Amazon Synod: call for alliance, rite, married priests, women deacons and recognition of ecological sin

4190 words, 21 min read

The Amazon Synod has concluded today with a mass at St. Peter's, following yesterdays voting on and subsequent publication of the Synod's final document (in Spanish), addressed to Pope Francis. Since there is no English translation of the final document yet, I would here like to offer my own, rough translation of some of its paragraphs that I consider to be key (please, bear in mind that this document is not a magisterial text of the Catholic Church - that will follow in the form of Pope Francis' exhortation, expected by the end of this year):

9. The quest of indigenous Amazonian peoples for a full life, is embodied in what they call "good living" ["buen vivir"], which attains its fullness in the Beatitudes. It is about living in harmony with oneself, with nature, with human beings and with the supreme being, since there is intercommunication among the entire cosmos, where there are none who exclude nor who are excluded, and where we can forge a project leading to a full life for everybody. Such an understanding of life is characterized by the connectivity and harmony of relationships among water, territory and nature, community life and culture, God and the various spiritual forces. For them, "good living" consists in understanding the centrality of the transcendent relational character of human beings and of creation, and it presupposes "good doing." This integral way is expressed in its own way of organizing that starts with the family and the community, and that embraces a responsible use of all the goods of creation. Indigenous peoples aspire to achieve better living conditions, especially in terms of health and education, to enjoy sustainable development led and discerned by themselves and to maintain harmony with their traditional ways of life, dialoguing between the wisdom and technology of their ancestors and new ones.

10. But, the Amazon today is a wounded and deformed beauty, a place of pain and violence. The attacks on nature have negative consequences for the life of peoples. This unique socio-environmental crisis was reflected in the pre-synodal listening process that pointed out the following threats against life: appropriation and privatization of natural resources, such as water itself; legal logging concessions and the arrival of illegal loggers; predatory hunting and fishing; non-sustainable mega-projects (hydroelectric, forest concessions, large-scale logging, monocultures, roads, waterways, railways and mining and oil projects); pollution caused by the extractive industry and city dumps and, above all, climate change. They are real threats that have serious social consequences associated with them: diseases derived from pollution, drug trafficking, illegal armed groups, alcoholism, violence against women, sexual exploitation, human trafficking, the sale of organs, sex tourism, the loss of the original culture and identity (language, spiritual practices and customs), the criminalization and murder of leaders and defenders of the territory. Behind all this are the economic and political interests of dominant groups, with the complicity of some governments and some indigenous authorities. The victims are the most vulnerable groups, children, youth, women and sister mother earth.

17. Listening to the clamor of the earth and the cry of the poor and the people of the Amazon with whom we walk calls us to a true integral conversion, with a simple and sober life, all fueled by a mystical spirituality in the style of Saint Francis of Assisi, an example of integral conversion lived with Christian cheerfulness and joy (cf. LS 20-12). A prayerful reading of the Word of God will help us deepen and discover the groans of the Spirit and will encourage us in the commitment to care for our "common home."

22. We want to be an Amazonian, Samaritan Church, embodied in the way in which the Son of God became incarnate: "He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases." (Mt 8:17b). He who became poor to enrich us with his poverty (2 Cor 8:9), through his Spirit, exhorts the missionary disciples of today to encounter everyone, especially the original peoples, the poor, those excluded from society and the others. We also want a Magdalen Church that feels loved and reconciled, that announces with joy and conviction Christ crucified and risen. A Marian Church that generates children to the faith and educates them with love and patience, also learning from the wealth of the people. We want to be a servant, kerygmatic, educating, inculturated church in the midst of the towns we serve.

47. The life of indigenous, mestizo, riverside dwelling [riberiños], peasant, quilombola and / or Afro-descendant peoples and traditional communities is threatened by destruction, environmental exploitation and the systematic violation of their territorial rights. It is necessary to defend the rights to self-determination, the demarcation of territories and a prior, free and informed consultation. These peoples have “social, cultural and economic conditions that distinguish them from other sectors of the national community, and which are governed totally or partially by their own customs or traditions or by special legislation” (Conv. 169 ILO, art. 1, 1a). For the Church, the defense of life, community, land and the rights of indigenous peoples is an evangelical principle, in defense of human dignity: "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full" (Jn 10:10b).

48. The Church promotes the integral salvation of the human person, valuing the culture of indigenous peoples, speaking of their vital needs, accompanying movements that struggle for their rights. Our pastoral service constitutes a service for the full life of the indigenous peoples, which moves us to announce the Good News of the Kingdom of God and to denounce the situations of sin, structures of death, violence and injustice, promoting intercultural, interreligious and ecumenical dialogue (cf. DAp 95).

51. Christ through the incarnation left his prerogative of God behind and became man in a concrete culture to identify with all mankind. Inculturation is the incarnation of the Gospel in indigenous cultures (“what is not assumed is not redeemed”, St. Irenaeus, cf. Puebla 400) and at the same time the introduction of these cultures into the life of the Church. In this process the peoples are protagonists and are accompanied by their agents and pastors.

55. We are all invited to approach the Amazonian peoples as equal to equal, respecting their history, their cultures, their style of "good living" (PF 06.10.19). Colonialism is the imposition of certain ways of living of some peoples on others, both economically, culturally or religiously. We reject a colonialist style evangelization. Announcing the Good News of Jesus implies recognizing the seeds of the Word already present in various cultures. The evangelization that we propose today for the Amazon, is an inculturated announcement that generates processes of interculturality, processes that promote the life of the Church with an Amazonian identity and an Amazonian face.

66. God has given us the earth as a gift and as a task, to take care of it and to answer for it; We are not her owners. Integral ecology is based on the fact that "everything is closely related" (LS 16). That is why ecology and social justice are intrinsically linked (cf. LS 137). With integral ecology a new paradigm of justice emerges, since “a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach, which must integrate justice into discussions about the environment, to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor ”(LS 49). Integral ecology, thus, connects the exercise of the care of nature with that of justice for the most impoverished and disadvantaged on earth, who are God's preferred option in revealed history.

67. It is urgent to face the unlimited exploitation of the "common home" and of its inhabitants. One of the main causes of destruction in the Amazon is predatory extractivism that responds to a logic of greed, typical of the dominant technocratic paradigm (LS 101). Faced with the pressing situation of the planet and the Amazon, integral ecology is not one more path that the Church can choose for the future in this territory, it is the only possible way, because there is no other viable path to save the region. The pillaging of the territory is accompanied by the shedding of innocent blood and the criminalization of the defenders of the Amazon.

74. It is up to all of us to be guardians of God's work. The protagonists of the care, protection and defense of the rights of peoples and the rights of nature in this region are the Amazonian communities themselves. They are the agents of their own destiny, of their own mission. In this scenario, the role of the Church is that of an ally. They have clearly expressed that they want the Church to accompany them, to walk with them, and not to impose a particular way of being, a specific mode of development that has little to do with their cultures, traditions and spiritualities. They know how to take care of the Amazon, how to love and protect it; what they need is for the Church to support them.

82. We propose to define ecological sin as an action or omission against God, against others, the community and the environment. It is a sin against future generations and manifests itself in acts and habits of pollution and destruction of the harmony of the environment, transgressions against the principles of interdependence and the breaking of solidarity networks among creatures (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 340-344) and against the virtue of justice. We also propose to create special ministries for the care of the “common home” and the promotion of integral ecology at the parish level and in each ecclesiastical jurisdiction, which have as its functions, among others, the care of the territory and the waters, as well as the promotion of the encyclical Laudato Si'. To take on the pastoral, educational and advocacy program of the Encyclical Laudato Si' in its chapters V and VI at all levels and in all structures of the Church.

87. "Synod" is an ancient word revered by Tradition; it indicates the path that members of God's people travel together; it refers to the Lord Jesus, who presents himself as “the way, the truth and the life” (Jn 14:6), and to the fact that Christians, his followers, were called “the disciples of the way” (Acts 9:2); to be synodal is to follow together "the way of the Lord" (Acts 18:25). Synodality is the way of being of the early Church (cf. Acts 15) and must be ours too. “ Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.”(1 Cor 12:12). Synodality also characterizes the Church of Vatican II, understood as the People of God, in equality and common dignity in the face of the diversity of ministries, charisms and services. She “indicates the specific way of living and acting (modus vivendi et operandi) of the Church, the People of God, which reveals and gives substance to her being as communion when all her members journey together, gather in assembly and take an active part in her evangelising mission" (...), that is, in the "involvement and participation of the whole People of God in the life and mission of the Church" (ITC, Synodality ... n. 6-7).

88. To walk together, the Church today needs conversion to a synodal experience. It is necessary to strengthen a culture of dialogue, reciprocal listening, spiritual discernment, consensus and communion to find spaces and modes of joint decision making and responding to pastoral challenges. This will foster shared responsibility in the life of the Church in a spirit of service. It is urgent to walk, propose and assume the responsibilities to overcome clericalism and arbitrary impositions. Synodality is a constitutive dimension of the Church. You cannot be a Church without acknowledging an effective exercise of the sensus fidei of the entire People of God.

