(Vatican Radio) On Thursday Oct. 8 at the daily press briefing for the Synod of the Family, three prelates spoke about issues from Africa and the Middle East. They said that the Synod is universal and that Africa and the West shared similar problems.
Fr. Russell Pollitt SJ reports
Archbishop Charles Palmer-Buckley of Accra, Ghana, said that the world needs to be patient with Africa when it comes to dealing with issues like homosexuality. “Give countries time to deal with issues from our own cultural perspectives,” he said. He added that the dignity and rights of all God’s son and daughters need to be upheld.
The Synod Fathers continued to work in groups on Thursday. Archbishop Edoardo Menchelli from Ancona-Osimo, Italy, told the briefing that there was an “open fraternal discussion” in his group and that there were divergent views emerging amongst the Fathers. The bishops, he said, were discussing the first part of Instrumentum Laboris on the current situation of the family from a wide perspective.
Patriarch Ignace Joseph Younan of Lebanon said that the Middle East was experiencing the opposite of the African Church where numbers are steadily growing. In the Middle East numbers are declining as young people and families want to “get out of hell” – they are being persecuted in tragic situations in places like Iraq and Syria. He said that the Church in the region felt helpless and deplores the fact that they cannot convince young people to stay in the places where Christianity was born.
Archbishop Palmer-Buckley said that African prelates are not blocking issues – like the admission of the divorced and remarried to communion, and a greater sensitivity towards homosexual people. He said that the African Church was at the Synod to talk about how it feels regarding these issues and the pastoral practice of the Church. “We are here to share our view, we endorse the teaching of the Church,” he said. “The African delegates respect what Cardinal Erdo did and presented to us,” Palmer-Buckle said, referring to Erdo’s Relatio at the opening session of the Synod.
Arcbishop Menchelli said that talking about the role of women in the Church and homosexuality was not out of context at the Synod. He said that if one examines the mission and vocation of the family you realise that a gay brother, for example, is part of the family and impacts on all in the family. He said that the pastoral role of women was equally important but that the ordination of women deacons raised sacramental and theological concerns that would need to be studied.
Fr. Lombardi, the director of the Holy See’s Press Office, informed the media that the final list of the Synod working groups had been published. He also told the media that the office had solved information technology problems and that all the contributions and interviews done at the Synod are now available on the website in various languages.
The Synod Fathers said that they did not feel the Synod was “Western” at the expense of Africa. The Synod, they agreed, was universal in its approach. Palmer-Buckle said that the concerns of the European Church are the concerns of Africa and vice versa. He added that often “everything that’s good in Africa is not good enough for European media but anything that is black is what’s good enough.”
Archbishop Menchelli pointed out that both the Western and African Church face similar issues. In Africa marriage is a long process and therefore takes time – often traditional marriages take place and only much later a church marriage. The Archbishop said that marriage is often also delayed – for different reasons – in the West. This is a mutual concern even though the causes may differ.
Fr. Lombardi said the Synod Fathers would return to a plenary session on Friday morning where the various working groups would report on their discussions.
(from Vatican Radio)…
Vatican City, 8 October 2015 (VIS) – Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, secretary for Relations with States, today spoke in Brescia, Italy during the meeting entitled “Dialogue between Peoples in the name of Paul VI”, which commemorated the 50th anniversary of Blessed Paul VI’s visit to the General Assembly of the United Nations on 4 October 1965.
The prelate noted that a few months after the beginning of his papacy, in the encyclical “Ecclesiam Suam”, Paul VI proposed dialogue between the Church and the contemporary world as the cornerstone of his pontificate, assigning a fundamental role to dialogue between peoples to guarantee peace and equitable human development. “Pope Montini saw the theme of peace as an urgent and imperative duty, emphasised both by doctrinal reflections on the role of the Church in the contemporary world and the development of international institutions, which were reborn after the interruption of the second World War and grew rapidly in number and quality. We must not forget that the backdrop to Paul VI’s commitment to peace, and in contrast to it, was the threat of a total nuclear war, the unfettered arms race and the difficult and at times tragic crisis of the Cold War, such as the raising of the Berlin wall, the Cuban missile crisis, the beginning of the United States’ involvement in Vietnam, and many other minor conflicts”.
With regard to dialogue between States and peace-building, Archbishop Gallagher recalled Paul VI’s memorable message to the United Nations in 1965 in which he indicated four key points in the mission of the institution: offering States a formula for peaceful co-existence, a sort of international citizenship; working to unite nations, without exclusion; following the formula of equality, so that no State may be superior to the others; and considering the legal pact that unites the member States of the United Nations as a solemn oath that must change the future history of the world: “No more war, no more war”. To these points, the Pope adds another two points relating to the development and dignity of humanity: peace cannot be constructed solely through politics and the balance of forces and interests, but rather with the spirit, with ideas, and with works of peace. It involves working for development and for the rights and fundamental duties of humanity. International dialogue is concerned primarily with the issue of human life, which is sacred.
In the second part of the encyclical “Populorum Progressio”, on the development of peoples, Paul VI explains economic relations with great lucidity, highlighting finance and credit on the one hand, and international trade on the other, as priority areas for joint work. He underlines, among other things, the need for a global fund to assist poor countries, funded by richer nations principally through the limitation of military spending. With regard to international commerce, he observes that the financial and technical efforts to assist developing countries will be illusory if their results are cancelled by the interplay of trade relations between rich and poor countries.
“It is well known that Pope Montini viewed nationalism and racism as basic obstacles to the construction of a fraternal international community, based on the United Nations Charter, on an equitable legal, financial and commercial multilateral system and on respect for human rights”, noted Archbishop Gallagher.
