The results of several days of small group meetings at the Synod of Bishops on the Family point to a need to change the way the Church communicates with the world, and to come to a new understanding of what marriage and family looks like in the modern world.
Vatican Radio is reporting on the results of the work accomplished during the first week of the Synod which was comprised primarily of small group meetings where the first section of the Synod’s working document, or Instrumentum Laboris, was discussed.
On Friday, representatives of the 13 working groups gave their reports.
For example, Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane, Australia, gave the results of the English language groups:
“We came to feel that there are issues that need to be addressed, analysis that needs to be done and decisions that need to be taken at the local or regional level,” the Archbishop said.
Even if families can no longer be neatly packaged into a “one-size-fits-all” model, participants in his group felt a need to both recognize and encourage the positive in people’s lives rather than to become too focused on the many crises families are facing today.
“What’s really in crisis is our understanding of what marriage is and what the family is…It’s easy to look back to a golden age when there was mum, dad and three or four kids……that’s not the reality today…..”
As Hitchen reports, “They also talked of the challenge of bringing together such diverging views from right across the globe. Many were critical of a ‘too Western perspective’ that they perceived in the Synod’s working document and several suggested that much greater autonomy must go to local bishops conferences to find creative solutions to family problems in their particular parts of the world.”
There was also a lot of talk about language and why it’s important to do away with the kind of “Church speak” that is meaningless to today’s youth.
“Instead many bishops cited Pope Francis’ own down-to-earth, colorful choice of words that has made people from all countries and all cultures sit up and discover a new, fresh face to the unchanging truths of the Church,” Hitchens reports.
Language was also the focus of a presentation by Philadelphia’s Archbishop Charles Chaput who cautioned the Synod Fathers about using imprecise language that could lead to confusion. One of the examples he used is the term “inclusive”.
“We’ve heard many times that the Church should be inclusive. And if by ‘inclusive’ we mean a Church that is patient and humble, merciful and welcoming – then all of us here will agree. But it’s very hard to include those who do not wish to be included, or insist on being included on their own terms.
“To put it another way: I can invite someone into my home, and I can make my home as warm and hospitable as possible. But the person outside my door must still choose to enter. If I rebuild my house to the blueprint of the visitor or stranger, my family will bear the cost, and my home will no longer be their home. The lesson is simple. We need to be a welcoming Church that offers refuge to anyone honestly seeking God. But we need to remain a Church committed to the Word of God, faithful to the wisdom of the Christian tradition, and preaching the truth of Jesus Christ.”
In other words, women who want to be priests or people involved in same-sex relationships should be welcomed into the Church, but they must enter on the terms of the truth taught by Jesus Christ, not on their own terms.
He also cautioned the Fathers about the term “unity in diversity”, noting that “we need to honor the many differences in personality and culture that exist among the faithful. But we live in a time of intense global change, confusion and unrest. Our most urgent need is unity, and our greatest danger is fragmentation.”
He concluded: “In the coming days of our synod, we might fruitfully remember the importance of our unity, what that unity requires, and what disunity on matters of substance implies.”
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