102. Given the reality suffered by women, victims of physical, moral and religious violence, including femicide, the Church positions herself in defense of their rights and recognizes them as protagonists and guardians of creation and the "common home". We recognize the ministeriality that Jesus reserved for women. It is necessary to promote the formation of women in studies of biblical theology, systematic theology, canon law, valuing their presence in organizations and leadership within and outside the ecclesial environment. We want to strengthen family ties, especially with migrant women. Let us ensure their place in leadership and training contexts. We ask for a review of the Motu Propio of St. Paul VI, Ministeria quedam, so that properly trained and prepared women too may receive the ministries of the Lector and Acolyte, among others to be developed. In the new contexts of evangelization and pastoral work in the Amazon, where the majority of Catholic communities are led by women, we ask that the instituted ministry of “woman leader of the community” be created and recognized within the service of the changing demands of evangelization and care for communities.

103. In multiple consultations held in the Amazon, the fundamental role of religious and lay women in the Church of the Amazon and its communities was recognized and emphasized, given the multiple services they provide. In a high number of these consultations, the permanent diaconate was requested for women. For this reason the subject was also very present in the Synod. Already in 2016, Pope Francis had created a “Study Commission on the Diaconate of Women” which, as a Commission, reached a partial result on what the reality of the diaconate of women was like in the first centuries of the Church and its implications today. Therefore, we would like to share our experiences and reflections with the Commission and look forward to its results.

110. A community has the right to celebration, which derives from the essence of the Eucharist and its place in the economy of salvation. The sacramental life is the integration of the various dimensions of human life in the Paschal Mystery, which strengthens us. That is why living communities truly cry out for the celebration of the Eucharist. It is undoubtedly the point of arrival (climax and consummation) of the community; but it is, at the same time, a starting point: of encounter, of reconciliation, of learning and catechesis, of community growth.

111. Many of the ecclesial communities of the Amazonian territory have enormous difficulties in accessing the Eucharist. Sometimes not only months go by, but even several years before a priest can return to a community to celebrate the Eucharist, offer the sacrament of reconciliation or anoint the sick in the community. We appreciate celibacy as a gift from God (Sacerdotalis Caelibatus, 1) to the extent that this gift allows the missionary disciple, ordained to the presbyterate, to devote himself fully to the service of the Holy People of God. It stimulates pastoral charity and we pray that there may be many vocations that may live celibate priesthood. We know that this discipline "is not required by the very nature of the priesthood ... although it has a many-faceted suitability for it" (PO 16). In his encyclical on priestly celibacy, St. Paul VI maintained this law and presented theological, spiritual and pastoral motivations that support it. In 1992, the post-synodal exhortation of St. John Paul II on priestly formation confirmed this tradition in the Latin Church (PDV 29). Considering that legitimate diversity does not harm the communion and unity of the Church, but rather manifests and serves it (LG 13; OE 6) which testifies to the plurality of existing rites and disciplines, we propose establishing criteria and provisions on the part of the competent authority, within the framework of Lumen Gentium 26, to ordain suitable and recognized men of the community as priests, who have had a fruitful permanent diaconate and receive adequate training for the presbyterate, who may have a legally constituted and stable family, to sustain the life of the Christian community through the preaching of the Word and the celebration of the Sacraments in the most remote areas of the Amazon region. In this regard, some asked for a universal approach to the issue.

117. In the Catholic Church there are 23 different Rites, a clear sign of a tradition that since the first centuries has tried to inculturate the contents of the faith and its celebration through a language as coherent as possible with the mystery to be expressed. All these traditions have their origin based on the mission of the Church: "Churches of the same geographical and cultural area came to celebrate the mystery of Christ through particular expressions characterized by the culture: in the tradition of the "deposit of faith," in liturgical symbolism, in the organization of fraternal communion, in the theological understanding of the mysteries, and in various forms of holiness" (CCC 1202; see also CCC 1200-1206).

118. It is necessary that the Church, in its tireless evangelizing labor, work so that the process of inculturation of the faith is expressed in the most coherent ways, so that it can also be celebrated and lived according to the Amazonian peoples own languages. It is urgent to form translation and writing committees of biblical and liturgical texts in the languages of the different places, with the necessary resources, preserving the matter [substance] of the sacraments and adapting them to the form, without losing sight of what is essential. In this sense it is necessary to encourage music and singing, all of which is accepted and encouraged by the liturgy.

119. The new organization of the Church in the Amazon must establish a competent commission to study and discuss, according to customs and manners of the ancestral peoples, the elaboration of an Amazonian rite, which expresses the liturgical, theological, disciplinary and spiritual heritage of the Amazon, with special reference to what Lumen Gentium affirms for the Eastern Churches (cf. LG 23). This would add to the rites already present in the Church, enriching the work of evangelization, the ability to express faith in one's own culture and the sense of decentralization and collegiality that can be expressed by the Catholicity of the Church. One could also study and propose how to enrich ecclesial rites with the way in which these peoples take care of their territory and relate to their waters.

120. We conclude under the protection of Mary, Mother of the Amazon, venerated with various advocations throughout the region. Through her intercession, we ask that this Synod be a concrete expression of synodality, so that the full life that Jesus came to bring to the world (cf. Jn 10:10) reaches all, especially the poor, and contributes to the care of the "common home". May Mary, Mother of the Amazon, accompany our way; To Saint Joseph, faithful guardian of Mary and her son Jesus, we consecrate our ecclesial presence in the Amazon, a Church with an Amazonian face and missionary release.

Worth adding to these rough translations of excerpts from the final document of the Amazon Synod are also a couple of passages from the off-the-cuff address of Pope Francis to its members during the Synod's closing session yesterday evening, where he warned against a false attachment to a dead, fake caricature of Tradition:

"Some think that tradition is a museum of old things. I like to repeat what Gustav Mahler said: "Tradition is the safeguard of the future and not the custody of ashes."¹ It is like the root from which the sap comes that makes a tree grow so that it bears fruit. Taking this and making it go ahead, is how the first Fathers [of the Church] understood what tradition is. Receive and walk in the same direction, with that beautiful triple dimension that Vincent of Lérins already gave in the fifth century ["Christian dogma, remaining absolutely intact and unaltered, consolidates over the years, develops over time, deepens with age ”(cf. Common Prime, 23: PL 50, 667-668)]. [...]

Thinking today about these Catholic "elites", and sometimes Christian ones, but especially Catholic ones, who want to go "to every little trifle" and forget about what is "great", I remembered a phrase from Péguy, and I went to look for it. I'll try to translate it well, I think it can help us, when he describes these groups that want the "little trifle" and forget about the "thing" [itself]. “Because they don't have the courage to be with the world, they believe they are with God. Because they do not have the courage to engage in man's life choices, they believe they are fighting for God. Because they don't love anyone, they believe they love God.” I was very enlightened by it, not to fall prisoner of these selective groups that, as far as the Synod goes, will want to see what was decided on this intra-ecclesiastical point or on this other one, and who will deny the body [core] of the synod, which are the diagnoses we have made in the four dimensions [pastoral, cultural, ecological, synodal].

These are themes that Pope Francis also picked up today, in the homily during the Synod's closing mass, where the following passages were most expressive:

"The prayer of the Pharisee begins in this way: “God, I thank you”. This is a great beginning, because the best prayer is that of gratitude, that of praise. Immediately, though, we see the reason why he gives thanks: “that I am not like other men” (Lk 18:11). He also explains the reason: he fasts twice a week, although at the time there was only a yearly obligation; he pays tithes on all that he has, though tithing was prescribed only on the most important products (cf. Dt 14:22ff). In short, he boasts because he fulfils particular commandments to the best degree possible. But he forgets the greatest commandment: to love God and our neighbour (cf. Mt 22:36-40). Brimming with self-assurance about his own ability to keep the commandments, his own merits and virtues, he is focused only on himself. The tragedy of this man is that he is without love. Even the best things, without love, count for nothing, as Saint Paul says (cf. 1 Cor 13). Without love, what is the result? He ends up praising himself instead of praying. In fact, he asks nothing from the Lord because he does not feel needy or in debt, but he feels that God owes something to him. He stands in the temple of God, but he worships a different god: himself. And many “prestigious” groups, “Catholic Christians”, go along this path. [...]

Even Christians who pray and go to Mass on Sunday are subject to this religion of the self. Let us examine ourselves and see whether we too may think that someone is inferior and can be tossed aside, even if only in our words. Let us pray for the grace not to consider ourselves superior, not to believe that we are alright, not to become cynical and scornful. Let us ask Jesus to heal us of speaking ill and complaining about others, of despising this or that person: these things are displeasing to God.[...]

[T]he root of every spiritual error, as the ancient monks taught, is believing ourselves to be righteous. To consider ourselves righteous is to leave God, the only righteous one, out in the cold. This initial stance is so important that Jesus shows it to us with an unusual comparison, juxtaposing in the parable the Pharisee, the most pious and devout figure of the time, and the tax collector, the public sinner par excellence. The judgment is reversed: the one who is good but presumptuous fails; the one who is a disaster but humble is exalted by God. If we look at ourselves honestly, we see in us all both the tax collector and the Pharisee. We are a bit tax collectors because we are sinners, and a bit Pharisees because we are presumptuous, able to justify ourselves, masters of the art of self-justification. This may often work with ourselves, but not with God. This trick does not work with God. Let us pray for the grace to experience ourselves in need of mercy, interiorly poor. For this reason too, we do well to associate with the poor, to remind ourselves that we are poor, to remind ourselves that the salvation of God operates only in an atmosphere of interior poverty."

