The synod’s battlelines

by Editor · October 1, 2014

There are heightened expectations that this month�s Synod of Bishops on the family might produce changes, especially on the question of Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics.

“Nevertheless, the synod�s defining issue will be the sacrament of the Eucharist in relation to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics. ” (Photo: CathNews USA)

While the synod�s deliberations will provide a guide to the bishops� thinking on this and other issues, those who are hoping for immediate pastoral reforms will be disappointed�not because such reforms are impossible, but because this extraordinary synod is intended only to prepare for next year�s full synod, which may produce new pastoral approaches.

Bishops and other delegates attending this month�s synod will discuss the pastoral priorities concerning the family in their regions. Their deliberations will include the outcomes of the questionnaires which were circulated to bishops� conferences around the world last year.

Few conferences have made public the findings of these questionnaires. If those publicised by the bishops of Germany and Switzerland are representative of the Church in the West, then the big issues there include the situation of divorced Catholics, family planning, homosexuality, and the exodus of people from the Church.

These issues are not universal, however. In Africa the question of polygamy, for example, is a more pressing pastoral concern. In South Africa, the breakdown of the traditional family, to the extent that reportedly the majority of families here are not headed by two parents, is a pastoral priority.

Nevertheless, the synod�s defining issue will be the sacrament of the Eucharist in relation to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics. The issue has occupied such a central position in public discourse that some highly-placed cardinals who oppose admitting such Catholics to the Lord�s Table have published books about it.

The battlelines have been drawn between those who advocate mercy in admitting some divorced and remarried Catholics to the Eucharist, and those who believe that fidelity to doctrine precludes such mercy.

The �mercy� camp is led by Cardinal Walter Kasper, who at the February consistory of cardinals delivered a widely publicised talk on the subject. It received warm praise from Pope Francis, affirming where the Holy Father�s sympathies reside. The opposing side, strongly critical of Cardinal Kasper, is led by the Vatican�s doctrinal chief, Cardinal Gerhard M�ller.

Some, including Cardinal Kasper, have hinted that the issue is being used as a proxy to assert some people�s discontent with Pope Francis� papacy. If so, more than questions of mercy and doctrine may be at stake.

The synod will test the collegiality which Pope Francis has emphasised he seeks. Unlike so many of the synods that came before, this year�s will not be stage-managed by the Roman curia, though the freedom which that allows will doubtless take some getting used to. Still, we can expect some frank exchanges, though politely expressed, on controversial issues.

Some will insist on the primacy of the law because they fear the alternative will open the floodgates to dissent.

Australian Cardinal George Pell, writing on Communion for the divorced and remarried, has warned: �The sooner the wounded, the lukewarm, and the outsiders realise that substantial doctrinal and pastoral changes are impossible, the more the hostile disappointment [which must follow the reassertion of doctrine] will be anticipated and dissipated.�

On the other hand, referring to his critics, Cardinal Kasper said in an interview with the Italian daily Il Mattino in September: �They claim to know on their own what truth is, but Catholic doctrine is not a closed system, but a living tradition that develops.�

The clashes between these two camps will be fascinating and illuminating. In all of this, however, the leaders of the Church must serve the welfare of the Church and the People of God. A synod on the family must be first about people, not about abstract notions of doctrine and theology.

The task of this and next year�s synods must be to discern what Jesus would say to people in their different family situations, especially when these do not conform to the Church�s ideals of the traditional nuclear family headed by one man and one woman � and to do so in the least reductive terms.