NEWS ...from and about Synod 2015
What About the End-Game? Over the past forty-eight hours, a consensus has begun to emerge among Synod fathers that their work in this second week of Synod-2015 would be greatly facilitated if they were given concrete, specific answers to the question, “What are we working toward?” In other words, what is the end-game of this three-week synodal process? This consensus ranges across the various fault-lines previously noted here; and of course the fathers’ concern makes eminent sense. The Synod discussion circles’ detailed examination of the working document, the Instrumentum Laboris, seems to be provoking thoughtful, serious debate. But to what end? How will the amendments and alterations being proposed from the discussion groups be incorporated into the draft Synod final report? When will be final report be available for review, prior to the voting on it which Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, the Synod general secretary, has promised? In what languages besides Italian will the final report be available to the Synod fathers? Will the fathers vote on the draft final report paragraph by paragraph; part by part; as a whole; all of the above? Will a validating “majority” be simple or two thirds? And when will all of this be revealed, so to speak? The Vatican press spokesman, Fr Federico Lombardi, SJ, indicated on Monday that there might be some clarification of these matters on Friday or Saturday of this week. But Synod fathers (and others) wonder, why the delay? And this puzzlement is not because of alleged fears of manipulation being bruited in an overwrought Italian press with little else to write about. (Strike “overwrought” as redundant.) It’s because getting specific answers to these questions will help the bishops do their work better, in the spirit of openness, charity, and candor for which the Holy Father has repeatedly called. So it may be hoped that the details of the end-game of Synod-2015 are forthcoming sooner rather than later, perhaps in response to inquiries from the discussion groups or in the free-discussion periods in the Synod general assembly. XR2