And, finally, during the Angelus this afternoon he picked up on Mary as the model for closeness and evangelization:

"For the journey to come, let us invoke the Virgin Mary, venerated and loved as Queen of Amazonia. She became that not by conquering but by "inculturating herself": with the humble courage of a mother she became the protector of her children, the defender of the oppressed. Always going to the culture of the peoples. There is no standard culture, there is no pure culture that purifies the others; there is the Gospel, pure, which inculturates itself. To her, who took care of Jesus in the poor house of Nazareth, we entrust the poorest children and our common home."

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¹ A variant of "Tradition is not to preserve the ashes, but to pass on the flame" attributed to Mahler.

Amazon Synod: the witness of Synod Mothers

1044 words, 6 min read

Before the final document of the Amazon Synod is published, I wanted to share one more gem from yesterday's Vatica press briefing, where Sister Inés Azucena Zambrano Jara, M.M.I. gave a very clear and compelling account of what the Synod has meant for her. It radiates joy and warmth and provides a glimpse into the inner life of this event that may well end up having far-reaching consequences for the life of the Catholic Church worldwide. I offer this translated transcript with the usual caveats and hope it will bring you as much joy as listening to Sr. Inés gave me:

“I would like to share with you, through the eyes of a woman, with the heart of a woman, this participation in the Synod, of what our, my experience as a woman, our experience as women has been in the this Synod. I feel that the Synod has been lived in the setting of a family. There was been a lot of closeness, a lot of trust, and a mutual getting to know one another among all. We lived an environment of synodality.

We were all - men and women - listened to. We all had the opportunity to share - us, women, based on our experience and, I believe, we all did it, because we all wanted to provide this topic in the Synod. There was attentive listening to God, with the strong moments of prayer that we had. A permanent listening to the voice of the Amazon was always present, a listening to the peoples, a listening to the pain, the suffering, to this pain of Mother Earth. It was a very active listening throughout the Synod.

I feel that this Syond has also been - and I don’t know whether this word can be said - set in an environment of witness. What most remains from an experience is what is seen, what enters through the eyes and what arrives at the heart. Because of this, the witness of Pope Francis has been very great. A witness of humility, of simplicity, and I feel that he is a man of God. He has God and gives Him. Such a humble attitude, to bow his head and to permit that two indigenous women bless him. For me this has been very evangelising. Jesica from Peru and Cecaliqui [?] from Ecuador blessed the Holy Father. The witness of the indigenous people - a prophetic and very bold witness.

The witness of the cardinals, of the bishops - I believe we all speak with the heart about the reality we are living, the reality that the Amazon is living. I very much liked the initiative they had of going to the catacombs to renew the choice of the poor, and this time to renew a choice of native people and of care for our common home. I believe this was very important.

Then, us as women - our participation. I fell that is was a very active participation. We felt very responsible throughout the Synod. Therefore, in certain moments we heard - and we felt it like that - being spoken of as Synod Mothers - I don’t know whether that can be said, but we lived it like that. We felt it. We owned it, we lived this Synod with passion, what the Amazon is living hurts us, what the peoples there are living hurts us. This is how we [women] lived this experience, and, sharing it, we sent a letter to the Holy Father, saying that consecrated life is here, that we, women are here - Holiness, we will continue going ahead.

What do I take away from the Synod? I take with me a great commitment to continue building this Church with an Amazonian face. Pope St. John Paul II, when he came to Ecuador he was very challenging in ’84. “We have to build an indigenous Church, with indigenous catechists, leaders, animators, bishops, priests and with its own liturgy” he told us already in ’84. And I believe this has been going ahead, this has been worked on during all this time and now we are already talking about this Amazonian rite. But for this to happen, for this Church with an Amazonian face to happen, we need to continue to deepen and live the inculturation of the Gospel, an Indian theology. We need to keep sharing this spiritual richness of the peoples, we need to do it. There is an immense spiritual richness in their rites, in all their spirituality, in their entire vision of the universe. Therefore there is an urgency, not only now, but for some time already, of learning their languages. Because only when the same language is spoken, the languages of the peoples, but above all the language of the heart, is it possible to enter into this experience of the peoples. I feel that when they are viewed from afar, the rites of these people are being criticised, demonized. Because they are not understood. Then one can only say: “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are saying” because they haven’t lived this rich experience of faith together with these peoples.

We will also continue working on the defense of the rites of indigenous peoples and of our common home, but we will not be working alone. The indigenous in Ecuador tell us: Sister, let’s walk with two legs: the Church and the organization, together. They don’t want networking, “we want an alliance with you” - and this is what we will continue doing together with them, because this “suma causai” [i.e., a Quechua expression meaning harmony with neighbor and nature] is what we are all looking for, which is an expression of the Kingdom, which is the life of God that is there in all peoples. This is what we will continue doing together with them. And as far as religious life is concerned, we will continue building this face of consecrated life with an indigenous heart, with an Amazonian heart. A consecrated life that is close, that is together with the people, walking together with them, inserted, inculturated, itinerant, working in an intercongregational way. This is what we want to do, this is what is ready in the suitcase, to be taken with us from this Synod.”

Amazon Synod: Jesus is the center

725 words, 4 min read

Following on from the first piece about the Amazon Synod, I would here like to only cover three contributions to the Synod from the last week and skip entirely the reports of the “circoli minori” that were published a week ago and that give a first sense of the inputs to the Synod’s final document that is being drafted now and that will be voted on tomorrow. I’ll just mention some of the key themes that came up frequently in these intermediate working reports: a focus on caring for our common home - Mother Earth - where the Church plays an integral role, a denunciation of violence in the Amazon, the diversity of the Church and the need for inculturation (an Amazonian Rite was mentioned several time), a call for the need for regular, frequent, stable access to the Eucharist and the related call for ordaining married men (viri probati) to the priesthood, the call for a greater, more prominent, more “official” role of women in the Church, including a call for reinstating the diaconate for women.

Let me turn to the three moments from the last week or so that particularly stood out to me. The first was an interview with the newly-appointed Cardinal Jean Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg, who started with putting things into perspective:

“If our planet is destroyed, we can shout as much as we want about married priests or women priests, but there will be no priests needed anymore. So it’s the most important problem and it’s a problem with the greatest urgency.”

Another, equally important attempt at going back to basics was an impassioned plea by one of the lay participants of the synod, Delio Siticonatzi Camaiteri, of the Asháninka indigenous people of Perù, who was quite direct with the journalists - and through them with the broader population - at the Vatican press briefing yesterday, who said:

“I see you looking quite uneasy from here, not understanding what the Amazon really needs. We have our view of the universe, our way of looking at the world that surrounds us and it is nature that brings us closer to God. Seeing God’s face in our culture in our experience brings us closer [to him], because we, as indigenous people, live in harmony with all beings that are there. For you, I see that the idea of us as indigenous people does not make sense. You look worried to me, you look doubtful in the face of this reality that we seek as indigenous people. Don’t harden your heart, soften your heart - this is what Jesus invites us to do. May we live together. We believe in one God. In the end we will all be united. And this is what we, as indigenous people, desire. We have our rites. Yes, we do have our rites. But this rite must include its centre, which is Jesus Christ! There is nothing else to talk about here. The center that unites us now in this Synod is Jesus Christ. Defending life itself, natural life - there is nothing else besides.”

And, finally, there were Pope Francis’ own words at Wednesday’s General Audience, which, while addressed to the whole Church, I can’t help hear as being particularly meant for the Synod members, ahead of their vote on the Synod’s final document tomorrow:

“The nature of the Church emerges from the Book of the Acts, which is not a fortress but a tent capable of enlarging its space (Cf. Isaiah 54:2) and giving access to all. The Church is either “going forth” or it’s not Church, it is either a path that is always widening its space so that all can enter, or it’s not Church,’ — “a  Church with open doors” (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 46), always with the doors open.  When I see a church here, in this city, or when I see it in the other diocese from which I come, with the doors closed, this is a bad sign. The churches must always have the doors open because this is the symbol of what a church is: always open. The Church is “called to be always the open House of the Father. [. . . ] So that, if someone wants to follow a motion of the Spirit and approaches, seeking God, he/she won’t meet with the coldness of a closed door” (Ibid., 47).”

Amazon Synod: bring the Good News to the ends of the earth

2810 words, 14 min read

Last Sunday saw the opening of the Synod for the Amazon, which Pope Francis announced two years ago and whose aim is “to find new ways for the evangelization of that portion of the People of God, especially the indigenous, often forgotten and without a perspective of a good future, also for the cause of the crisis of the Amazonian forest, lung of fundamental importance for our planet”. During the two years leading up to ip, 80 000 people living in the Amazon basin (which has an indigenous population of 20 million) were consulted and raised issues ranging from care for the environment, via social justice to constraints on access to the sacraments and pastoral care. The Synod will last 3 weeks and will result in a final document addressed to Pope Francis, who will take it as a basis for a future encyclical or exhortation (like he has done in the case of synods on the family and on youth in the past).

Over the course of the Synod, I will try to periodically share here a selection of news and reflections about its progress, as a way to be engaged with this important event in the life of the Church. I will not try to be exhaustive (you can follow media outlets like news.va and americamagazine.org for that) but focus on what gives me greatest joy or sorrow instead.

