Different assessment criteria and a new language to be found for communicating the faith

Inside of the Roman Catholic Church in Újkér (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After some questions put to him by the Synod fathers regarding the working method of the meetings, Tuesday the 6th of October 2015, Pope Francis delivered a spontaneous, last-minute speech to the Synod on the family which began meeting on Monday, clarifying that the question of remarried divorcees is not the only issue the assembly is dealing with.

Last year the cardinals had already a extraordinary gathering which was fairly rare in the 50 years of synodal history.  His two speeches at that Extraordinary Synod last year, along with the relation finale, are the official documents that this assembly delivered to this year’s assembly, which will be working in continuity with the previous one.

The cardinals had time enough to hear how the public and the press reacted, though some are much convinced nothing shall change, and certainly not in the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church which they considered to be a Church guided by the Holy Spirit.

The daily Vatican press is not afraid to let us know that some differences in opinion emerged between those who are more concerned about preserving Catholic teaching and those who underline the need for dialogue with the world.

For years it has been known that there were also many homosexuals under the clergy and that they too took on a negative position towards other sexual oriented people in their community. Though the last few years we have seen many more priests openly coming out for their feelings and publicly presenting their gay partner. Otherwise also priest who felt for the opposite sex and did not like to live in celibacy dared to come out and show their female partner and some even their kids they brought forth in a state of marriage, though not being officially being married.

Strangely enough those priests themselves seemed to work with two different weight measures.

The transition from the 20th into the 21st century, for many - believers, parishioners but also priests - requires a new language with which to communicate the Gospel and the possibility of coming up with local rather than universal solutions to controversial questions such as communion for remarried divorcees.

Mgr. Claudio Maria Celli, one of the Synod Fathers invited to the press briefing, said

“The concluding document of last year’s Extraordinary Synod and the Pope’s opening and closing speeches ensure the Church keeps an open outlook and encourage a pastoral attitude. The fact remains that the Pope himself underlined that communion for remarried divorcees is not the only subject being discussed at the Synod. But participants’ outlook remains open in pastoral terms. If all had ended with yesterday’s relatio, what would we be doing here?” 

Some Synod Fathers have placed a greater emphasis on Catholic teaching, others on the importance of improving communication with the outside world. Over the last twenty years this communication got very low, the same as we can see that communication is missing in a lot of families, resulting in divorce, many Catholics have left the ir church and many have become fed up with relgiion havingseen how the Catholic Church tried to cover up the many sex scandals under their clergy.

Many Catholics have seen priests in offering marriage guidance themselves not living according to their celibacy rules nor holding the same ethics normal people would profess. Older priests having sex with young children and than trying to cover this up or to escape civil judgement made many furious about that double-sided attitude of the Catholic Church.

Once more we may hear how the clergy is looking for finding a new “language of mercy” ahead of the next Jubilee of Mercy, to be used with “gay people” in particular.
More than once we may hear from Catholic clergy that

“They are brothers and children who should never be treated as outsiders; they deserve respect,” 

but often no respect is shown in parishes to such people who have other feelings than the mainstream.

As so often with the Catholic Church some of the proposed methods, like for addressing the issue of communion for remarried divorcees, was for a series of “reflection groups” to be created “on a local, national and continental basis” seeing as solutions may vary from culture to culture rather than there being “universal” answers. In past times the Catholic Church has always been very good in adapting her rules of play according the place where it was based. That way masses celebrated in Africa look totally different than those in Europe. And actions done in South America would be consider non acceptable Voodoo in the Northern part of the hemisphere.

Biggest problem for the Catholic Church is  that she has done away with all the modernisations of Pope John XXIII and has not taken in account enough how society has changed and a new language needs to be found for communicating the faith.

