleashed by this remarkable global gathering, it is hard to detect patterns. Listening to dozens of three-minute speeches, one bishop wrote on his blog, “was like watching corn pop. Stuff was going off in all directions.” But three trends seem clear. The first is that there is an overwhelming desire for a new Church language that can better connect with the contemporary world. The second is the conviction that, faced with the collapse of support in law and culture for the Christian understanding of marriage, intense and lengthy marriage preparation will be necessary for future marriages to be valid. The third is that the notion of a one-size-fits-all pastoral strategy for radically different cultural contexts may be impossible, and that future deliberations like this one need to start with regional assemblies. Will these trends convert into concrete commitments? It is hard to tell. The tensions are great, and the disagreements obvious; but so, too, is the concern for the contemporary family and the desire for a new pastoral strategy to meet the challenge of the moment. At the halfway mark, one thing is for sure: the Holy Spirit has plenty of work still to do. Austen Ivereigh is the author of “The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope” (Henry Holt, $30).
PERSPECTIVES
OUR SUNDAY VISITOR
Wish to comment or respond to an editorial, article or letter you’ve read in OSV? Email us at osvletters@osv. com (put “Letters to the Editor” in subject line) or write to Letters to the Editor, Our Sunday Visitor, 200 Noll Plaza, Huntington, IN 46750. Letters must be concise and are subject to editing (maximum 300 words). Sender’s name, address and telephone number must be included, although anonymity may be requested.
OSV CROSSWORD PUZZLE
61 Deride 62 Addict 63 Implement 64 Prices paid 65 Rochester’s love
DOWN 1 Holy ___ 2 Wife of St. Joachim 3 Staffs 4 Horse’s gait 5 The Theological ___ 6 East 7 Some are magic 8 Aliens, briefly 9 A letter 10 Christian love SOLUTION FROM LAST WEEK 11 Speed-ofsound measure 12 High (comb.) 13 Ezekiel scattered this to the wind (Ez 5:1–2) 21 Tribe of Israel 22 “I believe in ___ God ...” 24 “Angels we have heard on ___ ...” 25 Genderless possessive 26 Position 27 Less common
19
EDITORIAL
SOMETHING TO SAY?
ACROSS 1 Elvis Presley co-star who became a nun 5 Promised 10 Indian nursemaid 14 ___ about 15 Angry 16 Inaugural event 17 Disentangle 18 Word on a shampoo bottle 19 Globe opening 20 Said again 22 Wealthy biblical land 23 There ain’t none when she’s gone 26 Isaiah or Jeremiah 30 Israel ending 31 EMS procedure 34 Spoons 35 OT bk. that precedes Ruth 36 Decoy 37 Like a loud crowd 38 Play-___ 39 St. Goretti 40 Kind of mail (abbr.) 41 Eve beginner 42 “Jesus Christ, Son of God, ___” 43 EMTs’ destinations 44 Catechism question: ___ made me? 45 Rifle 46 Denial of faith 48 Desert food 51 Surpass 56 Dash 57 Peter’s ___ 59 By memory 60 Aleutian island
OCTOBER 25, 2015
28 Smells 29 Plot of ground 31 Administrative arm of the Catholic Church 32 Head of a monastery 33 Equip again 35 Character of the Old Testament who retained his faith, though severely tested 36 Wash 38 God, to Pedro 39 Magdalene and the sister of Martha 41 Second Greek letter in a title for Jesus 42 Rachel and Leah 44 One of Roosevelt’s alphabet agencies 45 Tap 46 Declare a marriage invalid 47 Shades 48 Friday in Lent no-no food 49 Certain voice 50 Western pact 52 “Light from light, ___ God from ...” 53 Going well 54 Road to the Colosseum 55 Paris pop 57 Low-rank inits. 58 “Xanadu” band, briefly
A narrative of distrust
T
here’s been a lot of good going on in Rome this month, where the world’s bishops have gathered for a synod on family life at the Vatican. Many synod participants rightfully have called attention to the strong Catholic families in the Church. Despite the difficulties and challenges that inevitably make up their daily lives, such families work hard to remain faithful to Christ. As Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York wrote recently, there are many Catholics who “strive for virtue and fidelity” and who are looking to the Church for “support and encouragement, a warm sense of inclusion.” We applaud these bishops, and we add our voice to theirs. The backbone of the U.S. and universal Church, Catholic families who live the Faith quietly each day deserve a multitude of accolades. As several bishops in one of the English-language working groups said at the end of the first week of the synod: “We need to underline the fact If attention does that many Christian families serve not remain on the as a counter-witness to negative trends in the world by the way they task at-hand — on faithfully live the Catholic vision of marriage and the family. These the pastoral care families need to be recognized, of the family — a honored and encouraged.” great opportunity But, as we know, family life is will have been lost. not without its challenges, some of which are severe. The family is under attack from every angle. The result is that fewer couples are getting married in the Church and fewer children are being baptized. Divorce is widespread. Nontraditional families, including those with same-sex parents, are increasing in number, particularly in the West. The family synod, which ends Oct. 25, offers a unique opportunity to address some of these challenges head-on. With hundreds of bishops and dozens more auditors, including many married