Pope Francis will open this Wednesday (4), in the Vatican, the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, a meeting that brings together Catholic leaders from around the world with the aim of exchanging information and seeking universal solutions to demands that arise in the scope of the Catholic Church.
In this edition, the Synod will discuss the so-called “synodality”, which could be defined as the way in which decisions are made in the Church. The broad definition, however, allows sensitive topics such as priestly celibacy, the blessing of same-sex unions, the extension of the sacraments to divorcees in new civil unions and the ordination of women to the diaconate or even to the priesthood to enter the agenda. The Church consulted thousands of faithful over two years to understand the position of the majority of Catholics on these issues.
There will be four weeks of daily meetings, with 464 participants, of which only 365 will have the right to vote on decisions. For the first time since the creation of the body, in 1965, there will be participation of women and lay people in the deliberations. After debates among participants, the conclusions will be delivered to Pope Francis.
According to the Portuguese agency Ecclesia, specialized in news about the Catholic Church, the meeting begins with a mass presided over by the Pope this Wednesday (4), and includes a pilgrimage on the 12th. Discussions on the Synod’s themes will be developed in 35 groups of linguistic work, made up of 11 people and a “facilitator”, including a Portuguese-speaking group.
To the 365 voters are added, without the right to vote, 12 representatives of other churches and Christian communities, called “fraternal delegates”; eight special guests; and collaborators of the General Secretariat of the Synod. Another 57 people, including 20 women, will participate as experts, or “facilitators”, which are “people whose mission is to facilitate work in the different phases of the debates”, without the right to vote.
This is the first session of the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, divided into two parts by Francis. A second meeting will take place in 2024. The theme of the meeting is “Towards a synodal Church: communion, participation, mission”.
After both moments, it is up to the pope to issue a document (called “post-synodal exhortation”) endorsing or rejecting the recommendations discussed.
North American newspaper report The New York Times showed that there was frustration from certain sectors in the previous Synod, which took place in 2019 on the Amazon, when the pope refused to allow the ordination of married men as priests and women as deaconesses, even though there was a majority of votes in favor of these changes.
Cardinals send questions to Francis and criticize lack of clarity
Through a letter published on the eve of the Synod, five cardinals asked the pope to clarify his position on blessings for same-sex unions and the possibility of ordaining women. The document, published by the Italian newspaper L’Espresso, is signed by Cardinals Raymond Leo Burke, North American; Walter Brandmüller, German; Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, Mexican; Robert Sarah, Guinean; and Joseph Zen Ze-kiun from Hong Kong.
The cardinals had already presented some doubts to the pope in July, but considered his answers “insufficient”, which is why they sent him another letter in August which, they claim, was not answered.
“In view of several statements by some high-ranking prelates inherent to the celebration of the next Synod of Bishops, obviously contrary to the constant doctrine and discipline of the Church, which have generated great confusion and a fall into error among the faithful and other people of good will, we express our deep concern to the Roman Pontiff”, stated the cardinals in the document.
The first doubt raised was about the possibility “that the Church today teaches doctrines contrary to those it taught before in matters of faith and morals”, following theologians and pastors who believe that it is necessary to adapt to the “cultural and anthropological changes of our time ”.
The cardinals also highlighted “concern” because Francis said the issue of women’s priestly ordination could be “deepened”, although the Argentine pontiff supports the apostolic letter Ordenatio Sacerdotaliswith which John Paul II closed this possibility in 1994.
“Could the Church in the future have the power to confer priestly ordination on women, contradicting the fact that the exclusive reservation of this sacrament for baptized men belongs to the very substance of the Sacrament, which the Church cannot change?”, they asked in the letter.
It is not the first time that the pope has received a letter with “doubts” from some cardinals: his apostolic exhortation on the family Amoris laetitia , from 2016, provoked a negative reaction from Burke and Brandmüller, as well as the Italian Carlo Caffarra and the German Joachim Meisner, both now deceased. Contrary to what he did in July, Francis had not responded to questions from the four cardinals in 2016. Furthermore, around 60 historians, theologians and priests accused the pope of publishing seven “heresies” in Amoris laetitia.
On the 30th, Francisco stated that he wants to see the Synod approved “without murmurs, ideologies and polarizations”.
Pope’s response
In his July response, the pope said that “we cannot become judges who merely deny these questions.” The text was only released a few days ago, at the initiative of the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández.
In one of the doubts, the cardinals had asked whether the Church could accept situations such as “unions between people of the same sex”.
Francis clarified that “the Church has a very clear conception of marriage”, which is “an exclusive, stable and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to generating children”, which is why he “avoids any type of rite or sacrament which could contradict this conviction and imply that something is recognized as marriage that is not.”
However, Francis highlighted that “in dealing with people, we must not lose pastoral charity, which must permeate all our decisions and attitudes. (…) The defense of objective truth is not the only expression of this charity, which is also made up of kindness, patience, understanding, tenderness, encouragement. Therefore, we cannot become judges who just deny, reject, exclude,” he said.
“Although there are situations that from an objective point of view are not morally acceptable, the same pastoral charity demands that we not simply treat other people as ‘sinners’ whose guilt or responsibility may be mitigated by various factors that influence subjective imputability,” he stated.
The cardinals also questioned whether the apostolic letter Ordenatio sacerdotalisfrom 1994, in which John Paul II denied priestly ordination to women, is still valid.
Francis responded that when the Polish saint defended the impossibility of ordaining female priests, “he was not belittling women and granting supreme power to men,” and added that John Paul II also maintained, in his apostolic exhortation Christifideles laici (1988), “that although only the priest presides over the Eucharist, the tasks ‘do not give rise to the superiority of some over others’. (…) If this is not understood and we do not pay attention to the practical consequences of these distinctions, it will be difficult to accept that the priesthood is reserved only for men and we will not be able to recognize women’s rights or the need for them to participate, in various ways , in leading the Church”, said Francisco.
In an interview with France-Presse, a Vatican source stated that “even if the Synod does not find a concrete answer to the issues discussed, it is already a big step to bring them to debate, given that they were prohibited topics in the past and are currently being discussed to the attention of the Church. It’s already a huge step forward on sensitive issues,” he said. “Before, we couldn’t say the word ‘homosexual’. Now we have issues on the table that concern homosexuality,” he stated, anonymously.
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