The pope's latest effort, the Synod on Synodality, now underway and continuing through the end of 2024, has already fomented ardent debate on some of the most controversial topics within the church, from female ordination to LGBTQ inclusion.

Francis' vision for the synod is a balance of traditionalists' love of orthodoxy and the pope's enthusiasm for reform.

Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary general of the Vatican's synod office, told Religion News Service Wednesday (Nov. 30) that when considering expectations for the synod, "the only limit is the Word of God, understood in the light of tradition."

That formulation, however, has caught its organizers at the Vatican between the two sides and risks disappointing both.

Addressing this polarization, Grech said that any change that will come from the synod will be inspired by the Holy Spirit, while taking into account the church's historical beliefs.

"The Spirit doesn't speak in a vacuum, but it helps us to understand, deepen and translate the word of God in our everyday lives," he said.

"Obviously we also need a guide: how the word has been received, deepened and applied by those who came before us.

"If we use these tools, then we can be certain that we are walking down the right path," he added.

The synod, a massive consultation of Catholics around the world on the theme of "Communion, Participation and Mission," hands a microphone to the ordinary faithful, inviting them to express their ideas and concerns at the parish and diocesan level, in person and online.

The results of those discussions, communicated to the Vatican via the national bishop's conferences, have been collected in a summary called the Document for the Continental Stage.

It will be considered by large assemblies of lay and religious Catholics grouped in seven continental assemblies.

Much of the rank-and-file's discussion represented in the document, even from some of the church's most conservative corners, concern the ordination of women, the need to adapt church doctrine on sexuality and to combat clerical sexual abuse.

Conservatives fear that the synod will do too much; liberals fear it will do too little to keep up with these demands.

But Grech, speaking at the presentation of "Walking Together," a new book collecting Pope Francis' teaching on synodality, said, "The synod isn't the search for a compromise between opposing factions, opposing parties. There are neither winners nor losers."

The synod, he said, seeks to interpret the will of the Holy Spirit rooted in truth, "and truth can be presented by a minority, a group or even an individual."

How the truth will emerge from the synodal debates remains unclear.

The Document for the Continental State is also loosely interpreted as contributing to authoritative church teaching, but the final takeaway will likely not come until the pope has issued a post-synodal apostolic letter that comprises the main reflections and deductions of the synod.

The contents of such a letter are considered part of the magisterium, or official teaching of the church.

What is clear is that "synodality is a calling for the church in the third millennium," according to Sister Nathalie Becquart, the undersecretary at the Vatican's synod office and the first woman to occupy that office.

The synod will lead "to a new reception of the Second Vatican Council," she added, suggesting that the broad consultation with Catholics will allow the reforms of the mid-1960s to finally take hold."

While it's too early to determine the practical changes that the synod might bring, Becquart said she wouldn't rule out the possibility that the assemblies will discuss the church's need for "new structures."

What those new structures look like remains unknown.

When the world's Catholic bishops met in Rome for the Synod on the Family in 2015, the conversations were dominated by the possibility that the pope would allow divorced Catholics who have married to take Communion. (He softened but didn't reverse the ban.)

Media coverage of the 2019 synod on the Pan-Amazon region largely focused on whether women would be given the right to serve as deacons, often the first step toward ordination. (They were not.)

In this synod, female leadership is again a factor, and Grech said that women's roles in the church will "of course" be a part of the conversation, pointing to the amount devoted to the topic in the working document for the next stage.

But Grech advised Catholics to "have patience."

"We in Christian communities have to grow our appreciation for what women do in the church," he said.

"And we must create more spaces for female contribution, which makes a huge difference," he added, pointing to the need for more women theologians to shift the debate.

"Let us all pray and ask the Holy Spirit to give us instructions so that all who are baptized — without distinction between men and women — can find a space, a calling, a mission."

• Claire Giangravé - Vatican Correspondent RNS. First published in RNS. Republished with permission.

Those who avail themselves of the liturgies that celebrate and solemnise these key moments of our Christian existence are often called cradle-to-grave Catholics.

And if you believe the Vatican's statistical office, we are growing in number. Its latest figures claim that the global Catholic population increased by 16 million new members between 2019 and 2020.

But I'll let you in on a secret: the papal mathematicians are very good at addition, but they have an extremely hard time subtracting.

They only remove dead people, not those who have been baptised but no longer claim to be Catholic.

Of course, that's not the statisticians' fault, because it's nearly impossible to know the exact number of people who have opted out or have just quietly walked away — unless, of course, they've formally quit by signing a legal declaration, as is possible in places like Germany.

