Synod, October 23: over 1,000 amendments to synod’s final document proposed

October 24, 2024

As the second and final session of the synod on synodality neared its conclusion (synod calendar), participants gathered in Paul VI Audience Hall to present their amendments (modi) to the confidential draft final document.

At the daily press briefing (video), Sheila Leocádia Pires, communications officer of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference and secretary of the synod’s Commission for Information, said that 951 amendments were suggested by the various circuli minores (working groups), while individual members suggested an additional 100. The total number of amendments (approximately 1,050) was less than the 1,200 amendments suggested during the October 2023 synod session.

Election of members of Ordinary Council; schedule for final days

Paolo Ruffini, prefect of the Dicastery for Communication and chair of the synod’s Commission for Information, said that Cardinal Mario Grech, the Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, had announced to synod participants that the number of members of the Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops had been increased, with the agreement of Pope Francis, from 13 to 17, ahead of a vote by synod participants on new members.

Episcopalis Communio, Pope Francis’s 2018 apostolic constitution on the Synod of Bishops, states simply that the Ordinary Council “is competent for the preparation and implementation of the Ordinary General Assembly” of the Synod of Bishops (Article 24). Cardinal Grech, according to Ruffini, “underlined the importance of this vote, because the Council—according to the legislation—will play a fundamental role both in the implementation of this synodal journey on synodality, and in the preparation of the next Synod.”

Later in the day, synod members elected 12 of the 17 new members of the Ordinary Council. Pope Francis will appoint an additional four; the head of the curial dicastery responsible for the next synod’s theme will round out the membership.

Ruffini then traced out the schedule for the days ahead:

Tomorrow, Thursday, and the day after tomorrow, Friday, will be dedicated to the insertion of the modi and the drafting of the Final Document by the people in charge of it. All the members will meet on Saturday morning and afternoon for the last two general congregations. There will be a reading of the Final Document in the Hall in the morning and approval in the afternoon.

Other speakers at the press briefing discussed canon law, the doctrinal authority of episcopal conferences, the authority and role of bishops, and Eastern Catholic churches.

Cardinal-designate Radcliffe and Phil Lawler

Ruffini also made public a statement by Cardinal-designate Timothy Radcliffe, OP, on his assertion, in an article in the Vatican newspaper on October 12, that “African bishops are under intense pressure from Evangelicals, with American money; from Russian Orthodox, with Russian money; and from Muslims, with money from the rich Gulf countries” (CWN coverage). In the article, Cardinal-designate Radcliffe made his assertion as he discussed the African bishops’ rejection of Fiducia Supplicans, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s December 2023 declaration on the pastoral meaning of blessings:

The Gospel is always inculturated in different cultures, but it also challenges every culture. Jesus was Jewish, yet he challenged the religion of his ancestors. Is the refusal to bless gays in Africa an example of inculturation or a refusal to be a nonconformist? Inculturation for one person is another person’s rejection of the nonconformist Gospel. Another concern raised by Fiducia supplicans is that there appears to have been no consultation—even with bishops or other Vatican offices—before its release; not exactly, perhaps, a good example of synodality. African bishops are under intense pressure from Evangelicals, with American money; from Russian Orthodox, with Russian money; and from Muslims, with money from the rich Gulf countries. There should have been a discussion with them before, not after, the statement was released. Whatever we think about the statement, when we face tensions, and to overcome them, we all need to think and engage with one another on a deep level.

At the synod press briefing on October 22, journalist Michael Haynes asked Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, OFM Cap, the president of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), about the assertion that Cardinal-designate Radcliffe made in the Vatican newspaper article.

“I do not recognize at all what Father Radcliffe said in the article you are mentioning, and I can tell you that today Father Radcliffe came to me before we’d begun because he also read the article only yesterday, and he is shocked that such things may have been written attributing these things to him,” Cardinal Ambongo said, in response to Haynes’s question about the Vatican newspaper article. “I don’t know who wrote this article, but I think that the intention of this article was to create sort of an incident, but fortunately, this did not happen.”

Cardinal-designate Radcliffe, in his October 23 statement, made the surprising claim that when Cardinal Ambongo answered Haynes’s question about the October 12 Vatican newspaper article, Cardinal Ambongo was not actually referring to the Vatican newspaper article when he spoke of “the article you [Haynes] are mentioning,” but was instead referring to an op-ed written five days later by Catholic World News editor Phil Lawler.

“Cardinal Ambongo’s reply did not refer to the article published by L’Osservatore Romano, but one by Phil Lawler in Catholic Culture of 17 October,” stated Cardinal-designate Radcliffe. “This was the article the cardinal showed me on the phone and which we discussed.”