As with previous Synods, here too Pope Francis' opening homily, delivered during mass celebrated at St. Peter's last Sunday, is key to understanding what is at stake. Off the bat, he frames the Synod as an exercise in receiving, being and sharing a gift:

“We [bishops] received a gift so that we might become a gift. Gifts are not bought, traded or sold; they are received and given away. If we hold on to them, if we make ourselves the centre and not the gift we have received, we become bureaucrats, not shepherds. We turn the gift into a job and its gratuitousness vanishes. We end up serving ourselves and using the Church. [...] The gift we have received is a fire, a burning love for God and for our brothers and sisters. A fire does not burn by itself; it has to be fed or else it dies; it turns into ashes. If everything continues as it was, if we spend our days content that “this is the way things have always been done”, then the gift vanishes, smothered by the ashes of fear and concern for defending the status quo. [...] Jesus did not come to bring a gentle evening breeze, but to light a fire on the earth.”

Francis then proposes prudence as the attitude with which to approach these gifts, a prudence that is active and a vehicle for the newness of the Holy Spirit:

“The fire that rekindles the gift is the Holy Spirit, the giver of gifts. [...] Not a spirit of timidity, but of prudence. Someone may think that prudence is a virtue of the “customs house”, that checks everything to ensure that there is no mistake. No, prudence is a Christian virtue; it is a virtue of life, and indeed the virtue of governance. And God has given us this spirit of prudence. Paul places prudence in opposition to timidity. What is this prudence of the Spirit? As the Catechism teaches, prudence “is not to be confused with timidity or fear”; rather, it is “the virtue that disposes practical reason to discern our true good in every circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it” (No. 1806). [...] Rekindling our gift in the fire of the Spirit is the opposite of letting things take their course without doing anything. Fidelity to the newness of the Spirit is a grace that we must ask for in prayer. May the Spirit, who makes all things new, give us his own daring prudence; may he inspire our Synod to renew the paths of the Church in Amazonia, so that the fire of mission will continue to burn.”

Finally, he contrasts the fire of the Gospel that is God's gift with the destructive fire of human greed and self-interest:

"When peoples and cultures are devoured without love and without respect, it is not God’s fire but that of the world. Yet how many times has God’s gift been imposed, not offered; how many times has there been colonization rather than evangelization! May God preserve us from the greed of new forms of colonialism. The fire set by interests that destroy, like the fire that recently devastated Amazonia, is not the fire of the Gospel. The fire of God is warmth that attracts and gathers into unity. It is fed by sharing, not by profits. The fire that destroys, on the other hand, blazes up when people want to promote only their own ideas, form their own group, wipe out differences in the attempt to make everyone and everything uniform.”

Echoing St. Irenaeus¹, the same mindset was also summed up by the newly appointed cardinal (and newly ordained bishop) Michael Czerny SJ saying that:

“[O]ur vocation is to help men and women to live their human lives and to live them to the full…. This is the big mission. This is what it means to preach the Gospel and to bring the Good News to the ends of the earth.”

On the next day, Monday 7th October, Cardinal Cláudio Hummes, the Relator General of the Synod, then set the scene for the upcoming process of synodal discernment by summarising the work of the preceding two years, including a start overview of the harsh challenges facing the region:

"Numerous consultations held throughout the Amazon show that the communities consider that life in the Amazon is especially threatened by: (a) criminalization and assassination of leaders and defenders of the territory; (b) appropriation and privatization of natural goods such as water itself; (c) both legal logging concessions and illegal logging; (d) predatory hunting and fishing, mainly in rivers; (e) mega-projects: hydroelectric and forest concessions, logging for monoculture production, construction of roads and railways, or mining and oil projects; (f) pollution caused by the entire extractive industry that causes problems and diseases, especially among children and young people; (g) drug trafficking; (h) the resulting social problems associated with these threats such as alcoholism, violence against women, sex work, human trafficking, loss of original culture and identity (language, spiritual practices and customs), and all conditions of poverty to which the peoples of the Amazon are condemned (IL,15)."

Cardinal Hummes then panned out to show the big picture in which these challenges play out, which is that of God's relationship with his creation:

"Integral ecology teaches us that everything is connected, human beings and nature. All living beings on the planet are children of the earth. The human body is made of the “dust of the ground”, into which God “breathed” the spirit of life as the Bible says (cf. Gen 2,7). Consequently, all damage done to the earth damages human beings and all the other living creatures on the earth. This proves that one cannot address ecology, economy, culture and other issues separately. In Laudato Si’ it is stated that they must be considered as one; an environmental, economic, social and cultural ecology (cf. LS, cap. IV).

The Son of God too became a man and his human body comes from the earth. In this body, Jesus died for us on the Cross to overcome evil and death, he rose again among the dead and now sits to the right of God the Father in eternal and immortal glory. The Apostle Paul writes, “For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile all things for him (...) whether those on earth or those in heaven.”(Col. 1,19-20). In Laudato si’ we read that, “This leads us to direct our gaze to the end of time, when the Son will deliver all things to the Father, so that “God may be everything to everyone” (1 Cor.15:28). Thus, “the creatures of this world no longer appear to us under merely natural guise because the risen One is mysteriously holding them to himself and directing them towards fullness as their end” (LS, 100). It is thus that God has definitively connected Himself to His entire creation. This mystery is accomplished in the sacrament of the Eucharist."

He also touched on the very infrequent access to the sacraments that the Catholics of the Amazon suffer from and shared both a call for the ordination to the priesthood to be opened to married men and for greater recognition of the spiritual service and leadership of women in the region:

"There is a lack of appointed priests and this means pastoral care consisting of occasional instead of adequate daily pastoral care. The Church lives on the Eucharist and the Eucharist is the foundation of the Church (St. John Paul II). Participation in the celebration of the Eucharist, at least on Sundays, is essential for the full and progressive development of Christian communities and a true experience of the Word of God in people’s lives. It will be necessary to define new paths for the future. During the consultation stages, indigenous communities, faced with the urgent need experienced by most of the Catholic communities in Amazonia, requested that the path be opened for the ordination of married men resident in their communities, albeit confirming the great importance of the charisma of celibacy in the Church. At the same time, faced with a great number of women who nowadays lead communities in Amazonia, there is a request that this service be acknowledged and there be an attempt to consolidate it with a suitable ministry for them."

During that same first general congregation of the Synod, Pope Francis spoke² again and also warned against ideologies, prejudices and contempt:

"Ideologies are a dangerous weapon; we always tend to latch onto an ideology for interpreting a people. Ideologies are reductive, and they lead us to exaggeration in our pretence to understand intellectually, but without accepting, understanding without admiring, understanding without taking on and then reality is received in categories, the most common are the categories of “isms.” Then when we have to approach the reality of a native people we speak of "indigenisms", and when we want to provide them with a launch pad towards a bette life, we don’t ask them, we speak of developmentalism. These “isms” re-formulate life from an illustrious and enlightened laboratory. There are catchphrases that take root and condition the approach to native people. In our country, the catchphrase: “civilization and barbarism” served to divide, to annihilate and it reached its culmination toward the end of the 80s, [in the 19th century] annihilating the majority of the native people, because they were “savage” and “civilization” came from another side. [This] still continues in my homeland, with offensive words, and then there is talk of a second class civilization, of those that come from barbarism, which today are the "bolitas" [meaning “marbles" and used as a racial slur for Bolivian immigrants in Argentina], the "paraguas" [meaning "umbrellas", referring to Paraguayans], the "little black heads,” always removing ourselves from the reality of a people, qualifying it and putting distances in place. That’s the experience in my country — and then, contempt. Yesterday I was very sad to hear, here, a mocking comment about that pious man who brought the gifts [during mass on Sunday] with feathers on his head, tell me: what difference is there between wearing feathers on the head and the biretta [a three-cornered hat] that some officials of our Dicasteries wear? Then we run the risk of proposing simply pragmatic measures, when, on the contrary, we are asked to contemplate the people, to have a capacity for admiration, which then lead to paradigmatic thinking. If someone has come with pragmatic intentions, let him pray the “I confess,” let him convert and open his heart to a paradigmatic perspective that is born of the reality of the people.

From the second day onwards, there then followed testimonies of Synod participants during the daily Vatican press briefings, which were rich both in sharing the Amazon peoples' profound sufferings and joys and in transmitting the warm and positive atmosphere of the synod. On that second day, one experience that particularly struck me was that of Sister Alba Teresa Cediel Castillo, of the Missionary Sisters of Mary Immaculate and of St. Catherine of Siena, who lives in Colombia among the indigenous communities and whose words display both a profound love for the people she serves and a clear absurdity of current practice:

"We are present everywhere and we do what a woman can do by virtue of her Baptism: we accompany the indigenous people, and when priests cannot be present, we perform baptisms. If someone wants to get married, we are present and we witnesses to the love of the couple. We have often had to listen to confessions, but we have not given absolution. In the depth of our hearts, though, we have said that with the humility with which this man or woman approached us because of illness, or because they were close to death – we believe God the Father intervenes there".

On Thursday, 10th October, Bishop Medardo de Jesús Henao Del Río, Apostolic Vicar of Mitú, and Titular Bishop of Casae Medianae, in Colombia spoke at the press briefing, starting with examples of the horrors that his people endure, summarized by Vatican News as follows:

"He described the situation there as particularly difficult. The drug trade, he said, is exploiting indigenous people in the area. While there is a school and a paramedic station, there is widespread malnutrition and many live abandoned. The Bishop told the story of a woman who was experiencing a difficult pregnancy. She had nowhere to go and had to perform a C-section on herself. Her husband managed to get her to the hospital where the gynecologist was shocked this could have happened. In this case, the woman and her child survived. In other cases, men have had to help their wives deliver babies using knives, and women sometimes die as a result."

