Bishop made case for mercy at Synod on Family

The Bishop of Northampton has revealed how he remonstrated with leading conservatives at last year’s Synod on the Family asking them whether they had ever had recourse to God’s mercy.

Bishop Peter Doyle (pictured right) said that he made his appeal to fellow members of his working group which included United States bishops, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, a member of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy, and Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, as well as Kenyan Cardinal John Njue.

The bishop was speaking last weekend in Winchester to the reform-minded group, A Call to Action (Acta), about the synod, which he attended alongside Cardinal Vincent Nichols and Archbishop of Glasgow Philip Tartaglia.

Bishop Doyle said he believed that the synod had left open a way for remarried divorcees to receive Communion in the Year of Mercy, noting that it had not given direction on the issue and that the paragraph in its final document dealing with access to Communion was passed by just one vote.

In his allotted three-minute speech to the synod’s working group D, known as the “dogma group” because of some of the trenchant views it expressed, the bishop said that he remonstrated with fellow members, asking them: “Have none of you had to experience mercy in your life?”

According to the reports of working groups published by the synod, members of group D expressed concern that with regard to remarried divorcees whatever was done should not lead to “greater confusion among our people”. One bishop said the issue of admitting them to Communion was such a vital matter of doctrine that it could only be handled at an ecumenical council and not a synod.

Bishop Doyle’s address to Acta was the first time that a bishop has agreed to attend one of its events. Some 110 people gathered to hear the bishop’s thoughts on the synod. The Bishop of Portsmouth, Philip Egan, in whose diocese the meeting took place, sent a note of support.

Bishop Doyle, who described his experience of the synod as “unique, exhilarating and exhausting”, said that he had read the representations made to him  ahead of the gathering, but admitted they often represented “diametrically opposed” views. He told Acta that Western Church delegates seemed “tired” compared with their enthusiastic Asian and African colleagues.

The bishop, who apologised to LGBT – lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender – Catholics for the Church’s failure to address their needs at a post-synodal press conference last year, acknowledged again this weekend that some expectations were not met. “Perhaps LGBT issues need a forum of their own,” he added.