We're still three months away, and already the chatter around the Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon Region has reached fever pitch. Prominent theological and pastoral voices in the Church have been very direct in their criticism of the instrumentum laboris – working document – that the synod’s general secretariat put together, ostensibly to guide discussions at the assembly.
Most of the hubbub is over perceived designs to use the gathering as a back door for a more general relaxation of clerical discipline when it comes to the requirement of celibacy in the Latin Church. Those concerns are not groundless. Relaxing the discipline is on the agenda. If organisers are intent on using the meeting to change Church discipline, it will only be a first step. Others, such as applications for the same exception to the general rule as would be granted to Amazonian bishops, might not be too long in coming.