In any case, there is more than just anecdotal evidence to show that the numbers of baptisms, church weddings and even funeral Masses are on the decline in most parts of the world.

I'm especially interested in focusing on the decline in church funerals, given that November — which begins with the Feast of All Saints and is followed next day by the Feast of All Souls — has traditionally been a special month for us Catholics to remember our dead.

I'm thinking especially of what appears to be a growing number of life-long Catholic who are deprived of a proper church funeral after they've died.

One of the greatest regrets in my life is that I allowed that to happen to my paternal grandfather when he died back in early 2004.

"Honey, we don't want to have a funeral"

"Papa", as we called my grandfather, became a Catholic in 1940 when he married the daughter of a Hungarian (Catholic) couple that had immigrated to the United States.

Like many so-called "converts", he became a very "devout Catholic".

He and my grandmother, "Nanny", never missed Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation.

They religiously said grace before every meal, which included a Hail Mary and the Lord's Prayer for extra measure!

I also discovered something else about Papa's devotional life when I shared a hotel room with him and Nanny during a 1994 visit to Budapest.

Each night before going to sleep, he would kneel at his bed and spend nearly a half-hour whispering prayers of petition for the very specific needs of family members and friends.

He would also give thanks for the blessings of the day and ask forgiveness for any offences he knowingly or unwittingly committed.

On a cold Sunday afternoon in late January, some ten years after that memorable visit to Hungary, I was in Switzerland, when I got a phone call from a relative to inform me that Papa had died that morning.

He had spent the last several weeks in hospital and then a nursing home infirmary following a bad fall.

He was 87 years old.

I immediately called Nanny to tell her I was "coming home" on the earliest flight the next day and would be there in time to help plan the funeral.

"Honey," she said, "We don't want to have a funeral."

Since she was a Mass-going Catholic, I was really stunned to hear this.

I said nothing more about it over the phone, thinking this was just her grief speaking.

My grandparents had been inseparable and they doted on each other throughout more than 63 years of marriage.

Obviously, Nanny was devastated at losing Papa.

Plus, my father, their only child, had died five years earlier. She felt alone and vulnerable.

Role reversal

When I finally got to her home a couple days later, I again brought up funeral arrangements.

But she repeated what she'd said on the phone: "We don't want to have a funeral."

And this is where I made the mistake that I regret to this day. I quietly just accepted her choice, failing to realize that Nanny was probably not in the right frame of mind to be able to make such a decision.

The fact that she was 83 was not the issue. She lived to nearly 99 and, until the last year or so of her life, was sharp as a tack.

No, the real reason was that Papa had always taken care of such arrangements as paying the bills, making the major purchases, and so forth.

She was not psychologically equipped or prepared to do so.

A number of other incidents occurred in the months afterwards that finally made me realise that our roles had been reversed.

Nanny, who had become like a mother to me after my dad's death in 1999, now needed someone to be something like a parent or a protective son for her.

That someone was me.

Nanny lived on for over 15 more years.

She died on Holy Thursday (April 18) in 2019, just three days after the blaze that almost destroyed Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.

Such details one does not forget.

This time I picked up my phone in Rome and immediately began making arrangements for a funeral that would include a Mass for Christian Burial.

A lasting legacy

We had the celebration at St Stephen's Church in Toledo (Ohio), which was the immigrant parish where she had been baptised in 1920.

There were only a few dozen people at the Mass.

Most of them were not Catholic.

The liturgy was carefully planned, and family members were assigned to place the pall on the casket, do the readings and present the offertory gifts.

The priest, a longtime friend of the family, gave a homily that highlighted aspects of Nanny's life and challenged us to think hard about the one lasting legacy - just one thing - that she gave to each of us.

Although most of my family is no longer Catholic, all seemed moved by the ritual.

When we do funerals right, they are powerful.

One of my nieces even told me she was interested in becoming a Catholic.

I'd like to think that her great-grandma's funeral helped in some way to confirm her desire to do so.

I scan the obituaries each day in the Toledo Blade and read of many people who grew up Catholic, went to the parish grade school and diocesan high school.

They were married in the Church. Some are even touted as being devout Catholics and active in their parishes when younger. But so often, they are never given a public funeral Mass, especially if they are elderly. I suspect that's because their heirs are no longer practicing.

Sadly, the faith is not being passed on.

So I will be giving thanks for Nanny and Papa during the month of November as we remember our beloved dead.

For I am grateful that, among the many ways they influenced my life, inspiring me to hold on to the Catholic faith is the most important gift and lasting legacy they left to me.