He also gave examples of multi-national companies exploiting the region by mining and logging that forces the indigenous people off their land. Finally, Bishop Del Rio also spoke very beautifully of what inculturation looks like in how he ordains deacons:³

"I have recently ordained an indigenous deacon. I have ordained him - and many may be scandalized by this - I have ordained him in two rites: the Roman rite and the indigenous rite. Many may say: what did I do, did I ordain a wizard? No. If we enter the indigenous cosmogonic context, I followed the rite of ordaining a deacon until the point where I deliver the Gospel to him. The the indigenous leaders then placed a crown on his head, which is the sign of a man who acquires wisdom within a community and who will care for the community. [...] It is a sign of distinction. Then they receive him and pass him all around the church - him with the Word of God which is the ultimate wisdom. They dance all around the church, the community applauds him. Then follows the embrace of peace with which the rite of ordination concludes. Once the ceremony and Eucharist conclude, this community welcomes him, asks him for his blessing, they tell him: "You will help us ... When will you come and bless me at my work ..." So, this is not a mixing, but an assimilation of certain values that are there in the indigenous communities that go together with Christian values. We can neither consider all that is indigenous to be holy, nor to be of the devil. It is necessary to study all their myths, what their rites mean, so that rites are such that they accept them and that they are in communion with service. The other thing is that the deacon is at the service of the community. Recently the pope told us that they are not there to serve in a liturgy beside a bishop or a priest but to be at the service of the community. It is a ministry that has strong consonance with indigenous tradition."

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¹ "For the glory of God is the living man, and the life of man is the vision of God." (Against Heresies, Book 4, Chapter 34, Section 7)
² The original Spanish text of Pope Francis' address can be found here and I took the liberty of adjusting the zenith.org translation in some places with the desire to render the original text more faithfully in English.
³ Please, note, that this is my translated transcript of Bishop Del Rio's words, spoken at the press briefing, and that all mistakes here are mine.

Cardinal Burke’s confusion

2094 words, 11 min read

In what is fast becoming a series¹, this post will pick up on just one of the 40 "truths” presented by Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke in his “Declaration of the truths relating to some of the most common errors in the life of the Church of our time” - a document he claims is being published in a “spirit of fraternal charity” and one that I wholeheartedly recommend not to read.

Just like with a punnet of strawberries, there are obvious places to look at here too, when trying to decide whether or not to buy it. An easy way to start is to review “truth” #28 on capital punishment, which reads as follows:

“In accordance with Holy Scripture and the constant tradition of the ordinary and universal Magisterium, the Church did not err in teaching that the civil power may lawfully exercise capital punishment on malefactors where this is truly necessary to preserve the existence or just order of societies (see Gen 9:6; John 19:11; Rom 13:1-7; Innocent III, Professio fidei Waldensibus praescripta; Roman Catechism of the Council of Trent, p. III, 5, n. 4; Pius XII, Address to Catholic jurists on December 5, 1954).”

This is a direct challenge to the recent change to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, effected by Pope Francis (who has “supreme, full, immediate, and universal ordinary power in the Church” (cf. Cann. 331-334)), which now states the following regarding the death penalty:

“Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.

Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.

Consequently, the church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”, and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.”

Against this background, let us look at three aspects of Burke’s claim: first whether the Church erred, second, whether its tradition (on the basis of the references in this “truth”) has been constant and - most seriously - whether the lawfulness of capital punishment is in accordance with Holy Scripture.

First, the Catholic Church today does teach that the death penalty is always inadmissible as is set out by its supreme legislator (Pope Francis) and promulgated in its Catechism. Applying the Church’s past teaching to today - as Cardinal Burke does – is therefore an act of erring and in direct conflict with the Church’s Magisterium.²

Second, let’s take a closer look at the references to the “constant tradition of the ordinary and universal Magisterium” provided by Burke. The first of these is a passage from the 1566 Catechism of the Council of Trent, which reads as follows:

“Execution Of Criminals

Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent. The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder. The end of the Commandment- is the preservation and security of human life. Now the punishments inflicted by the civil authority, which is the legitimate avenger of crime, naturally tend to this end, since they give security to life by repressing outrage and violence. Hence these words of David: In the morning I put to death all the wicked of the land, that I might cut off all the workers of iniquity from the city of the Lord.”

This is pretty clear: to preserve and secure human life, civil authority has the right to put criminals to death as a protective and punitive measure.

Let’s now look at the second of the two references for the constancy of tradition, a talk Pope Pius XII addressed to Italian lawyers in 1954, and at the only paragraph in that text that talks about the death penalty:

“The human judge, on the other hand, since he does not possess the omnipresence and omniscience of God, has the duty of forming for himself, before issuing the judicial sentence, a moral certainty, that is, one which excludes every reasonable and serious doubt about the external fact and the internal guilt. But he does not have immediate insight into the interior dispositions of the accused at the very moment of the crime; rather, in most cases the judge is not in a position to reconstruct them with absolute clarity from the arguments offered as proof, nor, often enough, from the very confession of the delinquent. But this difficulty should not be exaggerated, as though it were ordinarily impossible for a human judge to attain sufficient certainty, and therefore a solid foundation for a sentence. According to the cases, the judge will not fail to consult renowned specialists on the capacity and responsibility of the presumed criminal, and to take into consideration the findings of the modern sciences of psychology, psychiatry and characterology. If, despite all these precautions, there still remains a grave and serious doubt, no conscientious judge will proceed to pronounce a sentence of condemnation, all the more so when there is question of an irrevocable punishment, such as the death penalty.”

Hm ... this is somewhat different from the first reference. Yes, the death penalty is not deemed inadmissible. However, it is presented as a case where the general challenges of ascertaining guilt and culpability, that are essential limitations of human judges as compared with God, the ultimate Judge, impose a heightened degree of caution and a heightened burden of proof on the jurist. Incidentally the whole text is set in the context of reforms being considered to the penal code and speaks about the relationship between crime and punishment, which it examines from psychological, juridical, moral and religious angles. Far from being a simple affirmation of the rights of the state, as set out by the Tridentine Catechism, Pius XII’s reflection is a careful, cautious one, calling for checks and balances commensurate with the irrevocability of capital punishment.

Moving beyond the two references provided to substantiate “constancy of tradition”, it is worth noting that the first mention of the death penalty in any conciliar document of the western Church comes on 6th July 1415, during the 16th session of the Council of Constance (none of the 15 councils that pre-date it, starting with the Council of Nicea in 325 AD, even mention the topic):

“Doctors who state that anybody subjected to ecclesiastical censure, if he refuses to be corrected, should be handed over to the judgment of the secular authority, are undoubtedly following in this the chief priests, the scribes and the pharisees who handed over to the secular authority Christ himself, since he was unwilling to obey them in all things, saying, It is not lawful for us to put any man to death; these gave him to the civil judge, so that such men are even greater murderers than Pilate.”

Again, this does not sound very “constant” (pun intended) with the Tridentine text. Church authorities handing transgressors over to secular authority are “greater murderers than Pilate”? But, isn’t the state perfectly within its rights to mete out the death penalty, as the Tridentine text suggests?

Let’s also bracket Burke’s references from the other end, with the wording of the Catechism as approved by St. John Paul II, where its §2267 sets out the Church’s position in 1992 (now replaced by Francis’ text quoted above):

“Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.””

Note again the tone of how the topic is dealt with, which is in continuity with Pius XII’s approach and takes it further still. Unlike the Tridentine text, capital punishment is a last resort and one whose likelihood of being legitimate is close to nil, if not nil.

Third, let’s turn to Burke’s claim that capital punishment is in accordance with Holy Scripture, and in particular with the two New Testament references. The first points to John 19:11, which goes: “Jesus answered [him], “You would have no power over me if it had not been given to you from above. For this reason the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin.”” Here the “him” is Pilate and reading the passage as condoning capital punishment is a rather lazy application of how this passage has been interpreted during the history of the Church (although not an uncommon one). While St. Augustine takes the reference to “from above” here as being “from God”, as in “all power comes from God”, to go from there to taking all application of power to be good is some stretch and one that both St. Augustine himself and later St. Thomas Aquinas refutes very clearly in his commentary on John’s Gospel:

“So, first Christ teaches Pilate about the source of his power; secondly, about the greatness of his sin.

In regard to the first he says, You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above. He is saying in effect: If you seem to have some power, you do not have this from yourself, but it has been given to you from above, from God, from whom all power comes: “By me kings reign” (Prv 8:15). He says no power, that is, no matter how little, because Pilate did have a limited power under a greater one, the power of Caesar: “For I am a man under authority” (Mt 8:9).

Therefore, he concludes, he who delivered me to you, that is, Judas or the chief priests, has the greater sin. He says greater, to indicate that both those who delivered him up to Pilate and Pilate himself were guilty of sin.” (§2394-2396)

Far from suggesting that Pilate’s application of the death penalty to Jesus is a “good thing”, St. Thomas recognises it as a sin - as sin committed while exercising God-given power. Just by giving you a knife (that can be used for a lot of good), I am not condoning let alone approving everything you do with it.

The second reference, to Romans 13:1-7 again seems to be taken by Burke to follow the same pattern of equating the divine source of power with the goodness of its application. And it is St. Thomas Aquinas who succinctly debunks this misinterpretation of Scripture too:

“The order of authority derives from God, as the Apostle says [in Romans 13:1-7]. For this reason, the duty of obedience is, for the Christian, a consequence of this derivation of authority from God, and ceases when that ceases. But, as we have already said, authority may fail to derive from God for two reasons: either because of the way in which authority has been obtained, or in consequence of the use which is made of it.”

