For 16-18 år siden leste jeg bøkene «Xavier Rynne» skrev fra Vatikankonsilet. Den amerikanske presten som skrev under dette navnet var godt informert, men også den som fikk pressen til å skrive om kampen mellom de konservative og de liberale. Slik skriver Wikipedia om ham:
Fr Francis Xavier Murphy attended the Second Vatican Council which met at the Vatican from 1962-1965 as a journalist. Under the pseudonym Xavier Rynne, combining his middle name and his mother’s maiden name, he revealed the inner workings of Vatican II to The New Yorker. He is credited with setting the tone for the popular view of the council, depicting it as «conservative» versus «liberal».
Tidsskriftet First Things oppretter nå en Xavier Rynne II, og vil la ham skrive anonymt fra den kommende bispesynoden i Roma. De skriver om dette bl.a.:
Xavier Rynne II is also taking a cue from the Synod general secretariat, which, in 2014 and 2015, has taken the position that the bishops’ interventions at the Synod should be de facto pseudonymous, as they are the “property” of the Synod, will not be released publicly, and will be summarized by the Holy See Press Office in its briefings (which typically do not identify who-said-what). While we hope that this might be changed by action on the floor of the Synod in its opening days – one does not risk much by suggesting that the people of the Church have a right to know what their bishops are saying about matters that affect us all – there is also something to be said for the freedom of expression that is, according to the Synod secretariat, afforded to the bishop-delegates by the secretariat’s decision to put their interventions into a kind of synodal lockbox. Simili modo, we hope to afford those who wish to speak plainly, in charity but “behind the veil,” as it were, that very same freedom: the aim of which is to inform, not to insult, disparage, or demean.
In the long view of history, Synod 2014 and Synod 2015 will likely appear as crucial markers along the difficult path that has been the Catholic Church’s encounter with, and challenge to, modernity, these past two hundred fifty years or so. So in reporting on Synod 2015, and in the commentary published in LETTERS FROM THE SYNOD, we will try to keep in mind the larger historical, cultural, and ecclesial contexts of the Synod’s deliberations: which is not, to put it gently, the specialité de la maison in much of the world media. Thus in the days to come, some suggestions will be made in this space about the deeper issues being contested at Synod 2015, in the hope that our readers will see the Synod and its work as we like to imagine Pope Francis sees them: as set against a large and dramatic horizon, full of shadows, but also penetrated by rays of brilliant light, most of which emanate from the heart of the Risen Christ. …