\u201cThere was a cry of jubilation on Saturday afternoon when he said we could have a 10-minute break before we moved from the three-minute speeches into the so-called free discussion. But he told us that there would be no coffee. Boos ensued. One bishop suggested (sotto voce) that if we couldn\u2019t have a coffee someone should open the grog-cupboard. That would have made the free discussion really interesting.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u201cDuring the free discussion, I decided to speak. I tried to say that during the Synod discussions and those preceding there was a sense at times that it\u2019s a matter of all or nothing \u2013 that we have two options: either to abandon the Church\u2019s teaching on marriage and the family or to leave things exactly as they are, saying and doing what we\u2019ve said and done for a long time. I suggested that neither of these was a real option. We weren\u2019t going to abandon Church teaching; but it was unthinkable that we would simply say and do what we\u2019ve always said and done. Why bother with the time, energy and expense of two Synods and all that\u2019s gone with them if nothing whatsoever is going to change? The impression at times is that there\u2019s really no space between the two extremes, when in fact there\u2019s a huge space \u2013 space for all kinds of pastoral creativity. We need, I said, to expand our vision of possibility, think laterally, outside the square. That\u2019s the task of this Synod and the real challenge to our corporate apostolic imagination: neither to abandon Church teaching or to leave things untouched, but to explore the vast territory that lies between iconoclasm and immobilism \u2013 and to do so in a way that\u2019s practical at the point of both language and action.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Since I\u2019m perfectly confident the Church is not going to change anything essential in her teaching (cuz she\u2019s indefectible) I have paid no and will pay not attention to the breathless hysterical panic emanating from the folks who are wasting time worrying that she will, that Francis is the Great Enemy of the Faith and that God has anointed them to stop The Worst Pope Since Alexander VI by squealing in comboxes or on nutjob blogs.<\/p>\n
I will, however, occasionally note when something actually interesting or productive comes out of the Synod. All this, to repeat, is just the Church chewing stuff over. What will matter and have teeth is when the pope actually writes his teaching document in a year or so. Remain calm.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sherry Weddell passes on the following: Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane has written a rollicking, witty, and thought-provoking description of the first week at the Synod on the Family. He wrote it primarily for Australian Catholics but I think that Catholics from across the English speaking world would enjoy it! A sample of rollicking: \u201cThere […]<\/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-94625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-synod-on-the-family"],"yoast_head":"\n
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