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.
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