Most awaited events

Almost all Filipinos are really so excited and enthusiastic about the forthcoming visit of Pope Francis, one and a half months from now. Indeed, our preparations for said event almost equal our preparations for the coming Christmas when we commemorate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ 2014 years ago. This is so because on January 15, 2015, it will be the Vicar of Christ, his present representative on earth, who will be visiting us. So it can be considered as just about as joyful and blessed event as Christmas. While Christ is always with us in spirit, this forthcoming visit can be said that Christ decided to visit the Philippines on January 15, 2015 through his chosen representative on earth.

Pope Francis visit’ is really very timely and propitious for a Catholic country like the Philippines in view of the continuing debates and controversies surrounding the recent Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family held in Rome last October 5 to 19, 2014. Some quarters continue to insist that as a result of the Synod, certain Church teachings on marriage, family life and sexual morality will be changed. Indeed they are even quoting some pronouncements of the Pope in contending that there is now a need for the Church authorities to clarify the Church teachings on divorce, remarriage, and homosexuality particularly the recognition of homosexual unions.

In fact, the very Synod Report is now being used as the document that will reflect those changes. But as Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster explained, the said report is merely “the starting point for the next Synod on the Family, to take place in a year’s time. The theme of this next Synod, in October 2015, takes us on from where we left off: The Vocation and Mission of the Family Today. Cardinal Nichols indeed gave an accurate and truthful description of the recent Synod of Bishops as follows: 

“The very word ‘synod’ means making a walk or a journey together. That’s what we did. Our journey was an exploration of all the problems facing the family today, from the effects of war, immigration, domestic violence, polygamy, inter-religious marriages, to cohabitation, the breakdown of marriage, divorce and the situation of those who have ended a valid marriage and entered another union, another marriage. The vastness of the picture and the suffering it represented was, at times, overwhelming.

We also looked at the great joy of family life and the importance of marriage at its heart. We listened to husbands and wives speaking of the difficulties they had overcome, the struggles they face and the deep joy they experience in their mature marriages and family lives. They were moving moments. A lovely description of the family was offered: the family as ‘a sanctuary of holiness’ with emphasis always on the sharing of prayer at the heart of family life.

Pope Francis set the tone. He asked us to look reality in the eye; to speak openly from the heart; to listen humbly and respectfully to each other. This is what we did. There was no rancour, no contestation. There were disagreements, of course. But he told us to live through the experience with tranquility and trust. And we did. It was a marvelous experience of the Church as a family and of the Church, at this level, hard at work, trying to follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit and express them in carefully chosen words.

During the Synod we worked on various documents which were trying to catch the views and desires of all the participants. By the end I believe we got there. So the Synod ended with a ‘Synod Report’ on which we voted, paragraph by paragraph. The votes indicated, quite simply, where agreement was more or less total and where it was not. This Report Central to the work of the Synod that has just ended was the desire to strengthen and reinvigorate the pastoral practice of the Church. A central principle for this pastoral care emerged clearly: that in trying to walk alongside people in difficult or exceptional situations, it is important to see clearly and with humility all the good aspects of their lives. That is what comes first. From this point, we learn to move together towards conversion and towards the goodness of life that God has for us  and that Jesus opens for us all. This positive approach flows right through the ‘Synod Report’  and I hope will increasingly shape our attitude towards each other” xxx.

“At the end of the Synod, in his closing address, Pope Francis said this: ‘Dear brothers and sisters, now we still have one year to mature, with true spiritual discernment, the proposed ideas and find concrete solutions to so many difficulties and innumerable challenges that families must confront; to give answers to the many discouragements that surround and suffocate families… May the Lord accompany us and guide us in this journey for the glory of His Name.”’

It is true that there have been so much debates and differences of opinions occurring during the deliberations of around 200 bishops who attended it. In fact the midterm report of the Synod was even assailed as a “deep betrayal of the Church teachings” especially on the family. This differences and debates are expected. According to Fr. Robert Barron, this is how the Holy Spirit works and the attitude of Pope Francis during the entire conference shows that he “knows how the Holy Spirit works.” As Fr. Robert Barron said:  “one of the great mysteries in the ecclesiology of the Catholic Church, is that Christ speaks through the rather messy and unpredictable process of ecclesiastical argument. The Holy Spirit guides the process of course, but He doesn’t undermine or circumvent it. It is precisely in the long laborious sifting of ideas across time and through disciplined conversation that the truth that God wants to communicate gradually emerges.”

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