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Find also:

• Two synods and life in the church community
• A synod not leading to doctrinal changes because it is about pastoral attention
• October month of witches and spirits

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Message of Pope Francis I for the 48th World Communications Day

Communication at the Service of an Authentic Culture of Encounter

[Sunday, 1 June 2014]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today we are living in a world which is growing ever “smaller” and where, as a result, it would seem to be easier for all of us to be neighbours. Developments in travel and communications technology are bringing us closer together and making us more connected, even as globalization makes us increasingly interdependent. Nonetheless, divisions, which are sometimes quite deep, continue to exist within our human family. On the global level we see a scandalous gap between the opulence of the wealthy and the utter destitution of the poor. Often we need only walk the streets of a city to see the contrast between people living on the street and the brilliant lights of the store windows. We have become so accustomed to these things that they no longer unsettle us. Our world suffers from many forms of exclusion, marginalization and poverty, to say nothing of conflicts born of a combination of economic, political, ideological, and, sadly, even religious motives.

In a world like this, media can help us to feel closer to one another, creating a sense of the unity of the human family which can in turn inspire solidarity and serious efforts to ensure a more dignified life for all. Good communication helps us to grow closer, to know one another better, and ultimately, to grow in unity. The walls which divide us can be broken down only if we are prepared to listen and learn from one another. We need to resolve our differences through forms of dialogue which help us grow in understanding and mutual respect. A culture of encounter demands that we be ready not only to give, but also to receive. Media can help us greatly in this, especially nowadays, when the networks of human communication have made unprecedented advances. The internet, in particular, offers immense possibilities for encounter and solidarity. This is something truly good, a gift from God.

This is not to say that certain problems do not exist. The speed with which information is communicated exceeds our capacity for reflection and judgement, and this does not make for more balanced and proper forms of self-expression. The variety of opinions being aired can be seen as helpful, but it also enables people to barricade themselves behind sources of information which only confirm their own wishes and ideas, or political and economic interests. The world of communications can help us either to expand our knowledge or to lose our bearings. The desire for digital connectivity can have the effect of isolating us from our neighbours, from those closest to us. We should not overlook the fact that those who for whatever reason lack access to social media run the risk of being left behind.

While these drawbacks are real, they do not justify rejecting social media; rather, they remind us that communication is ultimately a human rather than technological achievement. What is it, then, that helps us, in the digital environment, to grow in humanity and mutual understanding? We need, for example, to recover a certain sense of deliberateness and calm. This calls for time and the ability to be silent and to listen. We need also to be patient if we want to understand those who are different from us. People only express themselves fully when they are not merely tolerated, but know that they are truly accepted. If we are genuinely attentive in listening to others, we will learn to look at the world with different eyes and come to appreciate the richness of human experience as manifested in different cultures and traditions. We will also learn to appreciate more fully the important values inspired by Christianity, such as the vision of the human person, the nature of marriage and the family, the proper distinction between the religious and political spheres, the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity, and many others.

La parabola del Buon Samaritano Messina Chiesa della Medaglia Miracolosa Casa di Ospitalità Collereale (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

How, then, can communication be at the service of an authentic culture of encounter? What does it mean for us, as disciples of the Lord, to encounter others in the light of the Gospel? In spite of our own limitations and sinfulness, how do we draw truly close to one another? These questions are summed up in what a scribe – a communicator – once asked Jesus: “And who is my neighbour?” (Lk 10:29). This question can help us to see communication in terms of “neighbourliness”. We might paraphrase the question in this way: How can we be “neighbourly” in our use of the communications media and in the new environment created by digital technology? I find an answer in the parable of the Good Samaritan, which is also a parable about communication. Those who communicate, in effect, become neighbours. The Good Samaritan not only draws nearer to the man he finds half dead on the side of the road; he takes responsibility for him. Jesus shifts our understanding: it is not just about seeing the other as someone like myself, but of the ability to make myself like the other. Communication is really about realizing that we are all human beings, children of God. I like seeing this power of communication as “neighbourliness”.

Whenever communication is primarily aimed at promoting consumption or manipulating others, we are dealing with a form of violent aggression like that suffered by the man in the parable, who was beaten by robbers and left abandoned on the road. The Levite and the priest do not regard him as a neighbour, but as a stranger to be kept at a distance. In those days, it was rules of ritual purity which conditioned their response. Nowadays there is a danger that certain media so condition our responses that we fail to see our real neighbour.

