Well, this will be my last blog post on the
interim report of the Synod. The Synod itself is moving on past that phase, and
the Internet with its usual goldfish-like attention span has gone in a few days
from ‘It’s the end of the Church as we know it! The mark of the Beast is nigh!’
to ‘Report? Was there some report? Oh yeah…’ It is perhaps salutary for us to
remark on that not infrequent dynamic in modern life whereby yesterday’s apocalypse becomes
today’s footnote. Surely when the actual apocalypse comes we will be able to
focus our minds on it for more than 72 hours, don’t you think?
I have concluded in all this kerfuffle that
I must have some kind of anti-alarmist prejudice. I have indeed read various things written
about just how terrible the report is. I… just am not seeing it, folks. I can’t
join the panic party – I just… can’t. Partly, I know that I am not reading a
Church document with any binding authority. So I can just read it. I don’t have
to obey one word in this document (nice!).
It is not a perfect document. It is awfully
poorly written, for one thing, which as a professional writer offends me more
than perhaps it would someone else. Language should not just communicate truth, but
also beauty, and this report is written by someone who has a tin ear for
language, for sure.
There is an emphasis on the positive that
may strike some as polyannaish, if not worse. More could have been said on the
harm done by the morally wrong choices people make in their intimate
relationships, especially when those immoral choices become constituent parts
of those relationships (i.e. ‘living in sin’).
But the document is not—repeat, not—ignoring Catholic doctrine in favor
of accommodation and relativism. Here is the paragraph which I believe is the
guiding principle the report is proposing:
In this context
the Church is aware of the need to offer a meaningful word of hope. It is
necessary to set out from the conviction that man comes from God and that,
therefore, a reflection able to reframe the great questions on the meaning of
human existence, may find fertile ground in humanity’s most profound
expectations. The great values of marriage and the Christian family correspond
to the search that distinguishes human existence even in a time marked by
individualism and hedonism. It is necessary to accept people in their concrete
being, to know how to support their search, to encourage the wish for God and
the will to feel fully part of the Church, also on the part of those who have
experienced failure or find themselves in the most diverse situations. This requires
that the doctrine of the faith, the basic content of which should be made
increasingly better known, be proposed alongside with mercy.
OK, not well written. But the point is
clear: people have within them a desire for goodness, for love, for meaning. Yes,
they make terribly wrong choices based on the fact that our desires have gone
badly awry (the document is weak on that point, I will grant).
But our pastoral outreach to people must be
based on the fact that everyone is searching for something good, something
true, something real. I have always firmly believed, my life experience and
priestly ministry have confirmed, and I will go to my grave insisting, that
there is very little actual wickedness in this world.
The people who deliver themselves over to
monstrous evil do disproportionate damage and tend to generate a lot of
headlines. The vast majority of people are not wicked; they (we) are blind. Not wicked, but weak. Not wicked,
but terribly wounded. Not wicked, just wrong. And it’s all of us together—there
are no ‘good people over here’ and ‘bad people over there’ – or if there is, it
is strictly and exclusively the business of God to sort that out (cf. Matthew
25).
And so this paragraph, and the report that
follows upon it, counsels that we both teach the doctrine of the Church
regarding sex, marriage, and the family, and be merciful in so doing. It is not either-or; as always in things
Catholic, it is both-and. That is how I read the report, and that is how
I intend to carry on in my own priestly ministry and meager attempts to follow Christ.
Regarding the word ‘gradualism’, about
which I may write more if I can find the time, space, and sanity to do so (my
life is a wee bit hectic of late), I recommend this
woman’s story as an example of gradualism working as it should. It is, by
definition, a messy business—conversion, that is. Moral progress, that is. Hard
to make sweeping generalized statements about; best left to the individual work
of pastors and penitents and all us sorry sinners together.
I agree with your assessment. I, and my pastor, have been designated by our diocesan communication office, as contact persons for the media in our region. since my pastor is away I got the call yesterday from a TV news station to make a comment. I had a couple of hours to get caught up. My statement, the part that got on TV was similar to yours. This is a working paper, not a statement of any kind. It is about how we treat those who are outside Church teaching, not whether we should change Church teaching. It is simply a paper to generate discussion. Off the record - we need to chill.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Ed. Yep, chilling out is the right call just about now.
DeleteThis gets a big like from me.
ReplyDelete