By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
“But the one who peers into the perfect law of liberty and fixes his attention there, and does not become a forgetful listener but one who lives it out — he will be blessed in what he does” (James 1:25).
“Peering into freedom’s ideal law,” as St. James’ letter exhorts and as the fathers of the Extraordinary Synod in Rome attempted to do, is not at all easy and, for some, can be a bumpy ride.
Being exposed to the deliberations of the Extraordinary Synod is not for the fainthearted. The release of the draft document, or relatio, midway through the deliberations, was met with squeals of delight from the “gay lobby,” among whose cheerleaders we might name Crux, an arm of The Boston Globe, and groans of chagrin from synod fathers whose orthodox interventions were not released to the public or represented faithfully in the draft.
The dependable and lucid voice of Wilfrid Cardinal Napier of Durban, South Africa, has been a lighthouse of guidance for those who understand the Church’s moral teachings on marriage and family life and sincerely struggle to follow them. His response to the draft document was damning. He surmised that the synod fathers will henceforth be operating from what he described as a now “irredeemable” position.
He expressed his concern about effectiveness of the synod from here forward by saying, “Whatever we say hereafter will seem like we’re doing damage control.”
The media are expert at the skill of making perception seem like reality in order to gain advertising dollars in an increasingly competitive news market. John Thavis of Catholic News Service won the lottery this time by calling the draft an “earthquake.” He was rewarded with a cornucopia of retweets and citations in online media for the exaggeration about what was after all only a draft and was quickly met with a storm of opposition from the synod fathers themselves.
Among official Vatican voices — such as Holy See Press Office spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ — calling for calm on the day after the relatio document was released by assuring people that the draft was “only a working document,” Raymond Cardinal Burke addressed the damage done. Burke was quoted in Catholic World Report as bemoaning the fact that the considerable number of orthodox interventions on the part of the synod fathers were not made public, while the problematic relatio was rushed into print.
This has fed perceptions that Church has officially changed moral teachings and this in fact is not the case.
The Vatican Radio website introduced the relatio with this statement for providing context:
“In the mid-term report the synod fathers speak of how it is the task of the Church to recognize those seeds of the Word that have spread beyond its visible and sacramental boundaries. They appeal to the ‘law of graduality,’ as a reflection of the way God reached out to humanity and led His people forward step by step.”
Feeding misperceptions, however, was the imbalance resulting from the policy of not making public the interventions, or speeches, of the synod fathers while rushing into print with the problematic and most definitely imbalanced relatio, which seemed to imply that positive values could be found in the temptations themselves suffered by persons suffering same-sex attraction.
Cardinal Burke responded to questions from Carl Olson in Catholic World Report thus:
“The interventions of the individual synod fathers are not made available to the public, as has been the case in the past. All of the information regarding the synod is controlled by the General Secretariat of the Synod, which clearly has favored from the beginning the positions expressed in the Relatio post disceptationem of yesterday morning. While the individual interventions of the synod fathers are not published, yesterday’s relatio, which is merely a discussion document, was published immediately and, I am told, even broadcast live. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to see the approach at work, which is certainly not of the Church.”
Laudably, the synod fathers heard from married couples who teach and live the teaching of Christ on openness to life as expounded in Humanae Vitae. One hopes this crucial teaching on marriage will find its way into the final synod exhortation by our Holy Father. Not heard from, however, are couples who suffer the rejection and silent shunning of their children because they supported Church teaching. They need and deserve our pastoral love and support no less than parents who are currently rejecting Church teaching in the desire to love their children who do not live it.
In Matthew, chapter 5, Christ promulgates the law on marriage and divorce, and with it, the sexual norms that exclude same-sex genital activity. He made clear that the Commandments are very much in force within His new law of love: “For amen I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot, or one tittle shall not pass of the law, till all be fulfilled.” The Church and her Popes have absolutely no power to change what Christ has commanded.
In a homily delivered at his October 14 Santa Marta morning Mass, after the release of the relatio, Pope Francis urged us to remember that God is full of surprises and that we must not contain ourselves within a “system” of the law as did Christ’s opponents. How will Pope Francis balance his ideas of the “God of surprises” and also of the Law who never contradicts Himself?
Let us pray for him and for the synod fathers, that all will come to know they are welcomed by Christ Himself into the Church precisely through His loving mercy.
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(Follow Fr. Cusick on Facebook at Reverendo Padre-Kevin Michael Cusick and on Twitter @MCITLFrAphorism. He blogs occasionally at ApriestLife.blogspot.com and MCITL.blogspot.com. You can email him at mcitl.blogspot.com@gmail.com.)
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