Rejected but kept

After the scandalous Interim Report dated October 13, the Final Report of the Synod was published on the evening of October 18;  it is a compromise among the various tendencies, aimed at relieving tensions and reassuring the timid.  In fact, however, this report is only provisionally “final”.

Three paragraphs concerning communion for divorced-and-remarried Catholics and welcoming homosexuals did not get the required two-thirds majority, and therefore they were rejected, but—at the order of Pope Francis—they were kept in the text of the report.  Rejected by collegiality, but kept by authority.  All the bishops are equal, synodally speaking, but some are more equal than others.

In reality, these paragraphs are awaiting their hour.  They are not there for purely documentary purposes;  they have one year now to ripen.  The next Synod, in October 2015, ought to reward their patience.  We bet that this wait will not be passive, and that after the overly noisy opponents are set aside, efforts will begin to make what has been sown in the documents spring up in people’s heads.  Unless....

Although some intended to have a Synod on the Family-for-Everyone-at-Any-Price, others can, with God’s help, work for a Synod that manifests the Faith everywhere and for everyone.  They too have one year to recall loud and clear that what God has joined man (if he is a man of the Church!) cannot put asunder.

Father Alain Lorans

Synod on the Family: a doctrinal revolution behind a pastoral mask
The Synod: Chronicle of a Well-Orchestrated Show
Press Review:  After the Synod, it all begins