Synod Realities

Thursday, I learned that the cancer that killed my mother was not going to kill me, at least not yet. That made it hard to concentrate. In the month since the diagnosis and even surrounding the surgery, I could exist in denial and happily churn out blogs. But Wednesday this week, when there was so much Pope news, what I wrote was hardly worth saving. Now that I’ve had a nap and another cup of coffee after my good news, what original thoughts do I have?

You’ve already heard that Pope Francis is against criminalizing homosexual activity. It was reported everywhere. Some people with access to the video think that he was engaged in a humorous dialogue with himself about criminal/sinful, kind of acting out, which tends to minimize the distinction. I didn’t get that sense reading it or hearing it, but I certainly tend in that direction myself. I also am inclined to that view because Francis said that Cardinal Pell was “a great guy.” I’m sure he was. I know the type. This was a relaxed conversation.

I am fascinated that Nicole Winfield of the Associated Press got the interview. She’s a secular reporter given to ironic observation of Roman affairs and less sensational than some others outside the Catholic orbit. I haven’t seen any speculation about why that happened, but I like the optics of her in a black dress sitting across from Francis in a big chair with all her notes. No chummy group of Jesuitical colleagues from America.

Francis takes his global responsibilities seriously. He’s going to Africa soon, and some countries there are among the 67 that criminalize homosexuality, some even with the death penalty. It’s suggested that he’s frustrated that he’s been unable to bring an end to the war in Ukraine; maybe he hopes to have a major impact here. At least he’s calling out bishops who support such laws.

Before I moved into terror, on Tuesday I read Cardinal Robert McElroy’s long article in America. I was not disappointed by this beginning, “a church that is calling all women and men to find a home in the Catholic community contains structures and cultures of exclusion that alienate all too many from the church or make their journey in the Catholic faith tremendously burdensome.” I have no argument with moving “African Americans and Native Americans, victims of clergy sexual abuse, the undocumented and the poor, the homeless and the imprisoned” from the peripheries to the priorities, but wondered at the absence of women and LGBTQ people among those marginalized. More theologically complex, apparently. McElroy addresses each in separate sections.

“Women in the Life of the Church” begins with a summary of the universal call of Synod participants to end the exclusion of women but ends with a dose of reality on women’s ordination to the priesthood. It’s a very careful discussion. McElroy notes that much is “not doctrinally precluded,” like the ordination of women to the diaconate, which should be done “not only for reasons of inclusion but because women permanent deacons could provide critically important ministries, talents and perspectives.” Plus help in the Amazon.

The priesthood? These scattered phrases from McElroy’s discussion of pros and cons are the dose of reality: “one of the most difficult;” “an act of justice and a service to the church” vs. “the action of Christ;” “its rootedness in the theology and history of the church;” “two contradictory directions.” Coming from a bishop with a reputation as an intellectual, the inadequacy of this makes me scream, but I remind myself that “difficult” and “contradictory” are open windows.

McElroy groups those with irregular marriages and “the LGBT community” under “The Christological Paradox,” which might be off-putting. What he argues, however, is revolutionary in episcopal circles. He changes the frame: “the exclusion of men and women because of their marital status or their sexual orientation/activity is pre-eminently a pastoral question, not a doctrinal one.” And he provides three strong arguments against exclusion from the Eucharist: “we are all wounded and all equally in need of healing,” “reverence for conscience,” and “Pope Francis’ exhortation ‘to see the Eucharist not as a prize for the perfect, but as a source of healing for us all.’”

McElroy finds that “the tradition that all sexual acts outside of marriage constitute objectively grave sin” has warped Catholic moral teaching to create a disproportionate penalty, exclusion from Eucharist, for these sins. The essence of Christian faith is so much more than sex: “The heart of Christian discipleship is a relationship with God the Father, Son and Spirit rooted in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

More than exclusion from Eucharist is at stake, however. McElroy writes most passionately here: “It is a demonic mystery of the human soul why so many men and women have a profound and visceral animus toward members of the L.G.B.T. communities…The distinction between orientation and activity cannot be the principal focus for such a pastoral embrace because it inevitably suggests dividing the L.G.B.T. community into those who refrain from sexual activity and those who do not. Rather, the dignity of every person as a child of God struggling in this world, and the loving outreach of God, must be the heart, soul, face and substance of the church’s stance and pastoral action.”

I quote at such length because I have two more points to raise in light of this, which expresses so well my deepest belief in what the church of Jesus should be about. The persons I know who are, theoretically at least, excluded from the Eucharist are those who have had abortions and those who have participated in the ordination of women as priests. These exclusions are rooted in centuries of patriarchy. Not at all mysterious, though certainly demonic, is the fear and hatred of women reinforced by church teaching and societal practice, so ingrained that it has warped the structures of faith and law and precluded the possibility of change.

The Synod has moved into a new phase. It’s starting to get serious. The joy of listening to everybody is being replaced with the awareness that everybody does not see the same way forward, and that’s painful. I’m over the terror of the truth, and curious to see how it will all come out. And I still have faith in the process.