Synod on the family

THE premises of the XIV Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops at the Vatican is teeming with people from the media—hundreds or so of them, mostly from giant news agencies from Europe and North America.  The Vatican or the Synod in particular has become a very salable news beat comparable if not more with international conferences.  Some decades ago, this was not so. But when the Church started talking about gender issues, marriage and the family tempests started boiling in the offing.

            Like most church observers throughout the world, the media is, of course, expecting a killing like they did during the Extraordinary Synod on the Family in October 2014 when discussions were torrid about gay unions and giving communions to divorced or remarried.  Nobody knows for sure if multinational news organizations that have budgeted a good fortune for their journalists and crew to cover a whole month of the Synod in the Vatican are under the care of lobby groups and policy organizations.  But for sure at the end of the Synod they will not tuck-in banner stories about the indissolubility of marriage or that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered—like it is said in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

            A few days ago, media reported that a letter critical of synodal process allegedly signed by several Cardinals was being circulated among the synod participants.  The Cardinals, however, denied the authenticity of the letter.  Moreover, from within the walls of the synod there are reports of a “Shadow Council” that reportedly have nuanced approached to the “instrumentum laboris” which has been strongly criticized by small groups among synod participants.

            Such things and more, of course, are bound to happen. But like Pope Francis said at the opening, “…the Synod is not a congress or a ‘parlour,’   a parliament or senate, where people make deals and reach a consensus. The Synod is rather an ecclesial expression, i.e., the Church that journeys together to understand reality with the eyes of faith and with the heart of God; it is the Church that questions herself with regard to her fidelity to the deposit of faith, which does not represent for the Church a museum to view, nor just something to safeguard, but is a living spring from which the Church drinks, to satisfy the thirst of, and illuminate the deposit of life.”

            Pope Francis admonishes the synod participants “that the Synod will be able to be a space of action of the Holy Spirit only if we, the participants, are clothed with apostolic courage, evangelical humility and trusting prayer.”

            At the end of the day what will count will neither be the intelligent theological excursions nor the tactical persuasion of influence groups but the humble confidence in the workings of the Holy Spirit.