Courtney McGrailDear Editor, Mary McAleese has received plenty of coverage for her most recent attacks on the Synod of Bishops, just as last year when she claimed the idea of the Church’s bishops advising the Pope on family life was “completely bonkers”.
Her sneers at the idea of the Pope seeking the advice of celibate males have been as predictable as her litmus test question “how many of these men have ever changed a child’s nappy?” has been bizarre.
Does she think Our Lord had nothing worthwhile to say about family life because he had neither a wife nor a child? What of St Paul? Should we dismiss the Church’s historical teaching that his letters are divinely inspired because he hadn’t shared Mrs McAleese’s experiences of family life?
Set up by Pope Paul VI as an attempt at implementing the reforms of Vatican II, the Synod of Bishops is a way of decentralising the Church by giving a more prominent voice to the shepherds of the Lord’s flock.
Does our former president think that bishops should never speak about family life, or that Vatican II was a waste of time, or indeed that Jesus was wrong to have picked the apostles that he did and should instead have picked someone more like her esteemed self?
The synod is an advisory body, nothing more. If Mrs McAleese really is serious about reform in the Church, a better idea might be to push respectfully for the Church to have other advisory bodies – including, perhaps, a synod of faithful laity.
Yours etc.,
Lisa O’Driscoll,
Belfast, Co. Antrim.