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While
a Synod of Bishops is to be held in Rome from September 30 to
October 27 of this year, several thousand Catholics from all
parts of the world are involved in setting up a parallel or
shadow Synod, the Synod of the People of God.
Its purpose is to lend support to those Bishops who
promote recognition of Bishops' responsibilities fully in their
own dioceses in a spirit of openness and freedom.
At the same time they will be reminding Rome that the
Church is more than an hierarchical institution: it is first and
foremost the people of God, a people who have a sense of their
own responsibilities.
The
Ottawa Statement Group submitted to the Canadian Bishops in 1998
a series of recommendations dealing with the shortage of priests
and requested among other things that the discipline of celibacy
for priests be reconsidered as well as that the matter of the
ordination of women be examined.
The Group, in collaboration with the Réseau Culture et
Foi, Corpus Canada and Xristos Community Society, now strongly
offers its support to the Synod of the People of God. At the same time it asks the Canadian Bishop delegates to the
Synod to take account of the urgency of the present confusion
faced by Christian communities deprived of priests almost
everywhere in the Western world.
One must rethink rules the relevance of which
is now in doubt at this time in the life of the Church.
Sensitivity to the signs of the times and awareness of
the seriousness of the crisis requires the search for new
methods.
The
shadow Synod has been set up
in the conviction that the excessive centralization of
power in Rome and the refusal of that same central
authority to reconsider situations that gravely affect the life
of Christian communities, for example, the silence imposed on
Bishops, the ordination of women,
mandatory celibacy for priests, the exclusion from
communion of remarried divorced persons. These situations are a
cause of separation from the Church by the younger generations.
The official working
document which the Bishops will use for their discussions
systematically avoids these questions.
The document presents itself as "an instrument for
the development of an open debate in the Synod", but will,
in fact, given the present situation in
the Church, weigh heavily on the delegates.
The
shadow Synod stems from shared research and discussions that
have taken place on the internet as well as through the
traditional media of communication.
It involves a large number of groups and networks
throughout the whole world. It will result in the preparation of
a final document which
will be shared with the Bishops by a delegation of over 50
persons during the first week of the Roman Synod.
The document will also be published worldwide.
The
tenth general assembly Synod of Bishops carries the theme:
"The Bishop, Servant of the gospel of Jesus Christ for the
hope of the World". The
Bishops are called to be prophets who, inspired by the gospel,
contribute to the building of a more human world by the
presentation of a Christian vision.
The working document made public on June 1st. of
this year spells out a clear picture of the present world
situation as we enter the new millennium
On the other hand, its heavy preoccupation with the theme
of the unity of the Church, and the weight of its institutional
apparatus, let alone its doctrinal fixations, prevent an
awareness of the urgency of a decentralization of power. In an
interview granted last May to the French Newspaper La Croix,
Cardinal Lorscheider from Brazil declared: "The decisions
of Vatican II are not applied: we all suffer in the field under
an aloof bureaucracy that listens less and less".
Few
institutions have developed such powerful centralizing forces. When speaking of the role of Bishops and the exercise of
their responsibilities the key word is "with the approval
of Rome". The
authority of the Bishop, says the working document, is "always
subject to the Sovereign Pontiff" (#117).
Speaking of general directions defined by the Synod it is
only "after having been approved by the successor of
Peter" that they are proposed to the local churches ( #69).
On the subject of the exercise of authority by a Bishop
within his own diocese "the intervention of the supreme
authority of the Church is necessary" for its exercise to
be legitimate (#72). The
Bishops who have read this working document have not yet reacted. It would be very surprising that they would all agree.
It is only at the Synod itself that we will see if some
Bishops voice their opposition.
The
problem is aggravated by the fact that Rome has decided that
within the framework of the Synod the matter of ordained
ministries is systematically ignored, yet this situation
constitutes one of the decisive issues facing the
Christian community and society today.
