Pressure mounts for discussion on reform

Catholics “must not be afraid of change in the Church”, Francis has warned, as speculation mounts on the question of reforms in the lead-up to next month’s Extraordinary Synod on the Family.

Christians “need not be slaves to all the little laws that imprison us” but must be open to novelties such as those written in the Gospels, he told the congregation at his morning Mass in Domus Sanctae Marthae on 5 September.

The Pope’s words will boost those hoping he will propose liberal reforms to Catholic teaching on priestly celibacy, contraception and other controversial topics such as communion for divorced and remarried Catholics.
Last week Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin urged Catholic legislators meeting in Rome to guard against “laws and policies that allow or hasten the dissolving of the family”. Some interpreted this as recommending a “non-reforming” focus at the synod.

As the behind-the-scenes debates gathered momentum, the Bishop of Antwerp Johan Bonny published a long letter urging the synod to have the courage to bring the Church’s moral teachings more in line with the lived experience of the laity. “The Church must … dare once again to start with ‘life’ and then move on to ‘teaching’,” he wrote in the 22-page letter posted on his diocese’s website in five languages.

There is a gap between “the moral teachings of the Church and the moral insights of the faithful”, the letter said. This was partly due to the failure to develop the collegiality between bishops and the Vatican, which was decided virtually unanimously at the Second Vatican Council.

Bishops found themselves caught between their desire to minister to the faithful in the new pastoral manner and loyalty to popes who stressed the primacy of the Magisterium, he said. The synod should also “restore conscience to its rightful place in the teaching of the Church”.

The letter was praised in Belgium, especially because of the theological and pastoral underpinning used to back up its arguments. “A lot of people think like Bonny. Only it’s hard to be the first to say such things publicly,” said Rik Torfs, rector of the Catholic university KU Leuven.

Commenting in The Tablet this week on Bishop Bonny’s article, the Archbishop Emeritus of Southwark Kevin McDonald recalls the last family synod in 1980, and discussions that took place then on the admission to Communion of Catholics in “irregular situations”. “The fact that this debate is resurfacing and similar proposals are being put forward ... over 30 years later supports [Bonny’s] plea for a thorough discussion at the synod,” he said.

The German bishops are clearly deeply divided on the question of Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics. Four weeks before the synod was due to begin, the president of the bishops’ conference, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, announced that the German bishops would not after all be publishing a document on the question prior to the synod as his predecessor, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, had promised in March.

Cardinal Marx recalled that the responses from the dioceses to the pre-synod questionnaire on the family sent out by the Vatican had shown that an “overwhelming majority” of German Catholics set great value on marriage between a man and a woman, on faithfulness in relationships and on raising children in a loving family. “That is where we must make our weight felt at the synod … the Churches must first of all do everything within their power to help marriages and families to succeed,” he underlined.

“It is, however, also correct that marriages fail and ... Churches must break their silence on failure,” Cardinal Marx emphasised.

(See Johan Bonny and Kevin McDonald, page 4. For more on the synod, see page 30.)