The prelate went on to refer to the international presence that the Holy See acquired during Paul VI’s papacy, entering as an Observer in the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1964, participating then as a member in the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and often as an observer in many international bodies and at many conventions, from the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in Geneva, the International Labour Organisation, the World Health Organisation, the Council of Europe and the Organisation of American States.
Again between the years 1963 and 1978 the Holy See participated in the development of the international system for the protection of human rights, through its adhesion to the Convention against Racial Discrimination and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and its participation in the Conference for Cooperation and Security in Europe.
Blessed Paul VI, added Archbishop Gallagher, developed the progress made by St. John XXIII in the opening of the East European countries, adding to the objective of recognition of the rights of the Holy See, the desire to promote religious freedom, including the freedom of the Catholic Church, and to favour peace and harmony between peoples. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, ratified by the Holy See on 25 February 1971, formed part of the efforts made to contain the nuclear threat and the arms race in general, but also served to establish channels for dialogue with the authorities of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Finally, the Holy See, as a State, was invited by the Warsaw Pact to participate in the Helsinki Final Act, which laid the foundations for the basic exercise of freedom of thought, conscience and religion or religious belief for the citizens of Eastern Europe….
(Vatican Radio) The work of the Synod of Bishops on the Family continued behind closed doors on Thursday as participants shared ideas and experiences within their small language groups. The results of discussions within those 13 small groups will be presented at a General Congregation in the main Synod Hall on Friday morning, marking the end of the first stage focused on the challenges facing families in different parts of the world today.
The Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, heads the bishops conference of England and Wales and is serving as moderator of one of the English language groups. Philippa Hitchen talked to him about his hopes for the outcome of this three week meeting
Listen:
Cardinal Nichols says he hopes, above all, that the Synod will maintain a positive view of the family. He recalls the Pope’s words at the preparatory prayer vigil on Saturday when he talked about the family as a light and said if we begin to see it as a problem, then we risk losing sight of our proper reference point…
The cardinal says that the consultations carried out among families in England Wales highlighted “the passionate love people have for their families”. Whatever problems they face, he says, the family remains “the most important thing in their lives”,”. If that is true within families themselves, he adds, “that’s what we have to learn in the Synod”.
Asked about the changes in methodology and greater emphasis on small group work, Cardinal Nichols says the changes are important because they recognize that “this is part two” of the Synod process and not a re-run of last October’s meeting. Having a text to work on and “more time to get to know each other”, with fuller participation of the women and married couples, is “really taking a forward step,” he adds.
Responding to critics’ suggestion that the Synod process is unlikely to come up with any real developments in Church teaching on the family, the cardinal recalls St Augustine’s words that the Church is “always ancient and always new”. We don’t want to lose “the precious teaching of the Church,” he insists, but at the same time we want a fresh appreciation “of the joy that people have and find and make in their families”. That focus must come to the fore both in the Synod and on the world stage, he believes, so that governments and cultures can “look again at how they appreciate the family as the fundamental building block of society.”
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) God does not abandon the righteous, while those who sow evil are like strangers, whose names heaven remembers not. This is the lesson Pope Francis drew from the readings of the day at Mass Thursday morning in the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta in the Vatican.
A courageous young mother with a husband and three children – and a tumor – “one of the ugly ones” – that keeps her nailed to her bed. “Why?” An elderly woman, prayerfully pious in her heart, whose son was murdered by the Mafia.
Why do good things happen to bad people?
Pope Francis on Thursday used this perennial query of the heart that loves good and desires to know God’s plan, as the way into the mystery of iniquity and its relation to God’s providence, justice and mercy. Drawing on the reading from the prophet, Malachi, in which the Lord rebukes the people, saying, “You have defied me in word, says the LORD, yet you ask, ‘What have we spoken against you?’ You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God, and what do we profit by keeping his command, and going about in penitential dress in awe of the LORD of hosts? Rather must we call the proud blessed; for indeed evildoers prosper, and even tempt God with impunity,’” Pope Francis said:
“How many times do we see this reality in bad people, in people who do evil, and seem to do well in life: they are happy, they have everything they want, they want for nothing. Why Lord? This is one of the many questions we have. Why does this brazen evildoer who cares nothing for God nor for neighbor, who is an unjust person – even mean – and things go well in his whole life, he has everything he wants, while we, who want to do good, have so many problems?”
The Lord watches over the righteous
Pope Francis discovered the answer in the responsorial Psalm – Psalm 1 – which proclaims, “Blessed the man who follows not the counsel of the wicked Nor walks in the way of sinners, nor sits in the company of the insolent, But delights in the law of the LORD.” Pope Francis went on to say:
“Now we do not see the fruits of this suffering people, this people carrying the cross, as on that Good Friday and Holy Saturday the fruits of the crucified Son of God, the fruits of His sufferings were yet to be seen: and whatever He does, turns out well; and what does the Psalm say of the wicked, of those for whom we think everything is going fine? ‘Not so the wicked, not so; they are like chaff which the wind drives away. For the LORD watches over the way of the just, but the way of the wicked vanishes.’”
Only an adjective
This ruin, this scattering and oblivion, which is the end of the wicked, is one Pope Francis found dramatically and emphatically stressed in the Gospel parable of Lazarus – the symbol of misery with no escape, to whom the rich reveler refused even the scraps from his table:
“It is curious: that [rich] man’s name is never spoken. He is just an adjective: he is a rich man (It. ricco , Gr. πλούσιος). Of the wicked, in God’s record book, there is no name: he is an evil one, a con man, a pimp … They have no name. They only have adjectives. All those, who try to go on the way of the Lord, will rather be with His Son, who has the name: Jesus Saviour. It is a name that is difficult to understand, inexplicable for the trial of the Cross and for all that He suffered for us.”
(from Vatican Radio)…