The Rigging of a Vatican Synod?

In this exclusive excerpt, Pentin examines one of the most controversial aspects of last year’s synod: the notorious Relatio post disceptationem, or interim report, released half-way through the synod discussions.]

Many synod fathers were angry that theRelatio did not represent the majority view of the synod’s participants or the discussion that had occurred during the week and was issued without them seeing it.

George Cardinal Pell, prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, was the first to protest in a debate in the aula on the day of the Relatio‘s release, followed by a number of heated interventions. Concerned that the report would go out without anyone remarking on it, he pointed out what was good about the report, but he also noted some serious deficiencies in the text. The Australian cardinal had to persist in his protest in the face of the synod managers who would have liked him to be quiet, sources who were present said.

“It was as though there was an idealized vision of every imperfect situation”, Cardinal Pell said. “One father said to me…that he wouldn’t want his young adult children to read it because they’d be confused, and that was said in some of the working groups.”

At issue were three controversial paragraphs the contents of which had been barely, or not at all, discussed by the synod fathers. One of these paragraphs referred to proposals, supposedly made by some of the synod participants, for readmission of divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to Holy Communion, and two other paragraphs dealt with the pastoral care of homosexuals and cohabiting couples.

The most contentious paragraphs were under the heading “Welcoming homosexuals”. The section started off by saying homosexuals “have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community”, adding: “Are our communities capable of providing (a welcoming home), accepting and valuing their sexual orientation without compromising Catholic doctrine on the family and matrimony?”

It continued: “Without denying the moral problems connected to homosexual unions, it has to be noted that there are cases in which mutual aid to the point of sacrifice constitutes a precious support in the life of the partners.”

Archbishop Bruno Forte, the synod’s special secretary, was widely considered to have been the main author of the document. He had been known for his “progressive” positions and for earnestly promoting changes in pastoral practice toward people in “irregular” unions, while claiming these changes are true to Catholic doctrine.

The Italian theologian, together with all the members of the drafting committee, drew on the lengthy written speeches of each synod father submitted prior to the meeting. Apparently, certain points from these written speeches found their way into the draft report, even if the bishops had not mentioned them during the four minutes allotted to each speaker. Vatican spokesman Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi said he recalled only one speech out of about 265 that discussed homosexuals during the debate.

Defenders of the report, therefore, say it is not surprising that much did not seem familiar in the interim report because the written submissions were not made public or distributed to the bishops themselves. The oral presentations only reflected a summary or particular point that a bishop wanted to make. As none of the verbal interventions was transcribed, it would also have been difficult to work on summarizing every synod father’s submitted intervention and then adjust it as the synod went on according to what the synod father said in the synod hall. Also, as the interim document, it had to be produced quickly so it could form the basis of discussions for the second week.

Father Stephen Fawcett, an assistant at the synod responsible for keeping an official diary of the entire proceedings, said that “in fairness to them [those who drafted the report], it was a huge task because you had the Lineamenta [guidelines for the synod] that came out beforehand and was seventy-five pages long. Then you had 182 synod fathers making 189 inputs. There were also five hours of free debate, and in forty-eight hours they had to summarize accurately all of that into fourteen pages in five languages. That’s a hard task.”

But he added: “On the other side, I don’t think anyone could say it was all a summary of the discussions. It just was not.”

The inclusion of the homosexual issue into the interim document seemed to upset Cardinal Erdö, who, as general relator, was responsible for the document’s contents. This, too, made many critics suspect that some kind of manipulation had taken place. Asked about the relevant paragraph during an October 13 press briefing on the report, he handed the floor to Forte, saying: “He who wrote the text must know what it is talking about.”