VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich has declared that the Synod on Synodality is entering a key stage of “discernment” about “communion” which should not be in the style of a “theological or sociological treatise,” but based instead on “concrete experiences.”
Monday also saw interventions by pro-LGBT Dominican priest Father Timothy Radcliffe, along with one of the first public signs of possible dissent to the synod, which came from the Orthodox Metropolitan of Pisidia, Job Getcha. (See LifeSiteNews’ report on this intervention here).
Participants on the Synod on Synodality are now discussing the theme of “Communion” in this second week of the event. The second of the synod’s five modules began October 9, with the participants convening the discussions on section B1, drawn directly from the Instrumentum Laboris.
Hollerich: ‘Tensions are part of the process’
Beginning the morning’s meetings, Cardinal Hollerich – the relator general of the Synod on Synodality – urged members to consider the module’s central question of “how can we be more fully a sign and instrument of union with God and of the unity of all humanity?”
Central to the theme of “communion” are questions pertaining to ecumenism but also issues of morality, as evidenced by the direction of the morning’s speeches, of which further analysis will be provided in October 9’s “Synodality Report.”
READ: The Synodality Report: ‘Fraternal climate’ and round tables
The cardinal cited Pope Francis’ recent call of “Todos/Everyone,” made at World Youth Day, saying – without clarification – that “in deep communion with His Father through the Holy Spirit, Jesus extended this communion to all the sinners. Are we ready to do the same?”
Are we ready to do this with groups which might irritate us because their way of being might seem to threaten our identity? Todos… tutti… If we act like Jesus, we will testify to God’s love for the world. Failing to do so will make us look like an identitarian club.
Citing the ecumenical prayer vigil which took place on September 30, on the eve of the synod meetings, Hollerich questioned how the event would influence the synod:
What does this mean for ecumenism? How can we live our Catholic faith in such a way that the deep communion we felt at the prayer vigil before our retreat is not a beautiful exception, but becomes ordinary reality? How can we be committed with women and men of other faith traditions to justice, peace and integral ecology?
He highlighted that such themes underpinned the next few days of discussions, arguing how any upcoming conversations must not be a form of “theological or sociological treatise.” Instead, Hollerich asked members “to start from concrete experiences, our own personal one and above all the collective experience of the People of God that has spoken through the listening phase.”
The cardinal also downplayed any fear of “tensions,” saying that he had been warned of an increase in tensions from the start of the second module, the B1 module. “We are not afraid of tensions,” said Hollerich.
“Tensions are part of the process as long as we consider ourselves to be sisters and brothers walking together,” he said, in remarks not included in the official transcript.
Fr. Radcliffe: Avoid labels of ‘divorced and remarried’
Synod retreat preacher and prominent pro-LGBT Dominican, Fr. Timothy Radcliffe O.P., followed Hollerich in issuing comments to the synod members. Drawing from the Gospel passage of Christ’s encounter with the woman at the well, (John 4), Radcliffe stated that the woman “is transformed into the first preacher of the gospel, just as the first preacher of the resurrection will be another woman, Mary Magdalene, the Apostle of the Apostles.”
Continuing on a theme of promoting “communion” and “deeply personal encounters with each other, in which we transcend easy labels,” Radcliffe urged “real encounter.”
“The people whom St. Paul could not abide were the underhand spies, who gossiped and worked secretly, whispering in the corridors, hiding who they were with deceitful smiles. Open disagreement was not the problem,” he said.
Radcliffe appeared to continue his LGBT advocacy by decrying how some feel “excluded” due to having been labelled as “divorced and remarried, gay people, polygamous people.” The Dominican argued thusly, including also a joke against the Jesuits:
So many people feel excluded or marginalized in our Church because we have slapped abstract labels on them: divorced and remarried, gay people, polygamous people, refugees, Africans, Jesuits! A friend said to me the other day: ‘I hate labels. I hate people being put in boxes. I cannot abide these conservatives.’
But if you really meet someone, you may become angry, but hatred cannot be sustained in a truly personal encounter. If you glimpse their humanity, you will see the one who creates them and sustains them in being, whose name is ‘I AM.’
Such comments echoed his synodal retreat speech, in which he pushed arguments about women in the Church being “unrecognized in a patriarchy of old white men like me,” and also championed the cause of LGBT issues.
Radcliffe’s interventions at the synodal retreat included a number of arguments advocating for his causes – arguments which he made by mis-quoting or contradicting Scripture. In words which were warmly welcomed by heterodox campaigners, Radcliffe directly contradicted the words of Christ in the Gospels, arguing that “orthodoxy is spacious and heresy is narrow.”