Bispesynoden er ferdig

Bispesynoden om ekteskapet er nettopp ferdig, og endte med et nokså uklart dokument (åpent for flere tolkninger) og verken de progressive eller de konservative kan hevde at de har vunnet noen tydelig seier. Det skriver John Alle i dette innlegget, og han skriver også om hvilke perspektiver vi bør ha og hvilke tolkningsrammer vi gjerne kan bruke for å forstå hva som skjedde under synoden:

if opponents of the so-called “Kasper proposal,” named for German Cardinal Walter Kasper, which would relax the Church’s ban on Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried, were to stand back from arguing its merits and ask, “What did we learn over the last two years about where this idea is coming from?”

In so doing, they would be struck that its most passionate advocates come from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland — the homeland of the Protestant Reformation, and thus a region where sensitivities about exclusion from Communion run deep.

They might then be able to acknowledge that, for better or worse, the Communion debate has become a litmus test in the German-speaking world for the Church’s credibility when it talks about compassion and mercy — and even if the eventual answer on Communion has to be no, they could work with the pro-Kasper camp to find some other tangible, effective way to get those qualities across.

Similarly, perhaps those pushing the Church to adopt a more welcoming and tolerant stance towards the LGBT community might ask themselves what stern opposition to that position was all about during these two synods.

They might realize, for instance, that for many African Catholics, such demands come off as another chapter in what Pope Francis has described as “ideological colonization,” meaning efforts by the West to force its values on the rest of the world. (The final document acknowledges the legitimacy of those concerns.)

Perhaps with that in mind, Catholic progressives would be more inclined to stand with their African fellow believers in insisting that whatever evolution in attitudes may take place, it has to be the result of free choice rooted in traditional cultural values and not the product of coercion.

These are but two examples of a long list of areas where the protagonists of the upheaval that unfolded over the past three weeks might profitably take a breath and ask what a course that brings the Church back together could look like. …