ROME
Reuters
By James Martin October 23, 2014
If you told me a few years ago that a synod of bishops would make the front page of almost every newspaper, be featured prominently on almost every news website, and be the topic of heated conversation among Catholics worldwide, I would have said that you were — to use a theological term — crazy.
The interest generated by the Synod of Bishops on the Family, the two-week meeting of bishops, priests and lay people that concluded last weekend at the Vatican, surprised even veteran Vaticanologists. In recent years, synods did not garner much enthusiasm, to put it mildly. One reason for the renewed interest this year was Pope Francis’s urging participants to be as open as possible. And they were. Not only to one another, but also in the daily media briefings, which brought their candor before the general public.
The document that received the most attention was the relatio, or report, issued midway through the two-week session. (The Synod of Bishops on the Family, incidentally, is a two-year event. This session was the first. In other words, that first relatio was midway through midway.) The first relatio was characterized by a warm pastoral outreach to divorce and remarried Catholics, cohabitating couples, as well as to gays and lesbians, the last of which were included under the subject line “Welcoming Homosexual Persons.”
The synod’s final relatio, however, proved a less controversial publication, reflecting the variety of viewpoints that exist among the Catholic bishops. Nevertheless, there was still a great deal of confusion over the final document, particularly regarding what it did or did not do. So let’s address those two questions.
WHAT DID THE SYNOD DO?
1. Fostered openness
The synod seems to have ushered in an era of openness in the Vatican. In the past, the results of synods were sometimes seen to be foregone conclusions. Why? Some bishops, for a variety of reasons, may not have felt as comfortable discussing controversial topics, or may have concluded that a pope might not want certain topics raised. That was not the case this month. Bishops were vocal, disagreeing with one another politely but vigorously, a consequence of the pope’s encouragement to be open. “Speak clearly,” he said at the synod’s opening. “Don’t tell anyone, ‘You can’t say that.’”
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