• Robert Mickens is LCI Editor in Chief.
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

Responding suggestions some villagers have made for a village by-law stating that everyone living in villages should attend church every Sunday Permanent Secretary for iTaukei Affairs Naipote Katonitabua says no one can be forced to attend church services.

He told Fijivillage that according to the 2013 Constitution, people have the right to attend or not to attend church services.

The constitution states that there is freedom of religion but no one should be forced to follow a particular religion.

Issues have also been raised on what happens to the villagers who are Seventh Day Adventists as their sabbath falls on Saturdays.

Katonitabua says that the leaders of families within the Tokatoka and the Mataqali should know what Sundays meant to their forefathers.

He says they received many reports during the village by‑law consultations of villagers not attending church.

Katonitabua says over time people have come up with new ways of life that badly affected the church attendance on Sundays.

However he says while there are rights to worship our own religion, there are also limitations which are needed to respect the vanua.

He says the whole purpose of the Village By-Law Consultation is to bring back the respect that villages had before.

Katonitabua says the villagers are now well involved on village activities and particularly looking at the welfare and the well-being of the village.

He says there is a great amount of support from the elders of the village in terms of safeguarding tradition and culture.

Source

• fijivillage.com
• fijivillage.com
• Image: shaylamartin.com

In June, Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth assigned St Mary's, Gosport, to the Franciscans of the Immaculate.

Since then, parishioners say people are required to kneel to receive Communion and women are asked to cover their heads at Mass.

Dr Amanda Field, a convert to Catholicism, says she has stopped attending the church after six years.

"We used to have something really special here. The church was packed; people had to stand in the porch.

"But since the friars came we've been plunged back into the days before Vatican II," said Dr Field.

Jean Watson, who has been serving the parish as a catechist and music-leader for 30 years, also described a "reversion" since the friars' arrival.

"I was a child in the parish before Vatican II and it wasn't even like this then," said Mrs Watson.

There have also been objections to the use of some Latin at Sunday Masses.

A parishioner said she has considered leaving because of the changes.

The parishioner said: "I have been going to this church for years and these changes aren't wanted. Part of the service is in Latin which I don't like."

"It seems the Bishop of Portsmouth does what he likes without thinking of the congregation.

"I know some of the older members of the church like the changes because it is what they grew up with. But as a younger member, I don't like it."

The Franciscans of the Immaculate attracted controversy in 2013 when Pope Francis dissolved its general council and forbade the friars to celebrate Mass in the extraordinary form without permission.

However the Mass is celebrated in the old rite six days a week at St Mary's.

A statement from Portsmouth diocese said it is not unusual in a Catholic diocese for a bishop to ask a religious order to provide pastoral ministry.

Bishop Philip Egan said: "The friars will continue to ensure St Mary's is open for prayer, and will build on the wonderful evangelisation in which the parish is already engaged."

Sources

• The Tablet
• The News Portsmouth
• Image: Catholic Herald

The Crux website reported Hungarian Cardinal Peter Erdo saying the synod is a place for an honest discussion over the difficulties families face.

The cardinal said that legal and theological efforts are being made to find answers.

He warned, however, that "all the possible solutions will be rooted in the faith".

Cardinal Erdo was questioned by reporters last week about the gap between teaching and practice, specifically on the Church's ban on artificial contraception and on access to Communion for the divorced and the remarried.

The cardinal said this is nothing new, and has already been addressed by popes Paul VI and John Paul II.

"These pastoral problems exist, and they deserve a very delicate attention," Cardinal Erdo said.

He insisted that a bishop's work must be rooted in Church teaching, without disregarding the work done in the past.

"We need to make a list with the possible solutions that already exist, rooted in the faith," he said.

The cardinal argued that it's possible to find "radical" measures without setting aside the Church's traditional discipline.

But Crux also reported him saying that talk of revisions on those fronts is the result of "a pressure with no foundation to change Church teaching".

He said the tough questions surrounding the family are being confronted "with love and sensibility", but also with "responsibility toward the unity of the Church".

"We need to reason with a great sense of tradition, and a great sensibility toward the possibilities that are within the theological and institutional heritage," Cardinal Erdo said.

He added that the theological foundations for the family and marriage are clear and "regarded as such" by Pope Francis.

Cardinal Erdo was relator-general - a type of chairman - at last year's extraordinary synod on the family.

The ordinary synod on the family is scheduled for October.

Sources

• Crux
• Image: Catholic News Agency

According to Reuters, French Bishop Jean-Michel Faure said the new group rejected Pope Francis and what it called his "new religion".

Bishop Faure and Holocaust-denying Bishop Richard Williamson both incurred automatic excommunications last month after the latter consecrated the former without Rome's approval.

