{"id":319,"date":"2015-10-08T10:49:35","date_gmt":"2015-10-08T14:49:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/religioninthenews\/?p=319"},"modified":"2015-10-08T10:49:35","modified_gmt":"2015-10-08T14:49:35","slug":"showdown-at-the-bishops-synod","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/religioninthenews\/2015\/10\/08\/showdown-at-the-bishops-synod\/","title":{"rendered":"Showdown at the Bishops Synod"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Print<\/a>
Print by Stephen Alcorn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Mark Silk<\/p>\n

Everyone interested in the future of the Catholic church is now focused on the Synod of Bishops on the Family \u2013 the showdown in Rome between progressive forces seeking to reanimate the spirit of the Second Vatican Council and conservatives anxious to maintain the \u201creform of the reform\u201d undertaken by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.<\/p>\n

Although the Synod is supposed to address a range of family issues, the battle lines have been drawn up over the issue of whether divorced and remarried Catholics may be able to take Communion. That may be surprising, for in contrast to contraception or married clergy or women priests, this issue has never occasioned widespread agitation in the church. And it affects a relatively small number of the faithful.<\/p>\n

But like the Battle of Gettysburg, the fight for a minor piece of ground can turn out to be the crucial one. In Catholicism, the crux of the conflict is the extent to which the Church can change.<\/p>\n

In his opening homily<\/a> to the attendees, Pope Francis described the Synod as \u201cthe Ecclesial expression\u201d of a church \u201cthat interrogates herself with regard to her fidelity to the deposit of faith, which does not represent for the Church a museum to view, nor even something merely to safeguard, but is a living source from which the Church shall drink, to satisfy the thirst of, and illuminate, the deposit of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

With this rather intricate piece of papal prose, Francis informed the assemblage that its job is to make the \u201cdeposit of faith\u201d \u2013 the body of teaching handed by Christ to the Apostles \u2013 more readily accessible to the people of today. In line with his persistent emphasis on tempering justice with mercy, he lent support to German Cardinal Walter Kasper\u2019s proposal that the divorced and remarried no longer be kept from the Eucharist by the Church\u2019s teaching on the indissolubility of marriage.<\/p>\n

At the first session, however, the Synod\u2019s \u201cgeneral relator,\u201d Hungarian Cardinal P\u00e9ter Erd\u00f6, offered the contrary view in a speech<\/a> setting the parameters for the forthcoming discussions. \u201cThe truth of the indissolubility of marriage taught by Jesus Christ himself,\u201d he said, means that the bar to Communion is no \u201carbitrary prohibition.\u201d Rather, sacramental marriage establishes it as an \u201cintrinsic demand\u201d on all civilly divorced and remarried Catholics regardless of circumstances.<\/p>\n

Erd\u00f6\u2019s remarks were interpreted by some as taking Communion for the divorced and remarried off the table, but at a press briefing<\/a> the following day, the president of the Pontifical Council of Social Communication, Archbishop Maria Celli, denied that. \u201cIt is open on a pastoral level but remember what the Pope said about doctrine,\u201d Celli said. Next, according to Vatican Radio, Canadian Archbishop Paul-Andre Durocher replied to a question of whether the Communion ban was a \u201cdoctrine or a discipline\u201d by saying that \u201cdifferent people may see this differently and that it was part of the work of the Synod to discuss this.\u201d<\/p>\n

These comments reflect the ecclesiastical rule of thumb that a \u201cdiscipline\u201d can be changed but a \u201cdoctrine\u201d cannot. Thus, Kasper\u2019s position is that \u201cno Communion for the divorced and remarried\u201d is a discipline that can be waived in certain cases. And American Cardinal Raymond Burke, the arch-conservative whom Pope Francis removed as head of the Vatican\u2019s highest court, recently declared<\/a> that even the pope \u201cdoes not have the power to change teaching [or] doctrine.\u201d<\/p>\n

But according to James Bretzke, S.J., a professor of moral theology at Boston College, the discipline-doctrine distinction is not so simple.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Discipline\u2019 is a technical term reserved for items that are legislated by competent authority in the church,\u201d Bretzke said in an interview. \u201cA doctrine is a different concept, and that refers to theological teachings related to the deposit of faith, the understanding of the Christian faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet all disciplines and all doctrines are not created equal, he said. The discipline of clerical celibacy, for example, is far more serious than the discipline of not eating meat on Fridays, which has ceased to be obligatory for American Catholics.<\/p>\n

As for doctrines, those that have been proposed in a \u201cdefinite manner\u201d by a church council or the pope are considered de fide definita <\/em>\u2013 \u201cof the faith as defined.\u201d Less definitive are theological \u201cnotes\u201d that may be considered propositions or speculations. \u201cThe indissolubility of marriage is a doctrine, yet it is not nailed down,\u201d Bretzke said. \u201cThere is no council that says this is solemnly defined.\u201d<\/p>\n

The doctrine of papal infallibility, which was solemnly defined by the First Vatican Council a century and a half ago, has been employed by popes to establish just two doctrines de fide definita<\/em>: the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of the Virgin Mary<\/a>. But that does not mean that popes haven\u2019t altered doctrine in a less definitive manner \u2013 through encyclicals, motibus propriis<\/em>, homilies, and speeches.<\/p>\n

Thus far, Pope Francis appears to have done so twice. At a briefing<\/a> for journalists in New York in September, Holy See spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi was asked whether his statements on the death penalty and declaration of a right of the environment to be protected represented a development of church teaching. \u201cThere is something new there, yes,\u201d Lombardi replied.<\/p>\n

In addition, Francis preempted some positions taken at last year\u2019s Synod and (like several of his predecessors) formally changed<\/a> the way the Church handles marriage annulments. Specifically, he promulgated new canon law that does away with automatic reviews and allows diocesan bishops to grant uncontested \u201cdeclarations of nullity\u201d within 45 days.<\/p>\n

While these may appear to be changes in discipline, some Catholic critics have claimed that they are tantamount to a doctrinal shift sanctioning divorce, Catholic style. \u201cThe claim is that discipline and doctrine are like Siamese twins,\u201d Bretzke said. \u201cWe can differentiate them but if they\u2019re joined at a vital organ, if you separate them you\u2019re killing them both.\u201d<\/p>\n

Should the current Synod decide that the ban on Communion is (merely) disciplinary, it is fair to expect conservatives to insist that nevertheless, actually permitting some divorced and remarried Catholics access to the Eucharist would kill the church\u2019s doctrine of marriage. And if that doctrine is killed, who knows what\u2019s next?<\/p>\n

At last year\u2019s Synod, the conservatives were caught flat-footed by Francis\u2019 push for progressive reform. This year it\u2019s clear they\u2019ve arrived ready to fight to hold the line. But as the pope has shown by his action on annulments, the last word will belong to him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everyone interested in the future of the Catholic church is now focused on the Synod of Bishops on the Family \u2013 the showdown in Rome between progressive forces seeking to reanimate the spirit of the Second Vatican Council and conservatives anxious to maintain the \u201creform of the reform\u201d undertaken by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":854,"featured_media":336,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,7,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/religioninthenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/religioninthenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/religioninthenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/religioninthenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/854"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/religioninthenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/religioninthenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":338,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/religioninthenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions\/338"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/religioninthenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/religioninthenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/religioninthenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/religioninthenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}