I’ll leave the analysis of the other 39 “truths” to the reader who chooses to ignore my advice ...

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¹ For the previous one, on Cardinal Müller, see here.
² I know that I am side-stepping the literal claim of “truth” #28 which is about whether the Church did or did not err in the past. This is a different question from whether its past teaching is true today.

Cardinal Müller’s confusion

685 words, 4 min read

It is interesting to see the approach that Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller has taken to responding to an ostensible call from “many bishops, priests, religious and lay people of the Catholic Church” to “make a public testimony about the truth of revelation”, which he constructs by referencing 33 of the Catechism’s 2865 paragraphs.

Sadly, those 33 paragraphs do not include the one that would have sufficed: §85, which goes like this and two thirds of which come from one of Vatican II’s four dogmatic constitutions - Dei Verbum:

““The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ.” (Dei Verbum, §10) This means that the task of interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in communion with the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome.”

Also curious is the total lack of mention of the pope, the “successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome” in Cardinal Müller’s attempt to dispel confusion and shed light on the “many bishops, priests, religious and lay people of the Catholic Church” who are currently at a loss with regard to the “truth of revelation”, especially since he is rather central (to put it mildly) to the “shepherds’ very own task” that Cardinal Müller self-attributes in his statement. Yet again the answer is in the Catechism that Cardinal Müller presents - quoting St. John Paul II’s Fidei Depositum - as the “safe standard for the doctrine of the faith” in the opening paragraph of his declaration. There, at §883, and quoting from another of Vatican II’s dogmatic constitutions, we read:

““The college or body of bishops has no authority unless united with the Roman Pontiff, Peter’s successor, as its head.” As such, this college has “supreme and full authority over the universal Church; but this power cannot be exercised without the agreement of the Roman Pontiff.” (Lumen Gentium, §22)”

Besides such paradigmatic confusion, Cardinal Müller also seems to be exercising some, shall we say, poetic license. Just to give an example, he presents “[f]or he who dies in mortal sin without repentance will be forever separated from God” as the summary of §1033, which reads:

“We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: “He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” (1 Jn 3:14-15) Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren. (Cf. Mt 25:31-46.) To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell.””

I’m afraid the Catechism (and the magisterium of at least the last three popes) is a shade more nuanced. Instead of Cardinal Müller’s “[f]or he who dies in mortal sin without repentance will be forever separated from God” we have “[t]o die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice” (emphasis mine). Not the same and a bit confusing, if you ask me ... or even better, if you ask the Pope, or read and put into practice the Gospel, or read the whole Catechism, instead of Reader’s Digest versions of 33 of its 2865 paragraphs.

Finally, the entire missive ends on another confusion, which is its author’s title, given as “Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 2012-2017” and which instead ought to be “Prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith”, with all the implications of authority that this difference entails.

Synod18: on the road to self-giving holiness

5635 words, 28 min read

Saturday saw the conclusion of a month-long synod of the Catholic Church on the topic of “young people, faith and vocational discernment” and the publication of its final document that presents an array of statements on a vast variety of topics including the environment, the economy, marginalisation and exclusion, discrimination and abuse, education, accompaniment, freedom, conscience, men and women, sex, homosexuality, conscience, faith, Jesus and holiness. It is the result of 268 Synod fathers (mostly cardinals and bishops), a handful of young people from around the world, a select group of experts and a small number of “fraternal delegates” from other Churches (including Rev. Martina Kopecká, a female priest from the Czechoslovak Hussite Church) having undergone a shared journey (synod) with and under (cum et sub) Pope Francis. What I would like to offer you below is a quick translation of a selection of passages from the final document that, to my mind, speak to some of the synod’s key themes (each paragraph showing how many voted for and against it in square brackets), preceded by Pope Francis’ summary of the synod from yesterday’s Angelus.

I believe that a key here is to look for the forest when viewing the trees - the forest being that the Church welcomes all, reaffirms God’s love for all and strives to accompany all towards their own fulfilment, which she proposes is to be found in relationships with others and with God. The Church shows herself as being on a journey and as working for the good of her members and of all humanity. She shows herself as a loving mother even while her children fail, and some even fail in unspeakably evil and scandalous ways. Yet she persists and calls all to be saints in their many and varied walks of life.

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The words of Pope Francis before today's Angelus prayer, summarising the experience of Synod2018:

“[The Synod] was a time of consolation and of hope. It was, first of all, a moment of listening: to listen, in fact, requires time, attention, an open mind, and heart. However, every day this commitment was transformed into consolation, especially because we had in our midst the lively and stimulating presence of young people, with their stories and their contributions. Through the testimonies of the Synodal Fathers, the multi-form reality of the new generations entered the Synod, so to speak, from everywhere: from every Continent and from many different human and social situations.

With this fundamental attitude of listening, we sought to read the reality, to gather the signs of these our times. Communal discernment, made in the light of the Word of God and of the Holy Spirit. This is one of the most beautiful gifts that the Lord gives to the Catholic Church, namely, that of bringing together the voices and faces of the most varied realities and thus being able to attempt an interpretation that takes into account the richness and complexity of the phenomena, always in the light of the Gospel. So, in these days, we were faced with having to know how to walk together through so many challenges, such as the digital world, the phenomenon of migrations, the meaning of the body and sexuality, the tragedy of wars and violence. The fruits of this work are now “fermenting,” as the juice of the grapes does in the casks after the harvest. The Synod of Young People was a good harvest, and it promises good wine. However, I would like to say that the first fruit of this Synodal Assembly should be in fact in the example of a method that one tried to follow, from the preparatory phase; a Synodal style that doesn’t have, as its main objective, the drawing up of a document, which is also precious and useful. More important than the document, however, it’s important to spread a way of being and of working together, young people and elderly, in listening and in discernment, to arrive at pastoral choices that respond to the reality.

Therefore, we invoke the intercession of the Virgin Mary. To Her, who is Mother of the Church, we confide our gratitude to God for the gift of this Synodal Assembly. And may She help us now to take forward, without fear, what we experienced, in the ordinary life of communities. May the Holy Spirit, with His wise imagination, make the fruits of our work grow, to continue to walk together with the young people of the whole world.”

The following then are excerpts from the final document of the Synod of Bishops addressed to Pope Francis on 27th October 2018:¹

“We have recognized, in the episode of the disciples of Emmaus (see Lk 24: 13-35), a paradigmatic text for understanding the ecclesial mission with regard to younger generations. This episode expresses well what we have experienced at the Synod and what we would like every one of our particular Churches to live in relation to young people. Jesus walks with the two disciples who have not understood the meaning of recent events and are moving away from Jerusalem and from the community. To stay in their company, to travel the road with them, he listens to their version of the facts to help them recognize what they are living. Then, with affection and energy, he announces the Word to them, leading them to interpret the events they have lived in the light of the Scriptures. He accepts their invitation to stay with them at nightfall: he enters their night. While listening, their heart warms and their mind is illuminated, with the breaking of the bread their eyes open. They themselves choose to resume the journey in the opposite direction without delay, to return to the community, sharing the experience of the encounter with the Risen One. [235-2]” (§4)

“Listening is an encounter of freedom, which requires humility, patience, willingness to understand, a commitment to elaborate answers in a new way. Listening transforms the heart of those who live it, above all when one places oneself in an interior attitude of harmony and docility to the Spirit. It is therefore not just a collection of information, nor a strategy to achieve a goal, but it is the form in which God himself relates to his people. In fact, God sees the misery of his people and listens to their lamentations, allows himself to be touched in his innermost being and descends to free them (see Exodus 3:7-8). The Church then, through listening, enters the movement of God who, in the Son, comes to meet every human being. [238-2]” (§6)

“We cannot forget the difference between men and women with their particular gifts, the specific sensibilities and experiences of the world. This difference can be an area in which forms of domination, exclusion and discrimination arise from which all societies and the Church itself need to free themselves. The Bible presents man and woman as equal partners before God (see Gn 5:2): all domination and discrimination based on sex offends human dignity. It also presents the difference between the sexes as a mystery as constitutive of human being as it is irreducible to stereotypes. The relationship between man and woman is then understood in terms of a vocation to live together in reciprocity and in dialogue, in communion and in fruitfulness (see Gn 1:27-29; 2:21-25) in all areas of human experience: the life of couples, work, education and more. God has entrusted the earth to their covenant. [221-18]” (§13)

“The digital environment characterizes the contemporary world. Large sections of humanity are immersed in it in an ordinary and continuous manner. It is no longer just about “using” means of communication, but to live in a widely digitalized culture that has a very profound impact on the notion of time and space, on the perception of oneself, of others and of the world, on the way of communicating, learning, informing, entering into a relationship with others. An approach to reality that tends to favor the image over listening and reading influences the way of learning and the development of critical thinking. It is now clear that “the digital environment is not a parallel or purely virtual world, but it is part of the daily reality of many people, especially the younger ones” (BENEDICT XVI, Message for the XLVII World Day of Social Communications). [235-3]

The Web and social networks are a place where young people spend a lot of time and meet easily, even if not all of them have equal access, particularly in some regions of the world. However, they constitute an extraordinary opportunity for dialogue, encounter and exchange between people, as well as access to information and knowledge. Moreover, the digital one is a context of socio-political participation and active citizenship, and it can facilitate the circulation of independent information capable of effectively protecting the most vulnerable people by revealing violations of their rights. In many countries, the web and social networks are now an indispensable place to reach and involve young people, even in pastoral initiatives and activities. [231-3]” (§21-22)

