Cardinal Pell: Synod rebuts 'secular agenda'

Catholic News Service

Contents - Dec 2014 - Buy a copy now Editorial: The Coming of Christ - Peter Westmore Family Synod: Synod reaffirms Church teaching on marriage and family - AD2000 Report News: The Church Around the World Dissent: New controversy erupts in Toowoomba - Peter Westmore Vocations: Young Men of God Retreat for 2014 another success - Br Barry Coldrey The Long View: Catholicism today and the lessons of history - John Young Economic justice: The Catholic Church explains sexual mores - with economics - Emma Green Cardinal Pell: Synod rebuts 'secular agenda' - Catholic News Service The after-life: Why pray for those who are no longer with us? - Audrey English Separation of church and state: the position outside Australia - Frank Mobbs Obituary: Fr Benedict Groeschel, aged 81, dies in New Jersey - Peter Westmore Letters: Toowoomba trouble - Tristan Ross Letters: Synod of Bishops - Arnold Jago Letters: Language - Frank O'Connor Letters: Last man standing! - Anne Lastman Books: IN THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE SPIRIT: Guide to the Sacraments in the Byzantine Church - Paul Simmons (reviewer) Books: AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC YOUTH MINISTRY, by C. Fini and C. Ryan (Eds) - Br Barry Coldrey (reviewer) Support: 2014 Fighting Fund Progress Books: Order books from www.freedompublishing.com.au Reflection: The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light - Pope Francis

Cardinal George Pell said working-group reports from the Synod of Bishops on the family finally give a true picture of the assembly's views, counteracting what he characterised as a misleading midterm report.

"We wanted the Catholic people around the world to know actually what was going on in talking about marriage and the family and, by and large, I think people will be immensely reassured," Cardinal Pell, prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, told Catholic News Service on 16 October, 2014, the day the reports were published.

"We're not giving in to the secular agenda; we're not collapsing in a heap. We've got no intention of following those radical elements in all the Christian churches, according to the Catholic churches in one or two countries, and going out of business," he said.

In a surprise move, synod members voted on 16 October to publish summaries of comments by 10 small groups into which they had divided to discuss a 13 October midterm report by Hungarian Cardinal Peter Erdo of Esztergom-Budapest. As the assembly's relator, Cardinal Erdo had the task of guiding the discussion and synthesising its results.

Cardinal Erdo's report stirred controversy inside and outside the synod hall with its strikingly conciliatory language towards people with ways of life contrary to church teaching, including divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, cohabitating couples and those in same-sex unions.

The midterm report was "tendentious, skewed; it didn't represent accurately the feelings of the synod fathers", said Cardinal Pell. "In the immediate reaction to it, when there was an hour, an hour-and-a-half of discussion, three-quarters of those who spoke had some problems with the document."

"A major absence was Scriptural teaching," he said. "A major absence was a treatment of the Church tradition," including teaching on the family by Pope Paul VI, St John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.

"The secret for all Catholic vitality is fidelity to the teachings of Christ and to the tradition of the Church," said the cardinal, who sits on the nine-member Council of Cardinals advising Pope Francis on church governance.

Cardinal Pell said only three of the synod's 10 small groups had supported a controversial proposal by German Cardinal Walter Kasper to make it easier for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion, even without annulment of their first, sacramental marriages.

"Communion for the divorced and remarried is for some - very few, certainly not the majority of synod fathers - it's only the tip of the iceberg, it's a stalking horse. They want wider changes, recognition of civil unions, recognition of homosexual unions," Cardinal Pell said.

"The church cannot go in that direction. It would be a capitulation from the beauties and strengths of the Catholic tradition, where people sacrificed themselves for hundreds, for thousands of years to do this.

"If people are heading in the wrong direction, there's no virtue in the church saying, 'That's good.' A lot of people outside won't accept our views, won't welcome them, but certainly not the people in the pews, the good people," he said.

Cardinal Pell said he expected the synod's final report, currently being drafted by a team of 11 members, would reflect the assembly's views. But he said that if it did not, the synod would not vote its approval before ending its work on 18 October.

He also noted that the synod would not issue any document with doctrinal weight, its task being to set the agenda for the world synod on the family scheduled for October 2015.

"Our task now is to ask people to pause, to pray, to catch their breath, to realise there's going to be no abandonment of Catholic doctrine, and to work to diminish the divisions and to prevent any demineralisation of different factions or points of view," he said.

Acknowledgement to the Catholic News Service.

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 27 No 11 (December 2014 - January 2015), p. 11