By Mark Azzara
My Dear Friend,
I’m not sure whether you noticed but I have yet to write about Pope Francis’ visit to the United States, and I won’t do so today, if only because Francis is moving so fast it’s hard to keep up with all that he has wrought. Example: The synod of bishops he has called to address family-life issues.
In a recent article for The Crux, the Boston Globe’s online Catholic news Web site, John Allen tries to make sense (good luck!) of the machinations of those bishops, who are now entangled in the second half of the two-year project.
I thought it was a good article, especially since Francis is described at one point as “shock therapy for the church.” His next big task will be to make sense of the conflicts he is hearing during the daily synod sessions, which conclude Sunday (Oct. 25).
There was a time when I would have viewed these contacts cynically, as a war between two factions within the Catholic Church. But now I prefer to believe that these disagreements are simply the result of less-than-perfect human beings striving in less-than-perfect ways to serve God and mankind. Some want to emphasize the church’s essential need to defend its teachings – its theology, or understanding of God – even if that means deemphasizing the needs of mankind. Others want to emphasize the needs of mankind, even if it means dialing back on the theology.
If they are guilty of anything it may be their shared belief that their positions cannot and must not change.
David Mills, writing recently on EthikaPolitika.org, didn’t address that foible directly but his words speak to it. “We know a lot less than we think we do because we’re not very good knowers. This is especially true for writers and teachers because man naturally assumes that he must be very good at something he has to do all the time, especially if people pay him for it.”
But Mills went even further, touching on a point that I think a lot of us miss.
“We often don’t see the truth because the truth takes work to see. Deep study of any subject shows how elusive the truth can be. One person convinces you and then the next un-convinces you. Study often reveals to you how little you actually know and how much that you thought you knew you don’t really understand. You find that to understand the subject you’re interested in you have to understand subjects you never thought of studying.”
Mills’ statement is abundantly true when I recall that Jesus describes himself as the way, the TRUTH and the life. If the bishops at that synod really want to know truth they must ask Jesus to reveal it. Francis said the same thing in other words when he urged the bishops at the start of their gathering to surrender their own ideas to the will of the Holy Spirit.
Surrender is part of the “shock therapy” the church desperately needs. I think a lot of bishops would be shocked to hear Jesus correcting their beliefs and attitudes.
The bishops are supposed to issue a final report but that’s by no means certain. I don’t expect anything earth-shaking in such a report because change comes very slowly to the Catholic Church. What would really be earth-shaking is to find genuine humility reflected in the final document – a confession that bishops have been swayed by the Spirit to abandon, modify or re-examine their treasured beliefs in new ways.
You and I can pray for that to happen. And we should pray for it to happen, since a lot of people – non-Catholic as well as Catholic, non-Christian as well as Christian – are paying attention and will be affected in some way by whatever the bishops say. Care to join me?
All God’s blessings – Mark
