Amazon Synod: Cardinal
Schönborn on “viri probati” and permanent deacons
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| Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna |
Synod Father Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna is part
of the group responsible for drafting the final document of the Special
Assembly on the Amazon. He speaks to Vatican Radio about his intervention at
the Synod and about his ideas regarding new forms of ministry.
By Linda Bordoni
Pope Francis this week made four personal nominations of
members to the group responsible for drafting the final document of the Amazon
synod. Amongst them is Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna.
The drafting committee is now meeting to assemble into a
document the recommendations of the small working groups from their
discussions during the synod.
The final document of the synod will then be voted on, on
the second-to-last day of the gathering. It will then be given to Pope Francis
for him to use or not use as he desires in the writing of a post-synodal
exhortation.
Linda Bordoni asked the Cardinal about the challenges of
bringing together such a great variety of voices into a cohesive narrative.
Cardinal Schönborn described his responsibility, as part of
the drafting committee, as a challenge but expressed confidence that in reality
the proposals coming in from the different language groups are really not so
diverse.
“Certain questions and certain proposals are very similar in
most of the groups,” he said.
Regarding the actual work of drafting the document, the
Cardinal said it is mainly done by the Relator - Cardinal
Hummes and his two colleagues – and explained said that as the drafting
committee “we will have to revise the first draft we will receive on Saturday
afternoon, amend it, make our propositions, and then the amended text goes
through discussions in the language groups”.
He said the groups then make propositions that are
integrated by the drafting committee, and finally, the final draft will be
submitted to the Plenary Assembly, discussed and then amended again. The last
step comes next Saturday with a final vote on the propositions in the text.
A ‘listening’ role
Regarding his own intervention in the Synod Hall, the Cardinal
said that he didn’t make proposals “because I am here as one of the few
Europeans in the Synod, and I think our role is mainly to listen,” he said.
So he thought it would be best to ask questions and not to
make propositions.
“My first question was: ‘what does it mean that 60% of the
Christian population in Amazonia are more or less with the Pentecostals?’ What
does it mean for us, Catholic Church that so many of our people have left the
traditional Catholic Church, what does it mean for our pastoral work?”
The answer that comes back from Synod, Schönborn said, is
the need of a pastoral ministry – not only of visit – but of presence. If these
communities, that are dispersed across hundreds of kilometres in the Amazon
region have a priest visiting once a year, he said, this is not a pastoral
ministry of presence.
“The Pentecostals are present in most of the villages,” he
pointed out, so the challenge is not primarily new ministries but a better
presence. And presence means at the place, and that means the people who live
there”.
Role of women
He spoke of how impressed he has been listening to the women
and hearing about their decisive role in the villages.
“They already do what is possible and what is not even an
instituted ministry but they do it: they baptize, they preside at funerals,
they try to bless marriages,” he said.
Cardinal Schönborn noted that in his own Diocese of Vienna
in the last years he has given a decree for presiding funerals to women. They
do so in a traditional Austrian catholic environment, he noted, and they are
well accepted.
A pastoral ministry of presence is the main challenge, the
Cardinal stressed.
Regarding new forms of ministry
The second point upon which the Cardinal Archbishop of
Vienna focused regards the desire, expressed by some Synod participants, for
new forms of ministry.
“I voiced my surprise that permanent diaconate is not so
much present in Amazonia, while there is much discussion about the viri
probati,” he said.
He said in Austria they already have viri probati because
the Second Vatican Council “gave us the permission to ordain married men who
have given a good witness of their family life, or their professional life, of
their Christian faith, to be permanent deacons”.
“So why not start with viri probati deacons
in the villages? Prepare them as catechists, as deacons, before asking whether
they can become priests?” he said.
Cardinal Schönborn pointed out that there are stages for
every priestly ordination and the first stage is becoming a deacon.
It’s 50 years, since Vatican II, he concluded they could
have begun with permanent deacons, “so I think it is worth it to ask these
questions!”
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