Rapporteringen fra bispesynoden fortsetter på FIRST THINGS:
LETTERS FROM THE SYNOD – 2023: #9 (20/10)
Dette brevet innledes slik:
Domus Australia,” a pilgrim guest house and hotel near the Porta Pia in the Castro Pretorio neighborhood of Rome, is a living memorial to its founder, Cardinal George Pell, who died unexpectedly this past January. Cardinal Pell’s absence at Synod-2023 is keenly felt, although in different ways. Those who took inspiration from his courageous truth-telling and boundless good cheer miss him terribly. Those who were frightened and chastened by that truth-telling are relieved that he’s not on the scene to make a big difference, as he did at the Synods of 2014 and 2015. Yet his disciples are here, and in men and women like Archbishop Anthony Fisher, O.P. (Pell’s successor as archbishop of Sydney) and Dr. Renée Köhler-Ryan (who informed a Synod press conference earlier this week that “as a woman, I’m not focused at all on not being a priest”) the Pell spirit lives on. … …
LETTERS FROM THE SYNOD – 2023: SPECIAL EDITION 3 : (21/10)
Dette er en prestasjon av en tekst av biskop Erik Varden:
Erik Varden is bishop-prelate of the Territorial Prelature of Trondheim, Norway. A native of South Norway, he grew up in the village of Degernes. Varden was educated at Cambridge University and the Pontifical Oriental Institute before becoming a Cistercian monk of Mount St. Bernard Abbey in Leicestershire, making his solemn profession in 2007. Ordained priest in 2011, he became the eleventh abbot of Mount St. Bernard in 2015. In 2019, Pope Francis appointed him territorial prelate of Trondheim, and he received episcopal ordination in Nidaros Cathedral the following year – the first native Norwegian to be bishop in Trondheim in modern times. He is the author of several books, most recently Chastity: Reconciliation of the Senses, published by Bloomsbury Continuum. His online blog, Coram Fratribus, is read throughout the world. The lecture below, which is apt spiritual reading for Synod-2023’s third Sunday, is published here by kind permission of Bishop Varden.
LETTERS FROM THE SYNOD – 2023: #10 (23/10)
Der leser vi bl.a.:
… That the “process” of “discernment” through “dialogue” is the important thing at Synod-2023 has been repeated ad infinitum (and occasionally ad nauseam) for three weeks. One is reminded of the tortures of “sensitivity training” in the 1960s and 1970s. In fairness, though, there is a truth here that should be acknowledged. Two distinguished synodal participants have told me that the small-group discussions, however aggravating for being micro-managed and often emotionally driven, have been useful in tempering some of the loopier ideas being promoted under the rubric of a “Conversation in the Spirit.” …
LETTERS FROM THE SYNOD – 2023: #11 (25/10)
Hvem ser til stede ved denne synoden spørres det her:
There are some 1,378,000,000 Catholics on Planet Earth today. They live in almost every imaginable cultural, social, economic, and political circumstance. They manifest their Catholicism in distinctive ways. The vast majority of them are the lay faithful. Given those numbers and that extraordinary diversity, the claim that the “whole Church is gathered in Synod,” so often heard these past three weeks here in Rome, is obviously an exaggeration (to put it gently).
Perhaps 1 percent of the world Church participated in some form or other in the preparatory phases leading up to this synodal assembly, and the assembly itself is hardly “representative” of the biblical coat of many colors that is the Catholic Church today. The roster of Synod participants, carefully crafted by the Synod general secretariat, is dominated by what might be called Church professionals: not only clergy and consecrated religious, but lay men and women who work in Church ministries, services, and offices. To suggest that their concerns accurately mirror those of almost 1.4 billion their fellow Catholics is more than a stretch. …
LETTERS FROM THE SYNOD – 2023: #12 (27/10)
Dette brevet begynner med en oppsummering av synoden som ikke er særlig positiv:
The Letter of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops to the People of God is a treacly Hallmark card that would give Karine Jean-Pierre and the White House Press Office a run for their money in the spin-control sweepstakes. Taking the Letter at face value, one might think that Synod-2023 has been a profound spiritual experience, almost a new Pentecost, for everyone involved. In fact, many—including some of the Catholic Church’s finest minds and most evangelically effective bishops—have experienced it as an exercise in manipulation and infantilization (their terms, not mine). When the Te Deum is sung tomorrow afternoon at the end of the formal proceedings, many will feel a sense of relief that it’s all over—and a sense of dread about going through a similar exercise next October, when the second assembly of this Synod on Synodality convenes. … …