Lombardi:
Synod is Church on a journey
(Vatican Radio) In a long interview with Vatican Radio, the
Director of the Holy See Press Office, Father Federico Lombardi, S.J., spoke
about the Extraordinary Synod on the Family, which took place at the Vatican
from 1-19 October.
“I thought it was a
truly special experience, and very different from that of preceding Synods,” Fr
Lombardi said. “This time it was a step along a journey that does not
constitute a Synod closed in on itself, a closed chapter, but one moment of a
long and profound discernment of the Church as a community on a journey.” The
Pope, he said, chose this method precisely because the Synod is dealing with
very complex issues at the heart of the experience of the whole Church, the
People of God. This Synod was also special because it dealt not just with
doctrinal issues, but with the relationship between doctrine and pastoral
practice.
In this, he said, there
are certainly some parallels to Vatican II, as others have pointed out. During
the Council, Fr Lombardi explained, John XXIII set the universal Church on a
journey with regard to life in all its dimensions. At the Synod, Pope Francis
invited the universal Church to journey together with regard to a more
particular theme, that of the family. It is a very complicated journey that
involves everyone in the Church, and that requires a profound, systematic
reflection on the pastoral and dogmatic issues.
Fr Lombardi also
reflected on the role of the Pope at the Synod. The Holy Father, he said, took
a very precise approach, speaking to the assembled Bishops at the opening of
the Synod, and then listening to the Synod Fathers. This, said Fr Lombardi, was
to allow the Synod Fathers to speak with complete freedom, without being
concerned with what the Pope might think. The Pope “wanted to ensure full
freedom, and this was very much appreciated, and was effectively reflected in
the dynamic of the Synod.” It was only at the end of the gathering that the
Holy Father again intervened, with his speech closing the Synod, in which he
“pulled together the strings of the spiritual experience of the Synod as an
ecclesial and spiritual event.” Without the Pope’s final speech – and to a
lesser extent, his homily at the closing Mass – “the Synod would have remained
incomplete, and not been read with the key of faith that truly inspired and
motivated it, according to the mind of the Pope,” Fr Lombardi said.
Asked about how the
Synod was communicated to the world, Fr Lombardi began by emphasizing the
unique character of this Synod. For this reason, he said, it cannot be compared
to earlier Synod, nor must we expect it to follow the same patterns. For
example, he said, the sheer number of interventions, and the freedom and
frankness that characterized them, made it impossible to publish everything
that was said in the Synod Hall. Nonetheless, the Press Office was able to
offer a balanced synthesis that highlighted the various topics treated each day
during the Synod.
Speaking to one of the
most discussed issues during the Synod, the publication of the mid-term Relatio
post disceptationem, Fr Lombardi noted that although this had always been done
at previous Synod, there was some confusion when it was released. Nonetheless,
he said, the publication of the Relatio itself contributed to the “very intense
dynamic of reflection and communication. The subsequent release of the reports
of the small working groups then became “logically necessary and natural” that
reflected the transparency of communications in the Synod. Fr Lombardi said
that, although press coverage of Synod was occasionally unbalanced, focusing on
controversial issues such as Communion for the divorced and remarried or on homosexuality,
nonetheless the communications effort on the part of the Church allowed those
who so desired to understand what was happening in the Synod and to participate
in the Synod “with notable intensity.
Asked further about
how the outside world followed the Synod, Fr Lombardi said the problem is
always a question of conveying the depth of what is happening in an ecclesial
event. That understanding, he said, is often lacking or insufficient, sometimes
on the level of an understanding of the faith, which for the Church is
essential. “The final speech of the Pope,” he said, “has helped and should help
everyone to enter into this level of profundity.” The Synod, Fr Lombardi
explained, should not be evaluated in terms of different sides, or as a
question of human strategies in governing the Church. Rather, it should be
understood that the Pope wanted the Church to begin a journey, to effectively
set out on a journey “to seek the will of God in the light of the Gospel and
the light of faith, in order to find answers to the most vital questions of the
family and, in a certain sense, of anthropology, of the condition of men and
women in the world of today.”
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