This highlights the urgency for National Bishops
Conferences to assume the responsibility which is theirs, to
respond to the demands they face, in faithfulness to the gospel,
if, as it now appears, Rome has not moved. However, this does
not mean that the seriousness of the crisis has not been
recognized in the upper circles. On the contrary, the official document requires that each
Bishop set up "a wise distribution of priests so that even
in urgent situations the communities of the faithful will not be
deprived of the Eucharist for too long a time (#113).
The document notes also that "a Church which has no
reference to ordained clergy risks losing its identity, one must
not envision a Christian community in the absence of a
ministerial priest" (#90).
But here there is no opening that would permit the
possibility of new ways. The
same prescription stands; pray
for vocations.
Today
in Canada, as elsewhere, we continue to close churches more
often than not because of the shortage of priests.
In many dioceses one increasingly finds the situation
where one priest is responsible for two, three or even four
parishes. Many
small Christian communities feel spiritually undernourished,
staffed with elderly or ill priests when they are not completely
abandoned. Nothing significant has been done to correct the situation
which was foreseeable. It is as if one waited for some kind of
green light from Rome. In
fact, more than twenty years ago one knew what was coming.
In
his presentation of the "Report on the State of Human
Resources of the
Catholic Church in Canada - Statistics 1984"
the Chairman of the Bishops Commission for the Ministries
and the Apostolate declared:
"The situation may seem dramatic and even
irreversible; a constant diminution of the number of priests,
accelerated aging of the clergy, the quasi-impossibility of
assuring replacements in the short and medium term given the few
ordinations and foreseen shortcomings"
In the same letter of presentation the Chairman
underlined that "the indications observed in the preceding
Reports (1977, 1987) are being confirmed.
Briefly, the crisis that is hitting us today in a
dramatic manner was foreseen.
We
are encouraged to pray for vocations and hold large congresses
on the subject such as the one being prepared for April 2002 in
Montreal. It is
difficult however not to wonder if other considerations should
not be taken into account.
Unfortunately, until now the Bishops have not judged that
they had the right to do so.
The documents coming from the Holy See are formal.
One has to recognize that confronted by many crucial
situations the Bishops of the Catholic Church are reduced
silence. Several theologians denounce this situation as
disastrous for the life of the Church.
Some Bishops are beginning to react openly.
But the great majority, suffering from a serious malaise,
maintain silence.
Will
the 10th Synod allow the delegates to reaffirm the
priority of the gospel in a search for solutions to the serious
problems affecting the Church touching the doctrines and the
regulations put in place down through the centuries?
Will they succeed in shaking up a centralizing system
which paralyzes the conduct of the Episcopal Conferences?
We know that Jesus of Nazareth was put to death because
he dared to speak out against the religious and political powers
of his time. Others
have known the same fate down through the ages in the Church.
Times have changed! The Bishops will need a lot of
courage and intelligent collaboration to break the reign of
silence established by the Roman Curia.
One
could hope that a number of Bishops will follow the example of
the Prioress of the Benedictine Abbey, Sister Christine
Vladimiroff of Erie, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. who authorized Sister
Joan Chittister to make a presentation at the Women Ordination
Worldwide Conference from June 29 to July 2 of this year in
spite of a formal prohibition from the Vatican.
The same initiative was taken by Myra Poole of London in
spite of being forbidden by Rome.
It may be that the Vatican preferred to wait for others
to stand up in defense of these important issues in the life of
the Christian communities so that some of the changes could be
implemented.
The
Synod of the people of God, aware of the dramatic issues of our
time believe that this is possible.
In mobilizing the dynamism of thousands of Catholics and
becoming the expression of their desire for change the parallel
synod counts on seeing the emergence of a new breath of liberty
and creativity which will make the Catholic Church a bit more part of the world.
The
Ottawa Statement Group,
in collaboration with
the Réseau
Culture et Foi - Executive Committee, Montréal
the Réseau Culture et Foi - Outaouais
Corpus
Canada
Xristos Community Society
Ottawa,
September 2001
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