The Names Came Tumbling Out

This is my response to the list of Synod participants followed in short order by 21 new Cardinals late last week. I’m sure the Synod office had a lot to say about the first group, but I wonder if anyone other than Francis tapped the Cardinals on the shoulder. Impulsive, that list seems to me.

Especially following the appointment a week before of the new head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. My response to that centers on the photo of Francis and Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernández, a vigorous-looking 60 next to the Pope’s sagging 86. I wonder if Francis thinks of him as a mentee, a younger version of himself with similar ideas. Christopher Lamb, in the July 15 print edition of The Tablet has the deepest consideration of this theology. Also that his family nickname is Tucho, the Striker, after a high-scoring soccer player.

Christopher White’s article in NCR stresses the function of the office as envisioned by Francis: “promoting theological knowledge” rather than pursuing “possible doctrinal errors.” I am totally there. The Argentinian Fernandez is rumored to be Francis’s theological advisor for some of his most important encyclicals, and so his appointment makes sense. Impulsive sense, perhaps.

I had been less enthusiastic about the way Francis had created the new Dicastery, however; he combined that theological function with handling sex abuse allegations against clergy. That clearly judicial function, punishing despicable behavior, should not be added to the portfolio of those who are exploring church teaching, especially as Francis seems to understand the latter. He calls it “safeguarding the faith.” “The different lines of philosophical, theological and pastoral thought, if they allow themselves to be harmonized by the Spirit in respect and love, can also make the church grow…This harmonious growth will preserve Christian doctrine more effectively than any mechanism of control.” Perfect for theologians but not for abusers or those who protect them; there, control is necessary. Thomas Reese suggests something similar when he gets around to Fernandez in his RNS article about the appointments.

Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, criticized the appointment immediately. In a follow-up article by the Associated Press, Fernandez continues to apologize and Barrett Doyle to dismiss his protestations: “He declares himself bewildered, but he is a sophisticated and educated man…If Archbishop Fernández finally regretted his handling of this case, why did he never reach out to Lorenzo’s victims?” she said. Colleen Dulle in America explores the 2008 case of Father Eduardo Lorenzo most fully.

Dulle also suggests that perhaps Francis will reorganize the sex abuse section and that’s why he focused on theology when announcing Fernandez. Francis did not reconsider as the flurries of criticism started; Fernandez is on both the list of Synod participants and Cardinals, as befits the head of that Dicastery. He’s generated some controversy on ceremonies for lesbian and gay couples, as well as a controversial book he published for teens on kissing. Impulsive appointment of a trusted ally?

There were twenty other names of Cardinals that tumbled out that weekend, and eighteen of them are under 80 so able to vote if a conclave were necessary to select a pope. Is that what Francis is thinking? One of my friends said he better have a food tester between now and September 30, the day of the actual consistory elevating them.

La Croix International  has capsule biographies of the eighteen, and summarizes the wide geographical spread of the “137 cardinal electors, including 53 Europeans, 24 Asians, 19 Africans, 17 North Americans, 16 South Americans, 5 Central Americans and 3 Oceanians. A total of 97 will have been created by Francis, i.e. over 70% of cardinals under the age of 80.” If you’re counting, which many commentators are. Of course, some age out every year, but some of these new members are young.

The one I have actually seen is Archbishop Christophe Pierre, papal nuncio to the United States. I have watched him for several years now because the USCCB televises its meetings. In his formal addresses, this French prelate defends the Francis agenda and values to those bishops who then mostly try to ignore them. In addition to a brief list of the new Cardinals, Christopher White in NCR reports a short interview with Pierre after the appointment, contrasting him with his predecessor, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò.

Which I mention only because these two appointments matter to the cause of opening ordination to women and people of all genders. Prohibiting such discussion under the Ratzinger era in the doctrinal office and papacy must not occur again.

The final tumble of names I want to address is that of the 363 voting members of the Synod. My image of tumbling is the bin that lottery numbers are pulled out of daily and weekly for great rewards. I am sure we will be rotating this bin for the next few months to understand who these people are and what they might bring to the Synod discussions.

WOC Executive Director Kate McElwee spins that bin this week in NCR and pulls out the name of one voting member, San Diego Cardinal Robert McElroy. He has written that “The question of the ordination of women to the priesthood will be one of the most difficult questions confronting the international synods in 2023 and 2024.” McElwee answers:

The synodal dialogue will be painfully incomplete if it does not address the widespread calls to open all ordained ministries to women. If truly, as the instrumentum laboris says, “there is no border that this movement of the Spirit does not feel compelled to cross, to draw all into its dynamism,” we must pursue that “horizon of hope” beyond any shortcuts that attempt to limit the call of God.

Many analysts note that some form of ordination to the diaconate may be the compromise that those who reviewed the Continental documents decided to propose. Another spinner of the bin this week is Phyllis Zagano in Commonweal.

This long-time advocate for women deacons pulls out Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary general of the General Secretariat of the Synod, much more than a voting member. Zagano writes:

Grech has said that “hot button” issues would be “on the back burner” and other pressing needs of the Church would be discussed at the October meeting. Ordaining women as priests, while requested in many countries and mentioned or implied in the continental responses, is clearly a “back burner” issue, and it is considered by many to be doctrinally closed. But given there has never been any formal abandonment of the practice of ordaining women to the diaconate, that question will be addressed and perhaps answered.

This is what Zagano advocates for, as she did as a member of the first commission on the diaconate that Pope Francis ended because the members could not agree on the history. In this article, she provides a valuable review of the diaconate and the discussion about it in the whole Synod process, including all the Continental documents.

But in introducing Grech, Zagano describes the problems of clericalism and misogyny so clearly identified by Synod participants at the local level and concludes: “The ordination of women as priests is not one of those solutions.”

“Priests or deacons” has long been a controversy in the Women’s Ordination movement and I would wager that both sides see the opportunity for the Holy Spirit to act impulsively on all those who have been tumbled into the Synod to provide a solution for our time.