Cardinal-designate Radcliffe then claimed that when he inserted his statement about the financial pressures on African bishops in the midst of paragraphs devoted to the African bishops’ rejection of same-sex blessings, he by no means was suggesting that the two were linked.

“Lawler’s reading of the Osservatore article misinterpreted what I have written,” Cardinal-designate Radcliffe continued. “I never wrote or suggested that positions taken by the Catholic Church in Africa were influenced by financial considerations. I was acknowledging only that the Catholic Church in Africa is under tremendous financial pressure from other religions and church [sic] which are well funded by outside sources. I am most grateful to Cardinal Ambongo for his clear defense of my position.”

After the press briefing, Andrea Tornielli, editorial director of the Dicastery for Communication, tweeted that “the future Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe today clarified that he never distanced himself from the article in the L’Osservatore Romano signed by him (already published in the Tablet and in Vita e Pensiero), but from the interpretation that was given on an American website.”

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Earlier synod coverage

• Synod retreat, day 1: ‘Stripping ourselves before the other and before God’ (CWN, 10/1)
• Synod retreat touches on homosexuality, ‘new ministries’; culminates in penitential vigil (CWN, 10/2)
• Opening Synod session, Pope stresses listening (CWN, 10/2)
• Synod, October 2: Pope defends inclusion of non-bishops; Cardinal Fernández: ‘no’ to women deacons (CWN, 10/3)
• Synod, October 3: Working groups discuss ‘Foundations’; ‘nothing new,’ says Cardinal Hollerich (CWN, 10/4)
• Cardinal Grech: Every Catholic is invited to weigh in on synod study groups’ deliberations (CWN, 10/4)
• Synod study group calls for ‘paradigm shift’ on controversial moral issues (CWN, 10/4)
• African bishops preparing document on polygamy (CWN, 10/4)
• Synod, October 4: leading African cardinal criticized for inadequate consultation in rejecting same-sex blessings (CWN, 10/5)
• Synod, October 5: work on ‘Foundations’ concludes; Lebanese, Haitian prelates recount suffering (CWN, 10/7)
• No synod meetings on Sunday, October 6
• Synod, October 7: Cardinal Hollerich calls for suggestions to make Church less ‘pyramidal’; women’s ministry discussion resurfaces (CWN, 10/8)
• Jesuits hold outsized influence at Synod on Synodality (CWN, 10/8)
• Synod, October 8: final document commission members chosen; leading Latin American prelate raises prospect of married priests (CWN, 10/9)
• Synod names commission to prepare final document (CWN, 10/9)
• Synod, October 9: Cardinal Fernández invites synod participants to weigh in on forthcoming document on women and ministry (CWN, 10//10)
• Synod, October 10: New synod guidelines announced, but not made public, as discussion of transparency begins (CWN, 10/11)
• Synod, October 11: opacity shrouds discussion of transparency, accountability in the Church (CWN, 10/14)
• Papal address: Christian unity is an unexpected gift, a journey, harmony, and for the sake of mission (CWN, 10/14)
• Synod, October 12: participants pray for migrants on synod’s least transparent day (CWN, 10/15)
• No synod meetings on Sunday, October 13
• Cardinal-designate Radcliffe links African bishops’ opposition to homosexuality to pressure from evangelicals, Moscow, and Muslims (CWN, 10/15)
• Synod, October 14: abuse of nuns, need for women in seminary formation discussed (CWN, 10/15)
• How ‘Special Interest Advocacy’ works at the Synod on Synodality (CWN, 10/15)
• Cardinal Hollerich introduces final ‘module’ of Synod working document (CWN, 10/15)
• Synod, October 15: Cardinal Hollerich calls for diffusion of synod’s ‘dynamism’; Cardinal Steiner calls for female diaconate (CWN, 10/16)
• Synod, October 16: pushback against devolution of doctrinal authority to episcopal conferences? (CWN, 10/17)
• Synod, October 17: Chinese bishop professes adherence to ‘sinicization of Catholicism’ (CWN, 10/18)
• Synod, October 18: some delegates angered by Cardinal Fernández’s absence from dialogue (CWN, 10/21)
• Synod, October 19: Cardinal Grech calls for reevaluation of seminaries, theology programs (CWN, 10/22)
• Synod not in session on October 20
• Father Radcliffe: discuss Synod document without fear (CWN, 10/21)
• Synod, October 21: Cardinal Fernández calls for more women in leadership roles, but not in diaconate (CWN, 10/22)
• Cardinal-designate Radcliffe denies making published remarks about African bishops and homosexuality, Cardinal Ambongo says (CWN, 10/23)

 

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