Synod on the Family: Press Briefing Day 17
(Vatican Radio) Saturday October 24. “It is not black and white,” Cardinal Christoph Schoborn said on Saturday at the last of the daily briefings of the Synod on the Family.
Also present with him at the briefing were Brazilian Cardinal, Raymundo Damasceno, and the Prior General of the Little Brothers of Jesus, Hervé Janson, – the only lay delegate at the Synod with the right to vote.
Listen to the report by Fr. Russell Pollitt, SJ:
Cardinal Damasceno told the press that what caught his attention most was its methodology. It was different from previous Synods because it gave greater priority to small group work. He said that this allowed for greater participation by all delegates.
Cardinal Schoborn said that the new methodology was the strength of the Synod and that it was true progress after 50 years.
Cardinal Schoborn went on to say that the issue of the admission to the Eucharist of the divorced and civilly remarried was given great attention at the Synod.
He said, however, that the key word is discernment because “every case is different, it is not black and white”. He said that the final text refers to the matter obliquely; it gives criteria to discern various situations so that the Church can accompany people.
Damasceno said that mercy is the theme of the entire document. He said the Church’s concern is to include all people in its ecclesial community.
Schoborn went on to say that some people may be disappointed because homosexuality was addressed in the text, but only in the context of a situation within Christian families in which there is a gay member.
Janson was asked why as a non-bishop, non-cleric – a lay person – he was given permission to be the only voting lay person at the Synod and that religious women were given no votes.
He said that he did not know but that he had considered giving up his vote to a religious woman but in the end did not do so.
Schoborn said towards the end of the briefing that there is also a paragraph in the document that addresses the responsibility which governments have to favor family life. This is a clear word of protest to emerging countries against political and financial circumstances which are opposed to the family.