Bishop Faure also said the new group would not engage in dialogue with Rome until the Vatican turned back the clock.

"We follow the popes of the past, not the current one," Bishop Faure, 73, told reporters at Santa Cruz Monastery near Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

"It is likely that in maybe one or two years we will have more consecrations," he said, adding there were two candidates ready to become bishops.

Bishop Williamson and Fr Faure had both been expelled from the Society of St Pius X.

Bishop Williamson has said he does not wish to start a new movement.

Bishop Faure said the Resistance group would not engage in dialogue with Rome, as the SSPX has done.

"We resist capitulation, we resist conciliation of St Pius X with Rome," he said.

Bishop Faure said he was not sure what it would take for Rome to return to its old traditions but conflict could be a catalyst.

"If there is another World War . . . maybe the Church will go back to the way it was before," he said.

Bishop Faure told the Guardian the Vatican was smashing tradition, and going against the teachings of Pius X.

"We do not follow that revolution. The current pope is preaching doctrine denied by Pius X. He is less Catholic than us," Bishop Faure said.

The Vatican's response to the ordination was unequivocal.

"Excommunication is automatic," a spokesman said.

He added: "For the Holy See, the diocese of Santa Cruz in Nova Friburgo does not exist. Faure can say what he wants, but a Catholic, and even more so a bishop, obeys and respects the Pope."

Sources

• Reuters
• The Guardian
• Image: Dominicainsavrille

Bishop Barry Jones has issued "The House of God", to inform and guide Christchurch diocese in the task of building churches.

Aimed at parishes wanting to build or repair and strengthen a church since the earthquakes, the document emphasises that churches in the diocese will be beautiful, traditional and places of worship and prayer.

Bishop Jones echoed Vatican II's Sacrosanctum Conciliam (124) in calling the church building "the House of God".

He said such buildings should be able to be recognised as Catholic churches.

"It is a sacred place set aside for the sublime prayer of the liturgy and for personal private prayer. It is not a multipurpose building."

"The church building itself should reflect the transcendence of God, the beauty of his holiness and the divine truth he has entrusted to his Church."

Describing the altar as the "point of convergence of all that happens in a church", Bishop Jones wrote that "it is not correct historically to claim that in early Christian churches the altar was at the centre, nor should it be".

"Rather it should be at head of the assembly and the church building ought not be in the shape of a theatre or a stadium," he wrote.

"Generally modernist styles have not served the liturgy well. In building a new church parishes should seek architects capable of using traditional styles . . . but not simply replicating a particular church," the document continues.

Examples of suitable styles include Gothic (Darfield) and Classical Revival (Cathedral).

At several points in the document, the General Instruction of the Roman Missal is cited.

The document also states the essential division in a church is between sanctuary and nave.

"This reflects the differentiation of the ministry which derives from Holy Orders and the ministries which derive from Baptism and Confirmation."

The document also states pews are to have kneelers and confessionals should be visible, but should afford privacy to penitents who desire it.

Source

• Christchurch diocese
• Image: 3 News

Her pakeha friends ask if the traditional role of women in the powhiri is sexist.

"I just try to explain that females have their own type of mana. Traditionally Maori really revered their women, and looked after their women, and I guess it's about maintaining that kind of whakaaro."

That view is a stark contrast to some older women.

Parliament could change its protocol to allow women to speak in Maori welcome ceremonies after complaints from some female MPs who felt the current tikanga belittled their status.

The Speaker of the House, David Carter, is in the process of reviewing parliamentary protocol after two senior female Labour MPs raised the red flag last year in July.

During a powhiri for Youth Parliament, Labour MPs Maryan Street and Annette King were made to move from the front row of seats or paepae, which is the orators bench usually reserved for men.

Street believes it sent the wrong message to the youth MPs, and says it was time for Parliament to develop its own kawa [protocol].

"This isn't how I want young people to see Parliament. I want them to see Parliament as a place of equals, and this kawa doesn't reflect that".

Suggestions by MPs include making provisions for women to speak in welcome ceremonies, and allowing high ranking female MPs to sit in the front seats or paepae. Continue reading.

Source: The Wireless

Image: RNZ

A study published in the Singapore Journal of Topical Geography "Hard times in Apia? Urban landlessness and the Church in Samoa," says research suggest that "all five areas surveyed, households prioritise giving to the church as their primary or secondary commitment, followed by the payment of school fees."

"These findings suggest that urban-based kin do not contribute or participate in traditional reciprocal exchanges with their rural extended families, and instead target their resources towards the needs of the household and membership of urban-based faith groups."

