(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Sunday appealed for the victims of the massacre which killed dozens of people in Ankara, Turkey the day before. The Holy Father said he received the news with great sorrow and spoke of his pain for those who were killed and wounded in the explosions. He also said there was sorrow because the attackers struck defenseless people who were demonstrating for peace.
The Pope made the appeal following the Angelus in St Peter’s Square asking the Lord to welcome the souls of the dead and to comfort the suffering and their families.
Following his words, Pope Francis invited all those present in the Square to pray for a moment in silence for the victims of the blasts.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) At the end of the first week of the Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the Family in Vatican City, Fr. Thomas Rosica CSB, English Media Attaché for the Holy See, joined Fr. Federico Lombardi SJ to summarise the discussions at the daily press briefing.
Click below to hear the report by Fr. Russell Pollitt, SJ:
A number of issues were spoken about and addressed in interventions from Synod Fathers at the Synod on the Family on Friday evening and Saturday morning. The Fathers continued with their interventions on part two of Instrumentum Laboris . Once they had completed this section they began to listen to interventions on part three, Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ, told the media
Fr. Lombardi said that there were 75 interventions in the plenary session. There were a good number of interventions from Fathers representing Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. He noted there were few interventions from North America.
A number of themes emerged from the interventions including the spirituality of family life, the missionary responsibility of families to look after and foster good marriages, the role of various family movements in the Church, and ways that the Church can remain close and show tenderness to families that are struggling.
There were also a number of interventions on the relationship and balance between justice and mercy. The media was told that there are divergent views on this issue amongst the Fathers. One of the Fathers said that mercy does not mean an abandonment of the Church’s teaching.
His Eminence Beatitude Baselios Cleemis Thottunkal, President of the Indian Bishops Conference and head of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, was a guest at the press briefing. He told the media that mercy means conversion which is reciprocal. “The Gospel demands this as a condition. The Kingdom of God is at hand, be converted,” he said.
Concern was also expressed for military families. Many military personnel are far from home and often separated from their families for extended periods. These men and women, as well as their families, are in need of special pastoral care.
The Fathers acknowledged that due to diverse situations and contexts there is no such thing as a “typical family”. Many of them spoke about indissolubility being one of the essential elements of Christian marriage.
A number of Fathers also spoke earnestly about marriage preparation. Many considered pre-marriage formation to be seriously lacking. One Father suggested that the bishops themselves needed to penitentially admit that they had failed to provide formation for the lay faithful in this regard. There was a suggestion in another intervention that couples, like those in formation for the priesthood or religious life, also need a “novitiate” time before entering into the sacrament of marriage. It was thought that the crisis in religious and priestly vocations is directly linked to the crisis in family life.
Fr. Lombardi was asked questions about the process of the Synod after a suggestion was reported that, in the future, Synod Assemblies be longer processes which begin with continental meetings first. This means that issues would be more focused and refined when they were brought to the universal Synod Assembly. His Beatitude Cardinal Thottunkal responded by saying that things have to start in local contexts so that it can be brought to Synod Assemblies like this one. He said that he saw no contradiction in this kind of methodology and thought that the fruits of such a process could be much better for the whole church.
Lombardi explained that the Instrumentum Laboris could be changed if, in the small groups, an absolute majority proposed changes. This proposal would then go to the Synod Committee. He reminded the media that interventions in the plenary were not proposals to the Synod; they are part of the “conversation”.
The effect of migration has been a reoccurring theme in this Synod throughout the first week. Cardinal Thottunkal said that he agreed with Pope Francis’ request that people welcome migrants and be generous to them. He added, however, that he also has his own personal view on the matter. He believes that the world community and leaders should make it possible for people to be accommodated and sustained in their own countries. “We must work to keep these people in their own countries,” he said.
The Synod Fathers will return to work on Monday morning when they will, again break into small groups to discuss part two of Instrumentum Laboris .
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) The first round of small language group work at the Synod of Bishops on the Family concluded on Thursday evening. Bishops, religious and lay men and women, together with delegates from other Christian Churches, spent two and a half days behind closed doors discussing the challenges facing families in different countries around the world today.
Bishop Tim Thornton of Truro in Cornwall, England is one of the 14 ‘fraternal delegates’ representing the worldwide Anglican Communion throughout the three-week meeting. He is co-chair of the English Anglican-Roman-Catholic Conversations and serves as president of the Association of Inter-Church Families. Philippa Hitchen asked him about some of the themes that have been emerging in the small group work….
Listen:
Bishop Thornton says one of key things he’s hearing from his groups is the concern that the Synod document or Instrumentum Laboris, in its current form, has “a too narrowly Western perspective.”
He talks about the discussions in his group that have raised different perspectives from particular parts of the globe. He gives the example of the document’s focus on widowhood which assumes that widows are elderly, while in some parts of the globe Church leaders are facing particular problems with widows of a much younger age.
Rather than in one document, trying to describe the whole anthropological, sociological and cultural challenge, he says what is emerging is a suggestion that “what the Holy Father might want to say is to encourage each conference to do its own analysis” and bring that to the table to see what can be said together.
Bishop Thornton says in the Anglican world too “we can make the mistake of defining things through either an English or Western eye”. He speaks of experience of hearing so many different perspectives at the last Lambeth Conference and of the benefits of having dioceses in England linked with dioceses in different parts of the world….
