THE SYNOD, AN EXERCISE IN "SOBORNOST"

Pope Francis talks with Italian Cardinal Giuseppe Versaldi as they leave the concluding session of the extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family at the Vatican Oct. 18. At right is Italian Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, general secretary of the Synod of Bishops. (CNS/Paul Haring)Joshua J. McElwee  |  Oct. 18, 2014my source: National Catholic ReporterVATICAN CITYWrapping up his global meeting of Catholic bishops on family issues — which has seen both decisive shifts in tone from the Vatican and heated debates over the church’s direction — Pope Francis called on bishops to find a middle path between doctrine and reality.Emphatically calling on the prelates to “feed the flock” and to search for lost sheep, the pontiff also directed them to avoid the temptation to become either a “hostile rigorist” concerned only with enforcing church doctrine or a “destructive do-gooder” that advocates “false mercy” instead of truth telling.
Saying the some 190 prelates at the meeting faced ”moments of desolation, tension and temptations,” the pope also warned against the temptation to “transform bread into stone and throw it against the sinners, the weak, and the sick — to turn [the bread] into ‘unbearable burdens.’”
Francis was speaking Saturday evening at the closing session of the synod of bishops, one of two global meetings of prelates on family issues he has called for 2014 and 2015.
The pontiff spoke following the bishops’ vote on their final report from the synod, much anticipated after a preliminary report Oct. 13 made headlines when it took an unusually open tone for the church, calling on it to listen more and to apply mercy much more widely.
The final report, the product of revisions this week of small working groups of bishops, maintains that tone but narrows the original document’s openness, particularly when speaking about gay people.
Where the Oct. 13 document, for example, had a section titled “welcoming homosexual persons,” Saturday’s document has a section on giving “pastoral attention” to persons with “homosexual orientation.”
While the bishops Saturday voted on the document paragraph by paragraph, expressing approval or disapproval with each, Francis asked for the whole document to be published, even the three paragraphs that did not garner the needed two-thirds majority for passage by the synod.
The full text was published by the Vatican alongside the tally of bishops who voted approval and disapproval for each paragraph.
The three paragraphs that did not garner the traditional two-thirds majority — 122 of the 183 prelates who were present during the voting — concerned gay people and the church’s teaching regarding divorced and remarried persons who do not obtain annulments before remarrying.
In his talk Saturday, Francis frankly addressed some of the divisions and discussions the synod has evinced.
“Many commenters, or people that talk, have imagined seeing a church in dispute where one part is against the other, doubting even the Holy Spirit, the true promoter and guarantor of unity an harmony in the church,” he said.
Referencing a talk he gave the synod when it began its work Oct. 6, Francis said “it was necessary to live … with tranquility and also with interior peace because the synod takes place with Peter and under Peter and the presence of the pope is the guarantee for all.”
“The task of the pope is to guarantee the unity of the church; to remind pastors that their first duty is to feed the flock — feed the flock — that the Lord has entrusted to them and try to search to welcome — with fatherhood and mercy and without false fears –the lost sheep,” he said.
Then, saying, “I made a mistake,” Francis corrected himself: “I said welcome. Go find them!”
Vatican spokesman Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi said Saturday the pope decided to publish the synod’s entire final document, including the three paragraphs without a two-thirds majority, “to ensure maximum transparency on this whole process” and to allow bishops’ conferences around the world to use the document in preparation for the 2015 synod.
When addressing gay people, the Oct. 13 document had given its focus to the church itself, asking if the church community was welcoming to gay people and was giving them a “fraternal space.”
The final document instead restates norms from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding same-sex marriage.
In a paragraph in its section on gay people that 118 bishops voted in approval of and 62 opposed, the final document states that there “is no foundation whatsoever” to compare homosexual marriage to heterosexual marriage but says gay people “should be welcomed with respect and sensitivity.”
The following paragraph, approved by the bishops 159-21, states that “it is totally unacceptable” that the church “suffer pressures in this matter and that international bodies condition financial aid to poor countries on the introduction of laws that establish the ‘marriage’ between persons of the same sex.”