couples, the synod offers a forum to engage in the dialogue, encounter and exchange of thought on family life so valued by Pope Francis. But this opportunity is in danger of being squandered. Reports from the synod are painting a picture of an individualistic, divided landscape that seems more political than ecclesiastical. Spurred on by a nonstop news cycle, reporters are on the prowl for stories, and many synod observers and participants are happy to oblige. Sometimes the results are informative and balanced. Too often, though, the media and their interviewees seem more concerned with drawing battle lines and strategizing individual advances than working together in search of the truth and the common good. More than anything, what is lacking in the reports on the synod is clarity. Unnamed sources are liberally quoted. Contradictory information is released (see Page 4), and few clarifications are made. Observers are left with breathless stories of competing interests and narratives put forward by interest groups and agenda-setting press releases. We recognize that the challenge facing the Vatican is real: It is difficult to strike a balance between maintaining transparency and, at the same time, providing an opportunity for free discussion unhindered by the glare of the world’s media spotlight. At the same time, a polarized synod combined with anecdotes of contradiction and confusion is feeding into a narrative of distrust. If attention does not remain on the task at-hand — on the pastoral care of the family — a great opportunity will have been lost. After the freewheeling dialogue that Pope Francis has asked for, it will be critically important that Church leaders focus on what is truly important: How to strengthen and support the Catholic family in a time of great challenge and change. Editorial Board: Greg Erlandson, publisher; Msgr. Owen F. Campion, associate publisher; Beth McNamara, editorial director; Gretchen R. Crowe, editor
4
NEWS ANALYSIS
NOVEMBER 8, 2015
OUR SUNDAY VISITOR
SYNOD ON THE FAMILY
Synod ends with new pastoral tone, direction On complex issues, bishops opt for individual discernment without the option of changing doctrine By Austen Ivereigh
The consensus document that emerged from a vigorous and at times bare-knuckled three-week Synod of Bishops on the Family seemed a miracle after a two-year process that had exposed raw disagreements among the world’s bishops. Each of the 94 paragraphs of the final report was passed Oct. 24 by 265 voting delegates, although the two-thirds majority was hairline-thin in the case of the section that outlined a pathway of integration for the divorced and remarried. The paragraphs had been carefully constructed to enable agreement, although at the cost of ambiguity. Bishops on all sides of the debate have since offered contrasting interpretations of whether paragraph 85 opens the way to the divorced and remarried receiving the Eucharist or reaffirms existing practice preventing it. Australian Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s finance chief who emerged at the synod as leader of the opposition to the proposal, said the absence of any reference to Communion was “fundamental” and that any suggestion of a change to existing practice was “misguided.” But Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, a leading figure in the College of Cardinals who is close to Pope Francis, said the issue was not “yes or no” but of a matter of distinguishing between different real-life situations, as Pope St. John Paul II’s 1981 encyclical on the family, Familiaris Consortio, urges. “They don’t get specifically into holy Communion,” Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said of the report. “They get into what it means to walk with and accompany people.”
The internal forum
Even before it began, the synod had mostly decided to reject the so-called “Kasper solution” — a public path of penance that would lead back to the sacraments, as in the Orthodox Church — because it involved
creating new law and risked eroding the teaching against divorce. They chose instead to look within their own pastoral tradition for ways that allow for case-by-case discernment without changing doctrine or sacramental discipline, through a “pathway of discernment” in the internal forum. The internal forum refers to what takes place in the confidential realm of spiritual guidance, confession and conscience. It does not alter law but allows priests flexibility in applying rules for the sake of the health of souls, taking into account particular circumstances. The report spells out a process of spiritual guidance with a series of conscience-searching questions about the past to help develop “a correct judgment on what obstacles exist to a fuller participation in the life of the Church and on the steps that can encourage that participation and make it grow.” The proposal comes out of a dense theological debate in the German-language group, which included both advocates of change such as the German bishops’ president, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, as well as its most high-profile opponent, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith prefect, Cardinal Gerhard Müller. Aware that the rest of the synod was looking to them, the group’s unanimous agreement on an internal-forum examination of conscience process was the breakthrough that paved the way for sufficient consensus.