“The different kinds of abuse perpetrated by some bishops, priests, religious and laity provoke in those who are victims, among them many young people, sufferings that can last a lifetime and for which no repentance can be a remedy. This phenomenon is widespread in society, it also affects the Church and represents a serious obstacle to its mission. The Synod reaffirms its firm commitment to the adoption of rigorous preventive measures that impede its repetition, starting from the selection and training of those who will be entrusted with responsibilities and educational tasks. [208-30]

There are different types of abuse: power, economic, conscience, sexual. It is evident that this is a matter of of eradicating those forms of the exercise of authority onto which they are grafted and of countering the lack of accountability and transparency with which many cases have been handled. The desire for domination, the lack of dialogue and transparency, various forms of double lives, the spiritual emptiness, as well as psychological fragility are the terrain on which corruption flourishes. Clericalism, in particular, "arises from an elitist and excluding view of vocation, which interprets a ministry that has been received as a power to be exercised rather than as a free and generous service to offer; and this leads us to believe that we belong to a group that has all the answers and no longer needs to listen and learn anything, or that pretends to listen.” (Francis, Address to the General Congregation of the XV General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, 3 October 2018). [204-31]” (§29-30)

“[C]hristian families and ecclesial communities try to help young people discover sexuality as a great gift that is inhabited by Mystery, so that they may live relationships according to the logic of the Gospel. However, they are not always able to translate this desire into an adequate affective and sexual education, which is not limited to sporadic and occasional events. Where such education has been really proposed and accepted as a choice, positive results are noted that help young people to grasp the relationship between their adherence to faith in Jesus Christ and the way of living affectivity and interpersonal relationships. These results invite and encourage greater investment of ecclesial energy in this field. [214-25]

The Church has a rich tradition on which to build and from which to propose its own teaching on this subject: for example, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the theology of the body developed by St. John Paul II, Benedict XVI’s Encyclical Deus caritas est, Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation Amoris laetitia. But young people, even those who know and live this teaching, express the desire to receive a clear, human and empathetic word from the Church. In fact, sexual morality often causes misunderstanding and estrangement from the Church, as it is perceived as a space of judgment and condemnation. Faced with social changes and ways of experiencing affectivity and the multiplicity of ethical perspectives, young people are sensitive to the value of authenticity and dedication, but are often disoriented. They express more particularly an explicit desire for facing issues related to the difference between male and female identities, to the reciprocity between men and women, to homosexuality. [195-43]” (§38-39)

“Many [...] recognize [Jesus] as the Savior and the Son of God and often feel close to him through Mary, his mother and commit themselves to a journey of faith. Others do not have a personal relationship with him, but regard him as a good man and an ethical reference. Others still meet him through a strong experience of the Spirit. For others he is a figure of the past without any existential relevance or very distant from human experience. If for many young people God, religion and the Church appear empty words, they are sensitive to the figure of Jesus, when presented in an attractive and effective way. In many ways even today’s young people tell us: “We want to see Jesus” (Jn 12.21), thus manifesting that healthy restlessness that characterizes the heart of every human being: "The restlessness of a spiritual search, the restlessness of meeting with God, the restlessness of love "(Francis, Mass for the beginning of the General Chapter of the Order of St. Augustine, 28 August 2013). [238-1]” (§50)

"There emerges also a demand among young people for a greater recognition and valuing of women in society and in the Church. Many women play an irreplaceable role in Christian communities, but in many places it is difficult to give them space in the decision-making processes, even when these do not require specific ministerial responsibilities. The absence of the female voice and gaze impoverishes the Church's debate and the path, removing a precious contribution from discernment. The Synod recommends making everyone more aware of the urgency of an unavoidable change, also starting from an anthropological and theological reflection on the reciprocity between men and women. [209-30]” (§55)

“Freedom is an essential condition for every authentic choice in life. However, it risks being misunderstood, also because it is not always adequately presented. The Church itself ends up appearing to many young people as an institution that imposes rules, prohibitions and obligations. Christ, on the other hand, "freed us for freedom" (Gal 5:1), making us pass from the regime of the Law to that of the Spirit. In the light of the Gospel, it is appropriate today to recognize with greater clarity that freedom is constitutively relational and show that passions and emotions are relevant insofar as they direct towards an authentic encounter with others. Such a perspective clearly attests that true freedom is understandable and only possible in relation to the truth (see Jn 8:31-32) and above all to charity (see 1Cor 13:1-13, Gal 5:13): freedom is being oneself in the heart of another. [226-4]

Through lived fraternity and solidarity, especially with the least ones, young people discover that authentic freedom arises from feeling welcomed and grows in making space for another. They have a similar experience when they are committed to cultivating moderation or respect for the environment. The experience of mutual recognition and shared commitment leads them to discover that their hearts are inhabited by a silent appeal to the love that comes from God. It thus becomes easier to recognize the transcendent dimension that freedom originally bears in itself and which, in contact with the most intense experiences of life - birth and death, friendship and love, guilt and forgiveness - is most clearly awakened. It is precisely these experiences that help to recognize that the nature of freedom is radically responsive. [239-1]

More than 50 years ago, St. Paul VI introduced the expression "dialogue of salvation" and interpreted the mission of the Son in the world as the expression of a "formidable question of love". He added, however, that we are "free to correspond with it or reject it" (see Ecclesiam suam, No. 77). From this perspective, the act of personal faith appears as free and liberating: it will be the starting point for a gradual internalising of the contents of the faith. Faith therefore does not constitute an element that is added almost from the outside to freedom, but fulfils the yearning of conscience for truth, goodness and beauty, finding them fully in Jesus. The testimony of many young martyrs of the past and the present, that resounded strongly to the Synod, is the most convincing proof that faith sets free against the powers of the world, its injustices and even in the face of death. [235-0]

Human freedom is marked by the wounds of personal sin and concupiscence. But when, thanks to forgiveness and mercy, a person becomes aware of the obstacles that imprison them, they grow in maturity and can engage more clearly in the definitive choices of life. From an educational perspective, it is important to help young people not to be discouraged by mistakes and failures, though they may be humiliating, because they are an integral part of the journey towards a more mature freedom, aware of its own greatness and weakness. But evil does not have the last word: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son" (Jn 3:16). He loved us to the end and thus redeemed our freedom. Dying for us on the cross he poured out the Spirit, and "where there is the Spirit of the Lord there is freedom" (2 Cor 3:17): a new, Paschal freedom, which is accomplished in the daily gift of self. [238-0]” (§73-76)

“Discernment calls attention to what happens in the heart of every man and woman. In biblical texts the term "heart" is used to indicate the central point of the interiority of the person, where listening to the Word that God constantly addressed to them becomes a criterion for evaluating life and choices (see Ps 139). The Bible considers the personal dimension, but at the same time emphasizes the community dimension. Even the "new heart" promised by the prophets is not an individual gift, but concerns all of Israel, in whose tradition and salvific history the believer is inserted (see Ez 36:26-27). The Gospels continue along the same lines: Jesus insists on the importance of interiority and places the center of moral life in the heart (see Mt 15:18-20). [223-20]

The apostle Paul enriches what the biblical tradition has elaborated regarding the heart by relating it to the term "conscience", which he takes from the culture of his time. It is in our conscience that we gather the fruit of the encounter and of communion with Christ: a saving transformation and the reception of a new freedom. The Christian tradition insists on conscience as a privileged place of special intimacy with God and of encounter with Him, in which His voice becomes present: “Conscience is the most secret nucleus and man's sanctuary, where he is alone. with God, whose voice resounds in intimacy” (Gaudium et spes, n.16). This conscience does not coincide with immediate and superficial feelings, nor with a "self-awareness": it attests to a transcendent presence, which each one finds in their own interiority, but which they does not possess. [219-23]

Forming one's conscience is a path for one's whole life, where one learns to nourish the same feelings as Jesus Christ by assuming the criteria of his choices and the intentions of his actions (see Phil 2:5). In order to reach the deepest dimension of conscience, according to a Christian vision, it is important to care for one's interior, which includes times of silence, prayerful contemplation and listening to the Word, the support of sacramental practice and the teaching of the Church. Furthermore, a habitual practice of the good, verified in the examination of conscience, is necessary: ​​an exercise that is not only a matter of identifying sins, but also of recognizing the work of God in one's daily experience, in the events of history and of the cultures in which one is inserted, in the witness of many other men and women who have come before us or accompany us with their wisdom. All this helps to grow in the virtue of prudence, articulating a global direction of existence with concrete choices, in the serene awareness of one's own gifts and limits. The young Solomon asked for this gift more than anything else (see 1 Kings 3:9). [205-36]

The conscience of every believer in their most personal dimension is always in relation with the ecclesial conscience. It is only through the mediation of the Church and her tradition of faith that we can access the authentic face of God revealed in Jesus Christ. Spiritual discernment thus presents itself as the sincere work of conscience, in its commitment to know the possible good on which to decide responsibly in the correct exercise of practical reason, within and by the light of a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus. [205-34]” (§106-109)

"In this Synod we have experienced that co-responsibility lived with young Christians is a source of profound joy also for bishops. We recognize in this experience a fruit of the Spirit that continually renews the Church and calls it to practice synodality as a way of being and acting, promoting the participation of all the baptized and people of good will, each according to their age, state of life and vocation. In this Synod, we have experienced that the collegiality that unites the bishops cum Petro et sub Petro in care for the People of God is called to articulate and enrich itself through the practice of synodality at all levels. [206-34]

[...]

