October 11, 2023 at 10:27 a.m.
LIVE LIKE JESUS
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Finding better ways to live "like Jesus did" -- reaching out, welcoming, healing and including others -- was the focus of Sister Liliana Franco Echeverri's small group discussions Oct. 9-10 at the assembly of the Synod of Bishops, she said.
Synod call to communion can help a fractured world, theologian says
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Catholic Church is called to be an instrument of communion with God and unity among all people, but it requires grace and "learning to 'bear with' reality, gently, generously, lovingly and courageously for the peace and salvation of the whole world," a theologian told the assembly of the Synod of Bishops.
"Communion is the beauty of diversity in unity. In a modern world that tends toward both homogenizing and fracturing, communion is a language of beauty, a harmony of unity and plurality," said Anna Rowlands, a professor of Catholic social thought and practice at Durham University in England.
As synod participants began work on the second section or module of the assembly's working document Oct. 9, their discussions about promoting communion with God and with others were preceded by reflections offered by Rowlands and by Dominican Father Timothy Radcliffe, a theologian and former master of the Dominican order.
While still seated at round tables according to language, many of the 364 synod members were at different tables than the week before. The new groupings were organized by the themes members indicated they wanted to work on; the topics including promoting unity through works of charity and justice; ecumenism; being more welcoming to people who feel excluded from the church, like members of the LGBTQ community; and valuing the cultural, linguistic and racial diversity of the church.
Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, relator general of the synod, introduced the module by telling participants that a key question from the synod's preparatory process -- which included listening sessions on the parish, diocesan, national and continental levels -- was, "How can we be more fully a sign and instrument of union with God and of the unity of all humanity?"
God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is "the basis of all communions," he said, and "this God, who is love, loves the whole of creation, every single creature and every human being in a special way."
"All are invited to be part of the church," the cardinal said. "In deep communion with his father through the Holy Spirit, Jesus extended this communion to all the sinners. Are we ready to do the same? Are we ready to do this with groups which might irritate us because their way of being might seem to threaten our identity?"
Father Radcliffe reminded participants that the issue of "formation," which is broader than training or education, came up repeatedly in the synod's first week discussions of how to promote a synodal church, one where people walk together, listen to each other and all take responsibility for mission.
"A synodal church will be one in which we are formed for unpossessive love: a love that neither flees the other person nor takes possession of them; a love that is neither abusive nor cold," he said.
But too often, Father Radcliffe said, "what isolates us all is being trapped in small desires, little satisfactions, such as beating our opponents or having status, grand titles."
"So many people feel excluded or marginalized in our church because we have slapped abstract labels on them: divorced and remarried, gay people, polygamous people, refugees, Africans, Jesuits," the Dominican said to laughter. "A friend said to me the other day: 'I hate labels. I hate people being put in boxes. I cannot abide these conservatives.'"
Rowlands told the synod members and participants that it is in the Eucharist that the different dimensions of communion meet because "this is the place where the communion of the faithful is made manifest (and) where we receive the gifts of God for God's people. The sacramental order teaches us, by feeding us, communion."
Sister Franco, a member of the Company of Mary and president of the Confederation of Latin American and Caribbean Religious, or CLAR, and Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, briefed reporters Oct. 10 about the synod's work on various aspects of the theme "communion."
Sister Franco's group discussed how "the service of charity and commitment to justice and care for our common home nourish communion," while Cardinal Tobin's group focused on welcoming and accompanying people who feel excluded from the church. Under the theme of communion with God and with one another, in the church and in the world, other groups looked at ecumenism, at valuing the cultural, linguistic and racial diversity of the church and at interreligious dialogue.
"There truly is a desire to be able to live like Jesus did, a Jesus who humanizes, who gives dignity, who includes, a Jesus who opens the doors for 'the other,'" Sister Franco said. Living like Jesus calls the church to be "prophetic" in denouncing injustice and exploitation that attacks human dignity and excludes from society people such as the poor, migrants and victims of human trafficking, she said.
Given the synod's rule that conversations and speeches are confidential, Cardinal Tobin was less specific about the discussion in his small group.
As a superior general and then as a bishop, the cardinal said he had attended six previous synods, and this is "the most diverse synod I've ever participated in." At the same time, he said, many of the questions, concerns and hopes expressed by Catholics in different countries and regions of the world are remarkably similar.
"We're talking about things we heard in our own dioceses," he said. "That's what the church does; it listens."
"We believe in a God who became flesh and blood, like the rest of us, who didn't stay in some celestial isolation," he said. "So, the church always has to be concerned with flesh and blood issues."
The questions Cardinal Tobin's group was asked to reflect on included welcoming the excluded while proclaiming "the fullness of the Gospel truth."
The question of outreach to those who feel "they are not at home in the Catholic Church," including members of the LGBTQ community, was raised repeatedly in the Archdiocese of Newark's listening sessions and was present in so many reports to the synod that it was included in the assembly's working document, he said.
The archdiocese, he said, has "arguably the most beautiful cathedral in North America and it's five feet longer than St. Patrick's in New York," but -- quoting one of his auxiliary bishops -- "it's most beautiful when the doors are open."
"And so, I think the real beauty of our Catholic Church is clear when the doors are open and welcoming," he said. "And it is my hope that the synod will help us to do that in an even more significant way."
Sister Franco said members of the assembly have their "feet on the ground," looking honestly at the reality of "a world in which there is xenophobia, exclusive nationalism, leaders who are committed to building borders."
"And in a world like this, our world, the option of the church is the option for fraternity, it is the option for synodality, it is the commitment to understanding that we are all brothers and sisters," she said. "And in a world and in a church where we see each other as brothers and sisters, there is room for everyone."
When asked, both Cardinal Tobin and Sister Franco insisted synod members were free to speak their minds and that the concerns listed in the synod working document were those that came from listening sessions at the parish, diocesan, national and continental levels.
The reports of each small group for each section of the synod assembly will be handed in to a committee charged with writing a synthesis; synod members will have an opportunity to amend it and to vote on whether it reflects their discussions.
In the end, which is after the second assembly in October 2024, Cardinal Tobin noted, Pope Francis will determine what and how to enact the synod's conclusions.
"Before I left the diocese, somebody asked me a question about discernment," the cardinal said. "And I said, well, you can decline the verb 'to discern' this way in the context of the synod: I discern. You discern. He decides."
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