Popular expectations of the Synod on the Family rose to unexpected heights when the draft report was prepared. They fell to earth with the publication of the final report which removed more welcoming and positive phrases about homosexual relationships.
The Synod was thus reported as a defeat for Pope Francis at the hands of conservative bishops. Yet for one who had suffered a defeat the Pope seemed remarkably buoyant at the end of the Synod.
His equanimity is not surprising if we take seriously his frequent claim that he has neither wish nor intention to change church teaching. He simply wants to find new possibilities in it so that the Catholic Church can reach out to people who are marginal and estranged. His claim is given little weight by many of those who desire to see change in church teaching and of those who are opposed to change. Both believe that pastoral practice cannot be radically changed without changing doctrine.
But if the Pope means what he says, he may have seen the Synod as a victory for his vision of church governance. It allowed the participants to engage in open discussion in which nothing was put off bounds.
The openness of the conversation was emphasised by the frank and passionate differences of opinion between different bishops expressed outside of the Synod. Its transparency was expressed in the publication of the draft document and of the voting on the final document.
The participants voted, too, on a document which reflected their conversation and was not simply an affirmation of pre-arranged conclusions. Nor will it disappear into the archives, but will form the starting point of practical discussions at the Synod next year.
The larger challenge that the Synod will pose to bishops who return to their own dioceses will be how to incorporate into their own governance the openness and transparency that was embodied in the Synod. Pope Francis has shown that a style of governance built on control and secrecy can be changed for the better by involving people, by encouraging open conversation and by transparency. Some Bishops may be encouraged, and others feel pressured by his example to explore its possibilities in their local churches.
It is also hard to see the treatment of the controversial issues of the Synod as a victory of conservative Bishops over Pope Francis. The challenge behind the question that dominated comment before the Synod, whether divorced and remarried people could receive communion remains on the table. Those who argue that it can be done within the framework of Catholic teaching still have to make their case.
The controversy about how to speak of homosexuality is more complex. It reflected partly an evident failure of the initial document to read accurately the sentiments of the participants. The voting on the amendments shows that clearly. Such failure is inevitable in any such draft: that is why the final document reflects the definitive view of a meeting.
In this case the controversy reflects another significant feature of transparent public conversation: the influence of the media. After the first draft public comments by the Bishops seemed exercised as much by the common journalists’ view that it heralded a rethinking of the Catholic understanding of homosexual relationships than by the content of the document. At all events they recast the document in order to close the door on these perceived implications of the draft.
This way of proceeding is understandable, but its disadvantages are also worth reflecting on. When phrases like ‘people who are homosexual must be ‘welcomed’, the ‘gifts and qualities’ of gay people and the ‘precious support’ they can offer one another are pulled from a public draft, the public perception is that they are not simply withdrawn from the text but that their opposites are commended. So people are to be made unwelcome, have no gifts and their support is valueless. The Catholic Church will now have much work to do to persuade people that this is not its meaning.
It is worthwhile to consider the strategy adopted by Pope Francis when his words are misquoted and misunderstood. He does not correct the misunderstanding at the time, but later reasserts quietly both his fidelity to church teaching and the need for pastoral openness. And he continues to find powerful symbols that embody unequivocally the Gospel he preaches.
If Pope Francis’ assessment of the Synod is as positive as I believe it is, we may expect from him dramatic gestures of encounter and compassion to God’s love that will reframe the questions addressed by the Synod in terms of the Gospel.
Andrew Hamilton is consulting editor of Eureka Street.
Vatican Radio image of a satisfied Pope Francis arriving at the Synod hall to deliver his final speech.