Editor's Report

A Relatio Heard Around the World

Posted

You know it’s going to be one of those days when the first email you open talks about a “pastoral earthquake” at the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family.

That was the case Monday morning when a close associate sent me a link to a blog written by John Thavis, the retired Rome bureau chief of Catholic News Service and still very much a respected chronicler of things happening at the Vatican.

It was his post that started the Catholic world, and a lot of the rest of the world, talking. He described the synod’s 12-page midterm report, read aloud in the synod hall, with the stark term quoted above.

The report, or more formally, relatio post disceptationem, covered a lot of ground in its three parts: 1) Listening: the context and challenges to the family; 2) The gaze on Christ: the Gospel of the Family; and 3) Discussion: pastoral perspectives.

You can read about its contents in other stories in this issue, and on our website, cny.org, so I won’t belabor too many points already covered there. Suffice it to say that much of the reaction revolved around hot-button topics related to unmarried couples living together, second marriages undertaken without annulments and homosexual unions.

In today’s media landscape, things move around the globe at practically the speed of light, with little to no consideration given to whether the document was a midterm report, the final exam or the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In other words, an absolute free-for-all ensued.

Cardinal Dolan, not surprisingly, was a voice of reason and understanding, on a special edition of his Catholic Channel radio show on Sirius XM broadcast from Rome the same day the news broke. The cardinal is a member of the synod’s ordinary council.

Using his trademark humor to make a deeper point, Cardinal Dolan said he didn’t “feel (the earth) moving this morning.”

“We had a great conversation on this relatio, which is a draft, an attempt to kind of sum up what was said by the bishops of the world last week. It was very honest and many of the bishops said, ‘Oh, this is a great draft, a good idea, but it’s not the final word and we’re going to have a lot to say about it.’ And there were some that said we probably in our final statement need to be much more assertive about the timeless teaching of the Church.”

The cardinal added that it’s always been the teaching of the Church that “any sexual acts outside the loving, faithful, life-giving bond of a man and a woman in marriage (are) contrary to what God intends.” Still, the cardinal added, it’s also a matter of Church teaching that “we treat people who are unable to live up to that teaching with immense dignity and respect.”

How all of this hashes out in the next week of this Extraordinary Synod should be fascinating. The bishops at the synod were to discuss the midterm report in groups of 20 before presenting their findings to the entire assembly Oct. 16. After a speech on Monday by Cardinal Peter Erdo of Esztergom-Budapest, a total of 41 synod fathers took the floor to comment that same morning, according to a Catholic News Service article. A number objected that Cardinal Erdo’s text lacked necessary references to Catholic moral teaching. The cardinal, the synod’s relator, is responsible for guiding the discussion and synthesizing the results. Some prelates have already made their concerns with the midterm report and other elements of the synod public in no uncertain terms.

The rest of us might do well to remember, as Cardinal Dolan noted, that the relatio is not the final product. An ordinary synod on the family is due to take place at this time next year. Hopefully, the heated discussions will yield to more meaningful discourse in the long run to shed the Church’s full light on important topics.