The fruits of the Synod of Bishops

THIS month’s Synod of Bishops has shown in how many ways the Eucharist is at the centre of the Church’s mission.

For three weeks, the bishops have applied their minds to finding ways of amplifying this centrality, encapsulated in the synodal theme: “The Eucharist: Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church”.

Pope Benedict has done the Church a great service by changing the synodal procedures to allow for daily open discussions, during which bishops could present thoughts and ideas that were not on the synod’s agenda. In this open forum, as well as in parts of the formal programme, many bishops spoke of challenges the Church is facing with specific reference to the Eucharist.

One subject that arises again and again is the matter of priest shortages in certain regions of the Church, most acutely in some mission territories.

The call on the Church to allow the ordination to Holy Orders of proven married men of excellent character, viri probati, is taking on ever greater urgency as some Catholic communities receive the Eucharist only sporadically, some as infrequently as once a year.

One Honduran bishop said that in his diocese there was just one priest for every 16000 Catholics. The faithful, he said, “deserve the Eucharist but cannot receive it.”

While ordaining married men to the priesthood in the Latin rite (Eastern rites do have married Catholic priests) may yet be a bridge too far for the whole Church, it is inevitable that the question will need further study. One now-retired South African prelate, Bishop Fritz Lobinger of Aliwal North, has laid a groundwork for this in his world-acclaimed 1998 book Like His Brothers and Sisters.

The synod has also shown that the banning from the Lord’s Table of divorced and civilly remarried Catholics requires re-examination.

Nobody, it seems, is satisfied with the current painful situation where virtuous Catholics are barred from receiving the Eucharist. Even Pope Benedict has expressed his concerns on this question.

In both respects—vocations and the divorced—the debate of whether the reception of Communion is a right or a privilege is crucial.

While Cardinal Angelo Scola, the synod’s recording secretary, argued that the Eucharist is a gift, not a right, Cardinal Julian Herranz, effectively the Vatican’s top canon lawyer, said that Catholics do have a right to receive the Eucharist regularly—a right compromised only by a state of serious sin.

Simply put, if Cardinal Scola is correct, then any Catholic may be disqualified from receiving the Eucharist for reasons of sin or circumstance.

If Cardinal Herranz is correct, then the Church must find ways of responding to the needs of the people precluded from receiving the Eucharist because of a lack of priests—for example by changing the current discipline governing the marital status of Latin-rite priests.

Likewise, the Church might also seek ways of redefining the permanent state of sin it describes divorced and remarried Catholics as being in, enabling such Catholics to return openly to the Eucharist.

Though none of these debates may be reflected in the synod’s final document, this Synod of Bishops has brought into the open many concerns previous assemblies did not.

These synodal fruits must now be nurtured. The Church’s inquest into how to bring the Eucharist to all Catholics must begin in earnest now that the bishops have shown areas of deficiencies and challenges.