The two paragraphs without two-thirds majority regarding church practices towards divorced and remarried persons — one garnered a 104-74 vote, the other a 112-64 vote — essentially summarized discussions between the prelates about allowing such persons to take Communion.
The first of the two paragraphs said the prelates had “reflected on the possibility that the divorced and remarried have access to the sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist.”
“Any access to the sacraments should be preceded by a penitential journey under the responsibility of the diocesan bishop,” stated that paragraph. “The question is still being considered in-depth, taking the distinction between the objective situation of sin, and extenuating circumstances.”
Reflecting on the process of the synod, Francis said Saturday it was like a “journey.”
“Like every walk there were moments running fast, as if to win time and reach the goal as quickly as possible; other moments of tiredness, as if to say that’s enough; other moments of enthusiasm and ardor,” he said.
“There were moments of profound consolation, listening to the testimony of true pastors that wisely bring in the heart the joys and the cries of the faithful,” the pope continued.
But calling it “a journey of men,” the pope said “there were also moments of desolation, of tension and of temptations, of which you could mention some possibilities.”
Listing those temptations, the pope began with “the temptation of the hostile rigorist.”
Such a person, he said, has “the desire to close inside the script (the letter) and not be surprised by God, from the God of surprises (the Spirit); inside the law, inside the certainty of what we know and not of what we still have to learn and reach for.”
“From the time of Jesus, it is the temptation of the zealots, of the scrupulous … considered — today — ‘traditionalists’ and even ‘intellectualists,’” he said.
The pope then warned against “the temptation of destructive do-gooding, which in the name of a false mercy bands wounds and cures them without first medicating them; that treats the symptoms and not the causes and roots.”
“It is the temptation of ‘do-gooders’  … considered ‘progressives’ and ‘liberals,’” he said.
Three other temptations mentioned by the pope:
“To transform the stone into bread to break a long fast, heavy and painful, and also to transform the bread into stone and throw it against the sinners, the weak, and the sick, namely to turn it into ‘unbearable burdens;’”“To come down from the cross, to please the people, and not to stay to fulfill the will of the father; to bow to worldly spirit rather than purify it and bend it to the Spirit of God;”“To neglect the ‘deposit of faith,’ considering us not preservers but owners and masters or, to the other part, the temptation to ignore the realty, using a meticulous language and a language of polishing for to say many things and to not say anything! They call them “Byzantineisms,” I think, these things.”Continuing, the pope said the bishops with the pontiff “have the task and the duty to preserve and serve” the church ” not like masters but like servants.”
“The pope, in this context, is not the supreme lord but the supreme servant — the servus servorum Dei [the servant of the servants of God]; the guarantor of obedience and conformity of the church to the will of God, the Gospel of Christ, and the tradition of the church,” he said.
Concluding, the pope referenced the upcoming 2015 synod and said the bishops “now still have a year to mature, with true spiritual discernment, the proposed ideas and to find concrete solutions to many difficulties and innumerable challenges that families face.”
[Joshua J. McElwee is NCR Vatican correspondent. His email Seven lessons from the Vatican's wild and crazy synod on the family.

David Gibson  Religion News Service  |  Oct. 21, 2014Synod on the Family

ANALYSIS Pope Francis and senior Catholic leaders wrapped up their two-week Vatican summit on the challenges of modern family life on Sunday without reaching a consensus on a number of hot-button topics. So where does that leave Francis' papacy? And the church?Here are seven takeaways:
1. Hard-liners won the battle
A midpoint status report on the debate among some 190 cardinals and bishops was described as a "pastoral earthquake" because of its unprecedented (for Catholic churchmen) language of welcome of and appreciation for gay people, as well as divorced and remarried Catholics and cohabiting couples.
The media tsunami over that apparent breakthrough panicked conservatives, who waged an intense public and private campaign to make sure none of that language -- apparently favored by Francis himself -- made it into the synod's final report. They succeeded, and even the few watered-down paragraphs on gays and remarried Catholics did not reach the two-thirds threshold needed for formal passage.