This lived experience made the Synod participants aware of the importance of a synodal form of the Church for the proclamation and transmission of the faith. The participation of young people has helped to “awaken” synodality, which is a “constitutive dimension of the Church. [...] As St. John Chrysostom says, “the Church and Synod are synonymous” - because the Church is nothing other than the “walking together” of the Flock of God on the paths of history meeting Christ the Lord” (Francis, Speech for the Commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Synod of Bishops, 17 October 2015). Synodality characterizes both the life and the mission of the Church, who is the People of God formed by young and old, men and women of every culture and reach, and the Body of Christ, in which we are members of each other, starting from those who are marginalized and downtrodden. During the exchanges and through the testimonies, the Synod brought out some fundamental features of a synodal style, towards which we are called to convert. [191-51!]

It is in relationships - with Christ, with others, in the community - that faith is transmitted. Also in view of her mission, the Church is called to assume a relational face that focuses on listening, welcoming, dialogue, common discernment in a process that transforms the lives of those who participate in it. “A Synodal Church is a Church of listening, in the awareness that listening “is more than feeling”. It is a mutual listening in which everyone has something to learn. Faithful people, Episcopal College, Bishop of Rome: one listening to others; and all listening to the Holy Spirit, the “Spirit of truth” (Jn 14:17), to know what he “says to the Churches” (Revelation 2:7)” (Francis, Speech for the Commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the institution of the Synod of Bishops, 17 October 2015). In this way the Church presents herself as the "tent of meeting" in which the Ark of the Covenant is preserved (see Ex 25): a dynamic and moving Church, which accompanies while walking, strengthened by many charisms and ministries. Thus God makes himself present in this world. [199-43]

[...]

The experience of “walking together” as a People of God helps us to better understand the meaning of authority in terms of service. Pastors are required to increase collaboration in witness and mission, and accompany processes of community discernment to interpret the signs of the times in the light of faith and under the guidance of the Spirit, with the contribution of all the members of the community, starting from those who find themselves at the margins. Ecclesial leaders with these capacities need specific training in synodality. From this point of view, it seems promising to structure common training courses among young lay people, young religious and seminarians, in particular as regards issues such as the exercise of authority or team work. [208-33]” (§119, 121-122, 124)

“Many migrants are young. The universal spread of the Church offers her the great opportunity to make the communities from which they depart and those in which they arrive dialogue, contributing to overcoming fears and mistrust, and reinforcing the links that migrations are likely to break. “Welcoming, protecting, promoting and integrating”, the four verbs with which Pope Francis summarizes the lines of action in favor of migrants, are synodal verbs. Implementing them requires the action of the Church at all levels and involves all members of Christian communities. For their part, migrants, opportunely accompanied, will be able to offer spiritual, pastoral and missionary resources to the communities that receive them. Of particular importance is the cultural and political commitment, to be continued also through appropriate structures, to fight against the spread of xenophobia, racism and the turning away of migrants. The resources of the Catholic Church are a vital element in the fight against the trafficking of human beings, as is clear in the work of many religious women. The role of the Santa Marta Group, which unites religious and law enforcement officials, is crucial and is a good practice by which to be inspired. Do not forget the commitment to guarantee the right to remain in your country for people who do not want to migrate but are forced to do so and support for the Christian communities that migration threatens to empty. [228-12]

A Church that seeks to live a synodal style can not but reflect on the condition and role of women within it, and consequently also in society. Young men and women ask for it with great force. The reflections developed need to be implemented through a work of courageous cultural conversion and change in daily pastoral practice. An area of particular importance in this regard is that of the presence of women in the ecclesial bodies at all levels, also in functions of responsibility, and of female participation in ecclesial decision-making processes while respecting the role of ordained ministry. It is a duty owed to justice, which finds inspiration both in the way in which Jesus related to men and women of his time, and in the importance of the role of some female figures in the Bible, in the history of salvation and in the life of the Church. [201-38]

In the current cultural context, the Church struggles to convey the beauty of the Christian vision of corporeity and sexuality, as emerges from the Holy Scriptures, Tradition and the Magisterium of recent Popes. Therefore, a search for more adequate methods is urgently needed, which translates concretely into the elaboration of renewed training approaches. It is necessary to propose to young people an anthropology of affectivity and sexuality capable of giving the right value to chastity, showing pedagogically the most authentic meaning for the growth of the person, in all the states of life. It is a matter of focusing on empathetic listening, accompaniment and discernment, along the line indicated by the recent Magisterium. For this reason it is necessary to take care of the formation of pastoral workers that are credible, starting from a maturing of their own affective and sexual dimension. [214-26]

There are questions concerning the body, affectivity and sexuality that need a more in-depth anthropological, theological and pastoral elaboration, to be carried out in the most appropriate modalities and levels, from local to universal. Among these emerge in particular those related to the difference and harmony between male and female identities and sexual inclinations. In this regard, the Synod reaffirms that God loves every person and so does the Church, renewing its commitment against any discrimination and violence on a sexual basis. Equally it reaffirms the determining anthropological relevance of the difference and reciprocity between man and woman and considers it reductive to define the identity of people starting only from their “sexual orientation” (CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH, Letter to the Catholic Church Bishops on pastoral care of homosexual persons, October 1, 1986, No. 16). In many Christian communities there are already paths to accompanying homosexual persons in the faith: the Synod recommends encouraging these paths. There people are helped to read their own story; to adhere freely and responsibly to their baptismal call; to recognize the desire to belong and contribute to the life of the community; to discern the best ways for making it happen. In this way we help every young person, no one excluded, to increasingly integrate the sexual dimension into their personality, growing in the quality of relationships and walking towards the gift of self. [178-65!]

The Church is committed to promoting social, economic and political life in the name of justice, solidarity and peace, just as young people strongly demand. This requires the courage to be the voice of those who have no voice among world leaders, denouncing corruption, wars, the arms trade, drug trafficking and exploitation of natural resources and inviting those who are responsible for their conversion. From an integral perspective, this can not be separated from the commitment to the inclusion of the most fragile, building paths that allow them not only to find their own needs, but also to contribute to the construction of society. [230-7]

Aware that “work is a fundamental dimension of man’s existence on earth” (St. John Paul II, Laborem exercens, n.4) and that its lack is humiliating for many young people, the Synod recommends that local Churches favor and accompany the integration of young people in this world, including through the support of youth entrepreneurship initiatives. Experiences in this sense are widespread in many local Churches and must be supported and strengthened. [236-1]

The promotion of justice also challenges the management of Church property. Young people feel at home in a Church where economics and finance are lived in transparency and consistency. Courageous choices from the perspective of sustainability, as indicated by the encyclical Laudato si', are necessary, since the lack of respect for the environment generates new poverty, of which the young are the first victims. Systems also change, showing that a different way of living the economic and financial dimension is possible. Young people encourage the Church to be prophetic in this field, with words but above all through choices that show that an economy that is friendly to the person and to the environment is possible. Together with them we can do it. [233-6]” (§147-153)

"All vocational diversity are gathered in the one and universal call to holiness, which in the end can only be the fulfillment of the appeal to the joy of love that resounds in the heart of every young person. Effectively it is only by starting from the one vocation to holiness that different forms of life can be articulated, knowing that God “wants us to be saints and does not expect us to be content with a mediocre, watered down, inconsistent existence” (Francis, Gaudete et exsultate, No. 1). Holiness finds its inexhaustible source in the Father, who through his Spirit sends us Jesus, "the holy one of God" (Mk 1:24) come among us to make us saints through friendship with Him, which brings joy and peace in our life. Recovering the living contact with the joyful existence of Jesus throughout the ordinary pastoral care of the Church is the fundamental condition for every renewal. [234-2]

We must be saints to be able to invite young people to become them. Young people have clamored for an authentic, luminous, transparent, joyful Church: only a Church of the saints can live up to these requests! Many of them have left it because they have not found sanctity, but mediocrity, presumption, division and corruption. Unfortunately, the world is outraged by the abuses of some people of the Church rather than revived by the holiness of its members: this is why the Church as a whole must make a decisive, immediate and radical change of perspective! Young people need saints who form other saints, thus showing that "holiness is the most beautiful face of the Church" (Francis, Gaudete et exsultate, n.9). There is a language that all men and women of all times, places and cultures can understand, because it is immediate and luminous: it is the language of sanctity. [216-8]

It has been clear from the beginning of the Synodal journey that young people are an integral part of the Church. So is therefore also their holiness, which in recent decades has produced a multifaceted flowering in all parts of the world: contemplating and meditating during the Synod the courage of so many young people who have renounced their lives to remain faithful to the Gospel has been moving for us; listening to the testimonies of the young people present at the Synod who in the middle of persecutions have chosen to share the passion of the Lord Jesus has been regenerating. Through the holiness of the young the Church can renew her spiritual ardor and her apostolic vigor. The balm of holiness generated by the good life of many young people can heal the wounds of the Church and the world, bringing us back to that fullness of love to which we have always been called: the young saints urge us to return to our first love (cf. Ap 2,4). [239-2]” (§165-167)

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¹ Apologies in advance for mistakes in the translation here - they are all mine.