The study also reveals a further disconnect of Samoans from their traditional norms and values, including their ancestral past, and their mainstreaming into an increasingly Pacific urban way of life.

The authors, Alec Thornton, Tony Binns and Maria Talaitupu, claim that in many Pacific Island countries kinship and Christianity traditionally form the foundation for all political, economic and social organisation and are inextricably linked.

Source

• Samoa Observer
• Image: Across.co.nz

A metaphor for our churches perhaps?

"All I want is to talk with a 'real-life' person", we say. Not automated voices with strange accents. Do our church services offer encounters with a 'real-life' God in 'real-life' people? Are those with problems fobbed off to come back during office hours - Tuesday to Friday, 9am to 3pm? Do I put God on hold? Do we recognise the spirit dwelling within? Do we offer hospitality - being fully present to this person standing in front of me?

Many businesses (and church offices) now offer menus before you get to talk with a real person. 'Press 1' if you want x. 'Press 2' if you want y. 'Press 3' if you want z. By the time I have listened to all the options, I have forgotten which one I want or need. So I give up.

Do rubrics and traditions and canon laws impose unfair pressures and restrictions and difficulties on our access to to sacrament: an encounter with divine LOVE? Does institutionalism and bureaucracy and sheer bloody-mindedness put up roadblocks which discourage our full, conscious, and active participation in God's love affair with us?

The Call Centres I have dealt with all seem to be located off-shore. Are they conversant with our accent, our idioms, our attitudes, our culture? In a scene in "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel", Evelyn (an Englishwoman living in India) describes the ritual of 'dunking' a biscuit into builder's tea to a Call Centre executive … "Means lowering the biscuit into the tea and letting it soak in there and trying to calculate the exact moment before the biscuit dissloves, when you whip it up into your mouth and enjoy the blissful union of biscuits and tea combined." We grow best; we understand better; we communicate clearly when we speak the same vernacular, share the same story.

Not so in many of our churches. We stumble and trip over awkward words and phrasing in our liturgies. We stay silent during unsingable chants and refrains. We are human beings, born into a specific time and place and culture. Does our worship reflect our identity and our environment?

Call Centres are increasingly being moved 'off-shore' - centralising in massive buildings, trying to meet the needs of a global community. We should ask of Call Centres - and of our Church Communites - do we need to out-source; to centralise; to merge; to change or rebrand on a whim? What is the collateral damage: Relationship? Compassion? Belonging? Identity? Memory? Empathy? Trust? Intimacy? Are we shaping our spiritual practice on a corporate business model or do we need to reacquaint ourselves with the model presented by Jesus - empowering, inclusive, knowing, compassionate, challenging, human?

I think Call Centres are a physical embodiment of a growing desire for power; for control; for conformity; for commodification. They reflect an emphasis on quantity; on using 'correct channels'; on correct procedure. The entire process can be dehumanising and very un-Christlike. Jesus looked people in the eye; felt their touch in a crowd; didn't belittle people or put them on hold. He treated adults as adults - with dignity; able to make their own decisions, albeit with a little help sometimes.

Call Centres should enable me to express my concerns and get a reasonable response. Church communities should enable my relationship with the divine. Do either succeed?

Liz Pearce, mother of 3 adult children, loves story, dollmaking, writing and silence.

Why Does the Holy Father Need to Call a Synod?

The bishops of the Church, in unity with Peter's successor, and as successors to the apostles, were given a promise by Jesus Christ — I will be with you until the end of time (John 14:16, 26). This promise is given in relationship to the mission entrusted to their care: to teach and baptize all nations (Matthew 28:18-20). When the bishops are assembled by mandate of the pope, amazing things happen. We see this in the Acts of the Apostles, when pastoral questions were raised and answers needed to be given (Acts 15). The apostolic ministry the bishops exercise in the name of Jesus Christ shoulders them with the burdens and joys of shepherding with authority over the flock, with the same love that the Good Shepherd has for the flock — and with the mission to teach and baptize all nations.

We profess our faith in an apostolic Church for a reason. The successors to the apostles, discerning with the ordained and non-ordained the needs of the Church and how to respond to those needs, are the ones who are called to definitively and authentically teach and baptize all nations.

The Synod of Bishops represents a way for the Holy Father to bring bishops together to address matters of the Church in light of the Tradition of the Church and what the word of God has revealed. We should then not look at a synod as a bureaucratic process or a waste of time, but a very important moment in the life of the Church, because the Holy Spirit will bring the bishops the direction, insight and even resolution we need to advance the mission of the Catholic Church. Read more

Sources

• National Catholic Register
• Image: USA Today