Synod members reflect on diversity, trust, before assembly opens

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Synod of Bishops on synodality does not aim only at bridging the gap between factions within the Catholic Church, but it also must grapple with the immense diversity of its 1.3 billion members spanning across cultures and countries, a spiritual adviser to the synod said.

“When I came to the synod last year, I though the great challenge was to overcome the poisonous opposition between traditionalists and progressives: How can we heal an alienation which is utterly alien to Catholicism?” Dominican Father Timothy Radcliffe told synod members Oct. 1. “But as I listened, there seemed to be an even greater challenge: How can the church embrace all of the diverse cultures of our world?”

Offering reflections for participants in the Synod of Bishops on the last day of a two-day retreat at the Vatican, Father Radcliffe urged the 368 synod members to “recognize that we need each other if we are to be Catholic.”

“The diverse cultures gathered in this assembly offer healing to each other, challenge each other’s prejudices and summon each other to a deeper understanding of love,” he told participants. “We await a new Pentecost in which each culture speaks in its own native tongue and is understood.”

However, a much-needed step toward supporting and engaging with the many cultures within the church is fostering trust among its members, he said.

Reflecting on the Gospel reading from St. John in which Jesus repeatedly asks Peter, “Do you love me?” Father Radcliffe said, “The church is founded on the rock of God’s unmerited trust in Simon Peter.”

“Will we dare to trust each other, despite some failures?” he asked. “The synod depends on it.”

As a challenge to trust within the church, Father Radcliffe cited the publication of “Fiducia Supplicans” (“Supplicating Trust”), a Vatican declaration stating it is permissible to give an informal blessing to a gay or other unmarried couple, though the union itself cannot be blessed.

“It is no secret that ‘Fiducia Supplicans’ provoked distress and anger among many bishops in many parts of the world. Some members of this synod felt betrayed ” he said. “But the church will only become a trustworthy community if we take the risk, like Jesus, of trusting each other, even though we have been hurt.”

The Dominican also said that “the sexual abuse crisis has taught us painfully that this cannot be an irresponsible trust which puts others at risk, especially minors,” but rather “a trust that embraces our own risk of getting hurt.”

He also noted that “often it has turned out to be the clergy who are most suspicious of the synodal path and resistant to it,” adding that the church’s ordained ministers must look to St. Peter’s humility and recognize it as the source of his authority in leading the church.

“The transparency of Peter the sinner is the foundation of his authority,” he said. “Clerical elitism is thus not just a lack of humility but a negation of priestly identity.”

Likewise, Father Radcliffe asked that synod members “discern each other’s authority and defer to it,” while asking themselves: “What new ministries are needed for the church to recognize their authority and commission them to exercise it?”

Benedictine Mother Maria Ignazia Angelini, another spiritual adviser to the synod, urged participants to cultivate a spirit of silence before engaging in their conversations during the second synod session.

“Silence is the constitutive dimension of true human speech,” she said. “Let us allow ourselves to be filled by this silence.”

By cultivating silence, people can fix their gaze upon Jesus, she said, which is an important task for the synodal assembly “embedded in an epochal turning point in history which we do not know where will lead, the contours of which we confusingly sense but do not see clearly.”

A gaze fixed on Jesus, “illuminated by the meek and humble of heart, restores contours to the vision of others, of history, of the world,” she said. “The gaze on Jesus opens up well-founded hope.”

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