Intentional ambiguity
That consensus looked impossible following the smallgroup reports in Week 3. The Spanish-speaking group led by Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez de Maradiaga, president of Pope Francis’ “C9” Council of Cardinals, had also urged some kind of pathway of reintegration, as did the English-language group moderated by Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster, president of the bishops of England and Wales. But two groups moderated by curial cardinals — George Pell and Robert Sarah — rejected any change to
English-speaking delegates at the Synod of Bishops on the Family meet Oct. 19 at the Vatican. CNS photo/L’Osservatore Romano
CONCLUDING SPEECH On Oct. 24, Pope Francis spoke to the Synod of Bishops on the Family. Here is an excerpt from his speech. “Certainly, the synod was not about ... finding exhaustive solutions for all the difficulties and uncertainties which challenge and threaten the family, but rather about seeing these difficulties and uncertainties in the light of the Faith, carefully studying them and confronting them fearlessly, without burying our heads in the sand.” existing discipline, while many of the others were paralyzed. In the Archbishop of Montevideo’s Italian-speaking group there were “two completely opposed positions,” Cardinal Daniel Sturla told Our Sunday Visitor. Cardinal Nichols, who has been elected to the synod council alongside Cardinal Pell and Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, told reporters that the report had “quite deliberately set aside the question of admission to the Eucharist” in order to avoid conditioning the freedom of discernment. He said the discipline and steps laid out in the report “are precisely to help us to avoid that temptation of slapping on a quick plaster and then underneath something is still festering away.” In many cases, he said, a person would conclude in conscience that they should not receive Communion. But if they did? “It’s their decision,” he said. “That is not prejudged or pre-empted.” Whatever the precise implications of paragraph 85, the synod document overall marks a significant shift since last year’s synod toward embracing and integrating those who are divorced and remarried.
“Aside from the issue of sacramental Communion, what we needed was a change of attitude and a change of language,” said Bishop Alfonso Miranda Guardiola, an auxiliary of Monterrey, Mexico, who has pastored to the divorced and remarried for many years. “I believe that’s what we got, and that’s why I’m leaving completely satisfied and totally happy,” Bishop Guardiola told Vatican Insider.
Shift in tone
The early part of the report calls for the Church to adopt broad catechumenate-style faith-formation programs of “vocational discernment” to prepare couples for marriage and support them in their early years, reflecting a key theme of the synod that culture and law can no longer supply marriage’s meaning. But mostly, the report is remarkable for a shift in focus and tone, seeking to help and heal rather than reject and condemn on a huge range of complex and painful situations triggered by family and marriage breakdown. While reaffirming the importance of clear doctrine, the document warns against making judgments that fail to ac-
count for the complexity of individual situations and calls on the Church to be attentive to the ways in which people “live and suffer as result of their condition.” Not everyone was willing to go that route. The Archbishop of Brisbane, Australia, Mark Coleridge, deplored on his widely read blog “the apocalyptic vision” of synod fathers ardently opposed to a more humane and compassionate approach. On homosexuality, the report merely repeats Church statements against same-sex marriage and treating gay people with respect, because for many of the Africans and Eastern Europeans, this was a topic too far. Belgian Bishop Johan Bonny told reporters that “there was no way of discussing [the question of same-sex unions] in a peaceful way” in his Frenchspeaking group moderated by Cardinal Sarah, the African curial cardinal who in his speech likened gay rights to the threat from ISIS. “That is a point for next time,” Bonny said. Pope Francis clearly had in mind this forceful minority when he told the synod following the vote that different opinions had been expressed “at times, unfortunately, not in entirely well-meaning ways.” He said, “the true defenders of doctrine are not those who uphold its letter but its spirit; not ideas but people; not formulae but the gratuitousness of God’s love and forgiveness.” But in the end, his attempt to move the Church further in the direction of what he calls in Evangelii Gaudium “a missionary and pastoral conversion” paid off. The synods of 2014-2015 may be remembered for their intense debates and occasional melodramas, but the more open, honest format in the end delivered not only a new direction for the Church but a new way of acting. “You had all this open discussion about issues that the Church is struggling with,” Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington said. “You’re not going to be able to close that door in the future.” Austen Ivereigh is the author of “The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope” (Henry Holt, $30).
