Liverpool 1980 should be remembered not as a failure but as an indirect success
Pope Francis clearly accepts the case for lay participation in decision-making in the Catholic Church, and demonstrated that commitment in the recent Rome synod on the Amazon.
Pope Francis clearly accepts the case for lay participation in decision-making in the Catholic Church, and demonstrated that commitment in the recent Rome synod on the Amazon. He did not, however, accept its most controversial recommendation: the possibility of ordaining married men for remote parts of the region, where priests are scarce. Does his failure to follow the wishes of the members of the Amazon synod members undermine the whole synodal process? (He didn’t say “Never” but he certainly didn’t say “Yes”.)
Turn back the clock 40 years, and the Catholic Church in England and Wales was well ahead of the curve in its experiment with what we now call synodality. The National Pastoral Congress held in Liverpool was phenomenally successful on its own terms. It produced a report that is as relevant today as it was in 1980, and is still available online. The bishops of England and Wales responded with a document called The Easter People. It argued, among other things, for greater Catholic involvement in ecumenical structures such as the British Council of Churches.
Two of the hot-button issues it discussed were, first, the need for a rethink of the Church’s teaching on contraception, and second, a call for some relaxation of the rule that Catholics who had divorced and remarried were barred – officially at least – from receiving Holy Communion. Both those proposals were supported by a near-consensus at the Liverpool congress.
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