www.WordonFire.org\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nThe midterm report on the deliberations of the Synod on the Family has appeared and there is a fair amount of hysteria all around. John Thavis, a veteran Vatican reporter who should know better, has declared this statement \u201can earthquake, the big one that hit after months of smaller tremors.\u201d Certain\u00a0 commentators on the right have been wringing their hands and bewailing a deep betrayal of the Church\u2019s teaching. One even opined that this report is the \u201csilliest document ever issued by the Catholic Church,\u201d and some have said that the interim document flaunts the teaching of St. John Paul II. Meanwhile the New York Times<\/em> confidently announced that the Church has moved from \u201ccondemnation of unconventional family situations and toward understanding, openness, and mercy.\u201d I think everyone should take a deep breath.<\/p>\nWhat has just appeared is not even close to a definitive, formal teaching of the Catholic Church. It is a report on what has been discussed so far in a synod of some two hundred bishops from around the world. It conveys, to be sure, a certain consensus around major themes, trends that have been evident in the conversations, dominant emphases in the debates, etc., but it decidedly does not represent \u201cthe teaching\u201d of the Pope or the bishops.<\/p>\n
One of the great mysteries enshrined in the ecclesiology of the Catholic Church is that Christ speaks through the rather messy and unpredictable process of ecclesiastical argument. The Holy Spirit guides the process of course, but he doesn\u2019t undermine or circumvent it. It is precisely in the long, laborious sifting of ideas across time and through disciplined conversation that the truth that God wants to communicate gradually emerges. If you want evidence of this, simply look at the accounts of the deliberations of the major councils of the Church, beginning with the so-called Council of Jerusalem in the first century right through to the Second Vatican Council of the twentieth century. In every such gathering, argument was front and center, and consensus evolved only after lengthy and often acrimonious debate among the interested parties. Read John Henry Newman\u2019s colorful history of the Council of Nicaea in the fourth century, and you\u2019ll find stories of riots in the streets and the mutually pulling of beards among the disputants. Or pick up Yves Congar\u2019s very entertaining diary of his years at Vatican II, and you\u2019ll learn of his own withering critiques of the interventions of prominent Cardinals and rival theologians. Or peruse John O\u2019Malley\u2019s history of the Council of Trent, and you\u2019ll see that early draft statements on the key doctrines of original sin and justification were presented, debated, and dismissed\u2014long before final versions were approved.<\/p>\n
Until Vatican II, these preliminary arguments and conversations were known only to the participants themselves and to certain specialist historians who eventually sifted through the records. The great teachings of the Councils became widely known and celebrated, but the process that produced them was, happily enough, consigned to the shadows. If I might quote the great Newman, who had a rather unsatisfying experience of official ecclesial life in Rome:\u00a0 \u201cthose who love the barque of Peter ought to stay out of the engine room!\u201d This is a somewhat more refined version of \u201cthose who enjoy sausage ought never to watch how it is made.\u201d The interim report on the Synod represents a very early stage of the sausage-making process and, unsurprisingly, it isn\u2019t pretty. Two more weeks of discussion will follow; then a full year during which the findings of the Synod will be further refined, argued about, and clarified; then the Ordinary Synod on the Family will take place (the one going on now is the Extraordinary Synod), and many more arguments and counter-arguments will be made; finally, some months, perhaps even a year or so, after that, the Pope will write a post-Synodal exhortation summing up the entire process and offering a definitive take on the matter. At that point, I would suggest, something resembling edible sausage will be available for our consumption; until then, we should all be patient and refrain from bloviating.<\/p>\n
The historian and theologian Martin Marty commented that our debates today about sex and authority are analogous to the arguments in the early centuries of the Church\u2019s life concerning Christology and to the disputes about anthropology and salvation around the time of the Reformation. Those two previous dust-ups took several centuries to resolve, and Marty suggests that we might be in the midst of another centuries long controversy. I\u2019m glad that Pope Francis, at the outset of this Synod, urged the participating bishops to speak their minds clearly and fearlessly. He didn\u2019t want a self-censorship that would unduly hamper the conversation and thereby prevent the truth from emerging. This does not imply for a moment that Pope Francis will agree with every point of view expressed, and indeed he can\u2019t possibly, since many are mutually exclusive. But it does indeed mean that he has the confidence and the patience required to allow the Holy Spirit to work in his preferred fashion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Some of us recall when an entire papal commission recommended that the pope just go ahead and approve of artificial contraception. \u00a0He declined to do so. \u00a0Because the Holy Spirit is in charge.<\/p>\n
Relax. \u00a0This is the the Church holding itself in suspense, thinking things through messily, and making up its mind about stuff<\/a>. \u00a0It won\u2019t last forever. \u00a0Trust God. \u00a0Be at peace. \u00a0Do the next practical thing.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Having Patience for the Sausage-Making Synod By Very Rev. Robert Barron Father Robert Barron is the founder of the global ministry, Word on Fire, and the Rector\/President of Mundelein Seminary. He is the creator of the award winning documentary series, \u201cCatholicism\u201d\u00a0\u00a0and \u201cCatholicism:The New Evangelization.\u201d\u00a0Learn more at www.WordonFire.org\u00a0 The midterm report on the deliberations of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[597],"class_list":["post-55377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-synod-on-the-family"],"yoast_head":"\n
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