Thursday, October 13, 2005

Synod: Magisterial summary

Synod: The Eucharist determines the state of the Church's health, from Sandro Magister, the preeminent Italian vaticanista. Do read it. (via Amy) As Amy said yesterday, reading the interventions at the Synod does give a sense of the catholicty of the church, and of the vastness of the communion of believers (Ok, what she actually said was, " Reading these interventions is a quite useful little mini-course in the global experience of Catholicism).

Of course, it seems that most Catholics might not even be aware of the Synod. In our corner, there was a prayer at Mass last Sunday (but there were so many darn prayers I wouldn't be surprised if we all fell asleep!). Part of it of course is that a lot of what the Synod does just doesn't seem very newsworthy to the media -- except the bits about the viri probati or ordaining married men to the presbyterate, and communion for the divorced and remarrried. Yet -- this is the first Synod (since the Synod of Bishops was instituted after the Second Vatican Council) that there has been some semblance of "free speech," without tight Curial control on the proceedings, and it really is instructive listening to the Bishops' interventions (even if a lot of it is just mind-numbingly boring).

One thing that struck me was the acknowledgement that the clerical shortage is indeed a global phenomenon (anyone who's actually been to, say, Central America knows this), even with booming voations in the global South. It was heartening to see our Bishops acknowledge this even as they disagreed on how best to address this. In the West, most of us, it seems, would like to think that married clergy would solve the problem. I'm not that convinced that it would be the panacea it's made out to be -- and it brings with it a whole another set of issues, for one, how on earth will parishes, which can barely support celibate clergy, provide for a married man and his family? (Ok, this really wasn't meant to debate the issue of celibacy -- do follow the discussion in a recent issue of Commonweal for more. It's not online -- there's a copy lying in the parish center, or check your local library :))

The topic of "intercommunion" also came up -- with Cardinal Kasper calling the term "ambiguous and self-contradictory." Most interestingly, the non-Catholic paritcipants brought this up, talking about their inability to understand why they are not welcome at the Eucharistic table in the Catholic Church, and the Eastern Catholics talking about a deeper understanding of sharing communion with the Orthodox.

Three of the interventions that really resonated with me:

A bishop from Portugal:

"How can we reawaken Eucharistic amazement, the sense of wonder before the Eucharist, if the beauty in it can’t be discovered? In post-modern culture, dominated by relativism with regard to truth and goodness, yet still fascinated by the aesthetic, beauty is truly a way or a doorway to discover the Eucharist as a mystery of beauty. In fact, the Eucharist is the highest icon of the beauty of God revealed in Christ, because He is “of all men...the most handsome”(Psa 45:2), in the totality of his risen presence and in the plenitude of his mystery: the beauty of love that gives itself, redeems and transfigures us, reveals to us the gaze of the Father that permanently creates us, and makes us good and beautiful. Using the words of His Holiness, this is not only a theological problem but also a pastoral one, which must offer to contemporary man the encounter with the beauty of faith. "


An American Eastern Catholic bishop:

Finally, I wish to speak of the clergy. This seems to be lacking in the Instrumentum Laboris. They are the persons through whom the Eucharist is brought to the people of God. It is important to be supportive, affirming and appreciative of all priests in the world and from my perspective the priests of the United States. The lack of vocations is a critical problem as well as the adequate inculturation of the those clergy from the lands of origin of their respective Eastern Churches. What is needed for our clergy, whether married or celibate, is to live an authentic holy life. They need to be the models of the gospel lived in their respective eastern traditions. They need to have a strong bibilical and theological formation in the theologies of Eastern Fathers, and fmally, since the Eucharist is the center of our lives, they need to be people of prayer in the true traditions of the East. "


and finally a Filipino bishop:

"The Church - mater et magistra - does not seem able to grasp them. Maybe they do not listen to her as a teacher because they have not experienced her as a mother. "


Hmm -- how true!

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