It is not enough to be passersby on the digital highways, simply “connected”; connections need to grow into true encounters. We cannot live apart, closed in on ourselves. We need to love and to be loved. We need tenderness. Media strategies do not ensure beauty, goodness and truth in communication. The world of media also has to be concerned with humanity, it too is called to show tenderness. The digital world can be an environment rich in humanity; a network not of wires but of people. The impartiality of media is merely an appearance; only those who go out of themselves in their communication can become a true point of reference for others. Personal engagement is the basis of the trustworthiness of a communicator. Christian witness, thanks to the internet, can thereby reach the peripheries of human existence.

As I have frequently observed, if a choice has to be made between a bruised Church which goes out to the streets and a Church suffering from self-absorption, I certainly prefer the first. Those “streets” are the world where people live and where they can be reached, both effectively and affectively. The digital highway is one of them, a street teeming with people who are often hurting, men and women looking for salvation or hope. By means of the internet, the Christian message can reach “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Keeping the doors of our churches open also means keeping them open in the digital environment so that people, whatever their situation in life, can enter, and so that the Gospel can go out to reach everyone. We are called to show that the Church is the home of all. Are we capable of communicating the image of such a Church? Communication is a means of expressing the missionary vocation of the entire Church; today the social networks are one way to experience this call to discover the beauty of faith, the beauty of encountering Christ. In the area of communications too, we need a Church capable of bringing warmth and of stirring hearts.

Effective Christian witness is not about bombarding people with religious messages, but about our willingness to be available to others “by patiently and respectfully engaging their questions and their doubts as they advance in their search for the truth and the meaning of human existence” (BENEDICT XVI, Message for the 47th World Communications Day, 2013). We need but recall the story of the disciples on the way to Emmaus. We have to be able to dialogue with the men and women of today, to understand their expectations, doubts and hopes, and to bring them the Gospel, Jesus Christ himself, God incarnate, who died and rose to free us from sin and death. We are challenged to be people of depth, attentive to what is happening around us and spiritually alert. To dialogue means to believe that the “other” has something worthwhile to say, and to entertain his or her point of view and perspective. Engaging in dialogue does not mean renouncing our own ideas and traditions, but the claim that they alone are valid or absolute.

May the image of the Good Samaritan who tended to the wounds of the injured man by pouring oil and wine over them be our inspiration. Let our communication be a balm which relieves pain and a fine wine which gladdens hearts. May the light we bring to others not be the result of cosmetics or special effects, but rather of our being loving and merciful “neighbours” to those wounded and left on the side of the road. Let us boldly become citizens of the digital world. The Church needs to be concerned for, and present in, the world of communication, in order to dialogue with people today and to help them encounter Christ. She needs to be a Church at the side of others, capable of accompanying everyone along the way. The revolution taking place in communications media and in information technologies represents a great and thrilling challenge; may we respond to that challenge with fresh energy and imagination as we seek to share with others the beauty of God.

From the Vatican, 24 January 2014, the Memorial of Saint Francis de Sales.

FRANCIS

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Singing gift from God

I will sing to the LORD all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. May my meditation be pleasing to him, as I rejoice in the LORD.

Psalm 104:33-34, New International Version

Dutch version / Nederlands > Zingen geschenk van God

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    Do you sing in the shower? What words are on your lips? Singing is such a wonderful gift! First, it is a gift from God to us, to help us express our joy, excitement, sorrow, and victory. Second, it is a gift from us to God, to help us communicate our respect, appreciation, love, and confidence in God. So let's sing, praising God for what he has done, proclaiming what he will do, and sharing what he is currently doing in our lives!

    O God, Father in heaven, even your name is holy. Please exert your will over my heart, and the hearts of those in our world, so they more closely reflect your holy character. I trust you, dear LORD, for the food I need each day. I ask you, Holy Father, to forgive me as I release my bitterness and anger which I have held against those who have wounded me -- I will need your help to do this. Empower me, O God, to resist the temptations and deceptions of the Evil. Please make my life a glorious witness to your grace. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.