Politicking within the Church is nothing new, says Martin Browne OSB
We are now just a few weeks away from the opening of the Synod on the Family. If you were to read some commentators, you would be forgiven for thinking that the Church is in imminent danger of a major schism, as serious as the Protestant Reformation(s) 500 years ago or the split with the Byzantines 500 years before that.
The current burning issue – Communion for the divorced and remarried – has been invested with a disproportionate significance and has become the symbol of a very real struggle about how the Church should live and bear witness in the contemporary world.
In the kind of comic-book caricaturing that passes for journalism in many quarters these days, Pope Francis is, depending on the ideology of the author, either the heroic prophet of a new, entirely affirming and wholly uncritical Church, or a dangerous and headstrong ideologue, driving the Church perilously close to heresy.
The journalistic comic-book mentality cannot cope with theological or conceptual complexity and so reduces all thought in the Church to basically two positions, each with its own leader. And so, depending on the ideology of the one commenting, Cardinal Walter Kasper is either a brave fore-runner, preparing the way for a new era, or an evil heresiarch. Likewise, Cardinal Raymond Burke is either an obscurantist bigot, attempting to block all change and progress, or a crusading caped – in cappa magna – crusader, defending the truth at all costs.
Much is being made of the meetings, speeches, articles and interviews taking place in the run-up to the meeting of the synod, in which some members and many others are discussing some of the issues on the agenda.
Following last year’s book from a group of cardinals who take a conservative position on Communion for the divorced and remarried, another book has appeared this year, also with eminent contributors, defending the Church’s current discipline. Some see this as mean-minded politicking, while others see it as a faithful exercise of the bishop’s mission to teach.
There have been reports in recent months of confidential meetings of bishops and theologians who support a change in the Church’s attitude on some issues. Again, some see this as an underhand attempt at manipulation of the synod, while others see it as creative listening to the signs of the times.
Recommendations
A sense of perspective is required when looking at all of this.
Firstly, October’s meeting is a synod. It’s not an Ecumenical Council. It can’t do much more than discuss things and make some recommendations, which the Pope may or may not choose to act on.
Despite the Pope’s stated desire to reinvigorate the Synod of Bishops as a real organ of collegiality, neither our hopes nor our fears should be too high that massive change is on the way.
But more importantly, the fact that like-minded people form loose coalitions, whether ‘conservative’ or ‘progressive’, and argue in the public square, or come together for discussions and even to plan strategy is nothing new. Neither is it inappropriate.
Some seem to think that the machinations of the ‘other side’ – but rarely those of their own ‘side’ – are somehow subversive or scandalous. But there’s nothing wrong with participants in a synod or council talking or studying together in advance of the meeting.
And there’s nothing wrong with them wanting to persuade others about the rightness of their position; or with seeking to act in concert with others who are of like mind.
A synod is not like a conclave – a liturgical discernment, without speeches or overt lobbying allowed. A synod is in large measure a debating forum, and so it demands a certain amount of politicking.
This is how the Church does its business. It has been for a very long time. I have recently been reading the Vatican II diary of the late Dominican theologian, Yves Congar – a massive and detailed tome. What it teaches us is fascinating.
Apart from the plenary Council sessions and the meetings of the various commissions and committees, Rome was buzzing for several years with unofficial meetings, lectures and briefings.
Groups of bishops and theologians, of every theological and ideological stripe, were meeting all the time, planning what should be said, when, and by whom.
They met, they talked strategy, they drafted suggestions for improvement, they networked, they lobbied. Obviously, they didn’t all see their favoured positions reflected in the Council documents. But very few of them left the Church over it. There was no schism.
The manoeuvrings before next month’s synod are a bit more public than for previous meetings thanks to the contemporary digital world. But don’t let’s be naive enough to think all this moving and shaking is a novelty. How else could anyone, including the bishops of the synod, be expected to be familiar with the issues?
In this wrangling – even when it is bad-tempered – the Holy Spirit will speak to the Church.