Speaking of the tensions between those who do not want to see any changes in Church doctrine or practice and those who see a need for fresh approaches to current problems, Bishop Thornton says there are always those who have a more deductive or a more inductive way of doing theology.
He compares the Synod to the meeting of Anglican leaders from around the world that the Archbishop of Canterbury has called for in January, saying it is simply “one step in a longer process.” The key question, he stresses, is about “how willing are we to journey on with fellow Christians who have very different views”….
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) At the Synod of Bishops on the Family on Friday morning, participants presented the results of their small language group work that has been going on behind closed doors for the past couple of days. Each group has been discussing the first section of the Synod’s working document, or Instrumentum Laboris , focused on the challenges facing family life today.
Philippa Hitchen was listening in and talking to some of the bishops involved….
Listen:
Who exactly are those rows of men with their red and purple hats, sitting in the Synod Hall for three whole weeks? Firstly, they’re family men, in the sense that they grew up with mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, in-laws, cousins, nephews and nieces, so they know only too well the difficulties and dysfunctionalities that family life can bring to us all.
Secondly, they’re men of God, so whatever other professional training and experience they bring, they’re men whose lives have touched by Christ and must let their words be inspired by His love.
Thirdly, they’re pastors of their people, whose task is to help families discover and live out their missionary faith, in the day-to-day realities that vary enormously from one place, one country, one continent to the next.
That was the self-portrait of one of the Synod fathers who presented the results of his small group work on Friday. Altogether there were 13 groups, working in five different languages, and they all spoke in positive terms of the small group atmosphere with lay men and women, plus non-Catholic participants too. They also talked of the challenge of bringing together such diverging views from right across the globe. Many were critical of a “too Western perspective” that they perceived in the Synod’s working document and several suggested that much greater autonomy must go to local bishops conferences to find creative solutions to family problems in their particular parts of the world.
Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane, Australia presented the results of one of the English language groups:
“We came to feel that there are issues that need to be addressed, analysis that needs to be done and decisions that need to be taken at the local or regional level.”
Another common theme was to recognize and encourage the positive in peoples’ lives, rather than to talk constantly about crisis and despair, even if families can no longer be neatly packaged into a ‘one-size-fits-all’ model that the Church has held up in the past. Archbishop Coleridge again:
“What’s really in crisis is our understanding of what marriage is and what the family is…It’s easy to look back to a golden age when there was mum, dad and three of four kids……that’s not the reality today…..”
Finally there was a lot of talk about language, words lost in translation and why it’s important to do away with the kind of ‘Church-speak’ that means nothing at all to young people today. Instead many bishops cited Pope Francis’ own down-to-earth, colourful choice of words that has made people from all countries and all cultures sit up discover a new, fresh face to the unchanging truths of the Church.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ, director of the Holy See Press Office, brought three prelates as guests on Friday to the daily media briefing on the progress of the Synod on the Family taking place at Vatican City. Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of Manilla, Philippines and Archbishops Joseph E. of Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky, and Carlos Osoro Sierra of Madrid, Spain, were present.
Click below to hear the report by Fr. Russell Pollitt, SJ
Cardinal Tagle told the Friday press briefing that he was impressed by what he heard in the small group work at the Synod on the Family. He said that there was a “freedom and openness” to the diverse contexts and situations that families find themselves in across the world. He said that the sharp criticism by one of the small groups, which called the document “chaotic” and said that the “Holy Father and people of God deserve something better,” was to be expected as this was a working document.
Fr. Lombardi said that Pope Francis had made an important intervention before morning prayer asking for prayers especially for the Middle East. After morning prayer the bishops working groups reported on their discussions over the last two days on the first section of Instrumentum Laboris. Once the reports were completed the Fathers began to look at part two of the working document.
Archbishop Kurtz said that he found it very helpful to work in small groups early in the Synod. He said that this enabled delegates to engage early. Kurtz said many Fathers were concerned that the final document should reflect the concrens of the whole church and nnot be too “western”. Kurtz said that migration had emerged as a strong theme and that the Fathers saw the need to call on governments to be welcoming and generous to migrants.
Archbishop Sierra said that the church needs to try and accompany families that immigrate more generously. Kurtz added that the Episcopal Conference of the United States is trying to engage the government and work towards more just laws on migration in America.
All three of the prelates affirmed the church’s teaching on the right to life and said that it was important the families who are struggling with unexpected pregnancies be accompanied pastorally.
Tagle said that this was a Synod in which the church was affirming its love and pastoral concern for families. He said that for some there was great expectation that there would be doctrinal pronouncements but that this was not what the Synod was about. He said it was about the support the church renders to the family. “We are affirming teaching not changing it, we are looking for liberating ways to give new life to families,” Tagle said. An important question, the Cardinal said, was “How do we help people live the doctrine?”
Questioned about the new synodal process the Fathers are using, the prelates agreed that it was working. Cardinal Tagle humorously said that even if there was a little confusion it was “good to be confused from time to time!” He said that the new process was more effective because the bishops dealt with smaller pieces of the text at any given time. “We don’t have to discuss whole document after listening to three hundred interventions first,” he said. The discussions, Kurtz agreed, were now easier because the focus was on smaller parts of the document.
The prelates told the media that, without turning a blind eye to the challenges, the Fathers wanted to celebrate the family and the many families who are living faithfully in difficult conditions.
(from Vatican Radio)…