ROME, (EUROPA PRESS) – The preparatory document for the Synod on synodality next October, in which women will vote for the first time, will put on the table the access of married men to the priesthood, as well as women to the diaconate or steps the Church can take to better welcome LGBTQ+ people.”
It is not the first time that a Synod analyzes issues such as optional celibacy or the female diaconate. In fact, they were present at the previous Synod on the Amazon in 2019. However, Francis, in his exhortation ‘Querida Amazonia’ evaded the proposal to ordain married men in remote areas of this region in favor of fostering indigenous vocations and reserved for the women functions that did not require the holy order.
“Is it possible, as some continents propose, to open a reflection on the possibility of reviewing, at least in some areas, the discipline on access to the priesthood by married men?”, asks again the so-called ‘Instrumentum Laboris’ ( work tool) of the Synod of Synodality, in relation to optional celibacy.
In the text, which is not a document of the Magisterium of the Church or a sociological survey, it is also made clear that “the majority of the continental assemblies and the summaries of numerous episcopal conferences ask that the question of the access of women to the diaconate”.
“How can the Church of our time better fulfill its mission through greater recognition and promotion of the baptismal dignity of women?” asks the document, which stresses that the continental assemblies call for a deeper reflection on the reality of ” relational failures”, which are also structural failures that “affect the life of women in the Church”.
“The women who participated in the first phase clearly expressed a desire: that society and the Church be a place of growth, active participation and healthy belonging for all women. They ask the Church to be by their side to accompany and promote the realization of this desire.In a Church that wants to be truly synodal, these issues must be addressed jointly and concrete responses must be built together for a greater recognition of the baptismal dignity of women and for the fight against all forms of discrimination and exclusion of those who are victims in the ecclesial community and in society”, adds the ‘Instumentum Laboris’.
AGUGED TO LGBTQ+, DIVORCED AND POLYGAMOUS
On the other hand, he often mentions “those who don’t feel accepted in the Church, such as the divorced and remarried, people in polygamous marriages, or LGBTQ+ people.”
“How can we create spaces in which those who feel hurt by the Church and rejected by the community can feel recognized, welcomed, not judged and free to ask questions? In light of the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation ‘Amoris laetitia’, What concrete measures are necessary to reach people who feel excluded from the Church because of their affectivity and sexuality (for example, divorced and remarried people, people in polygamous marriages, LGBTQ+ people, etc.)?”, the text states. .
This guide, published this Tuesday by the Vatican, is a synthesis of the material collected during the listening phase of the Synod, and in particular the final documents of the continental assemblies, and is presented with the aim of promoting the process and not establishing a formulation or operational indications, goals or objectives.
With its publication, the first phase of the Synod ‘For a Synodal Church: communion, participation, mission’ closes, and the second phase opens, articulated in the two sessions in which the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops will take place. in October 2023 and 2024. In these phases, all the participants in the Synod Assembly will vote, which includes 25% of the participants who are not bishops, of whom at least half are women.
THE LAST WORD HAS THE POPE
In any case, the Synod of Bishops has a consultative character and the votes on the issues have a clarifying function, since it is the Pope who ultimately makes the decisions. In fact, the organizers of the Synod point out that it will be difficult for the work of the first session of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops “to formulate conclusive guidelines on many of these issues.”
The ‘Instrumentum Laboris’ thus consists of a practical aid that has several sheets for the participants, with a quick contextualization of the question expressed by the title and questions for discernment.
SEXUAL ABUSE
The document also refers to sexual, power and conscience, economic and institutional abuses as “open wounds” and urges the Church to join the growing commitment to conversion and reform “to prevent similar situations from recurring in the future “.
“In many regions, confidence in ordained ministers, in those who hold ecclesial office, in ecclesial institutions and in the Church as a whole is undermined by the consequences of the scandal of abuses committed by members of the clergy or by people who hold ecclesial positions”, the text states.
There is also open talk about the existence of certain “tensions” that need to be “managed” by overcoming “infertile divisions”. Thus, it is ensured that “forces that oppose the mission of the Church are acting in the world, beginning with philosophical, economic and political ideologies based on assumptions that are opposed to the faith.” However, he emphasizes that not everyone perceives these tensions in the same way, for example, “with regard to the phenomenon of secularization, which some see as a threat and others as an opportunity.”
In this way, it is pointed out that these tensions “are interpreted in a reductionist way as a confrontation between those who want change and those who fear it.” For this reason, the organizers of the Synod invite not to be scared of them, nor to try to solve them “at all costs”.
It also warns of the risk of turning the Synod “into a frenzy of claims for individual rights, which inevitably end up fragmenting rather than uniting”, although it makes clear the need to debate the “question of authority, its meaning and the style of its exercise within a synodal Church”.
In this regard, it is insisted that “all those who exercise a ministry need training to renew the ways of exercising authority and the decision-making processes in synodal key”. Likewise, emphasis has been placed on the urgency of “renewing the language used by the Church”, in the liturgy, in preaching, in catechesis, in sacred art, as well as in all “forms of communication”.
“Without mortifying or degrading the depth of the mystery that the Church announces or the richness of its tradition, the renewal of language must be aimed at making them accessible and attractive to the men and women of our time, without representing an obstacle that keeps them away,” he says. . Likewise, it is stated that “full awareness of the potential” of the digital environment for evangelization is lacking.
From the body of the Synod, they consider evident “the call to overcome a vision that reserves only to ordained ministers (bishops, priests, deacons) any active role in the Church, reducing the participation of the baptized to a subordinate collaboration”. “How should the role of the Bishop of Rome and the exercise of primacy in a synodal Church evolve?” asks the ‘Instumentum Laboris’.