2. Reformers may win the war
That could be a Pyrrhic victory, one that cost more than it was worth. If the controversial passages did not reach the two-thirds benchmark, they nonetheless won strong majorities. In addition, a growing number of reform-minded bishops say they voted against the contentious proposals because they did not go far enough in emphasizing the church's welcome, respect and value for gays and lesbians.
"I didn't think it was a good text because it didn't include those words strongly enough, so I wasn't satisfied with it," British Cardinal Vincent Nichols told The Telegraph.
Many other synod participants, including Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, also made a point of using the language of welcome that had been rejected. Controversial efforts to alter church practice to allow remarried Catholics to receive Communion are also still in play, prominent church leaders said.
Francis himself also made it clear at the end of the meeting that he wants the church to be open to "new things," and he ordered that the "defeated" proposals still be included in the text. It is likely that over the next year or two, he will also appoint more like-minded cardinals and bishops who will push for changes.
3. Change is hard
Change is especially hard for the Roman Catholic church, which likes to present itself -- and its teachings -- as immutable. But history shows that doctrine has changed (or "developed," as theologians say), and many synod participants reiterated that teachings could, and should, be adapted for today's new family realities.
Still, finding the theological language to justify such shifts, and the pastoral mechanisms to carry them out, is difficult. The bishops meeting in Rome (those who weren't opposed to any changes) were all over the map when it came to specifics, and it may take time to settle on acceptable solutions, if there are any.
4. Catholicism is 'flirting with an Anglican moment'
That's a phrase New York Times columnist Ross Douthat used on Twitter in discussing the resistance of African bishops to what they saw as the synod's focus on Western concerns like divorce and homosexuality and efforts to adapt church teaching on those issues in ways that the African churches would not accept.
The Anglican Communion is the global network of 38 autonomous member churches with some 80 million members -- including the 2 million member Episcopal church, its U.S. branch. Anglicans have been divided almost to the point of breaking as African churches have rejected moves by Western members to open the sacraments to gays and lesbians.
That dynamic is also a risk for Rome, as African Catholicism is also growing in size and influence. Two key differences, however: About 16 percent of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics live in Africa, whereas well over half of all Anglicans are from Africa, and they have a far greater say in the future direction of Anglicanism. In addition, Catholic proposals to be more welcoming to gays are a far cry from the changes pursued by some Anglican churches.
5. Speech is free
Amid all the lobbying and armchair analysis, it's important to step back and realize that in the three decades before Francis was elected pope, bishops, priests and theologians could have been investigated, censured, silenced or fired for many of the ideas that were being openly discussed at the synod.
That is perhaps the real earthquake, and it's one that Francis himself wanted.
6. Talk is cheap
On the other hand, be careful what you pray for. Francis has long urged Catholics to say what they think without fear of reprisals. Opening the synod, he again reminded the participants that he had just one condition for their talks: "Speak clearly. Let no one say: 'This you cannot say.' "
And by all accounts, they did, with great passion inside the synod hall, but even more sharply in the press. The various interest groups seeking to influence the discussions were often much less diplomatic. As one cardinal put it to the Catholic news site Crux, at a certain point, open discussion becomes "chaos."
7. Francis is the "Pope of Process"
That's what Grant Gallicho of Commonweal magazine called the pontiff. Francis and his fellow Jesuits might prefer to characterize his method as "discernment."
Either way, it means that this synod was not the end, but the beginning. Nothing has been decided, and nothing is off the table. There will be another longer, and larger, synod next October, and between now and then, Francis says he wants everyone to continue to debate and discuss.
Which they are already doing.
In the first week of November, The Catholic University of America in Washington will present a lecture by Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog and an outspoken opponent of the proposed reforms. Three days later, the campus will host another German theologian, Cardinal Walter Kasper, a leading proponent of reforms and Müller's chief sparring partner.
Pull up a chair. Discernment can be entertaining as well as enlightening.address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @joshjmac.]