The Synod Says No

...One of the major difficulties of the Synod was the vastness of its subject: since "evangelization" is what the Church is all about, and the "modern world" is not too easily circumscribed either, the first interventions roamed far and wide, from Sacred Heart devotions to the redemption of prostitutes...

...William A. Ronan (.$625,000), former Chairman of the Metropolitan Transit Authority and Chairman of the Port Authority, makes decisions affecting the Rockefellerbacked World Trade Center...

...In many parts of the world such communities--with or (more often) without priests--are becoming the normal form of the Church's presence in the world...

...The result is known: three chapters out of four were rejected by a large majority...

...And yet, by refusing to sign a paper they had not prepared and which did not reflect what they had said, the bishops reasserted their freedom within the narrow limits of the present Synod rules: for the first time a Synod refused to submit to outward manipulation, and this will have its influence on future Synods...

...Among the hopeful signs of the times, they saw the growth of "small communities"--a vague term which covered a wide range of different groups, from underground church to charismatic movement...

...Financing the anti-Goldberg book would not, in itself, merit much attention if the Rockefellers had not laundered the money four times and dissimulated before taking responsibility...

...Americans are used to the idea that their leaders are not saints...

...Former Republican State Chairman L. Judson Morehouse ($86,000 and a pardon from a bribery jail sentence) helped make Rockefeller governor...

...This time, however, the race against time was expected to be less desperate than on former occasions, for it had been announced that the Synod would not issue a document, but rather a series of "propositiones," concrete statements or recommendations...

...He has defended these gifts as generous tokens of love...

...They can do better...

...This was not just a dilution, but a clear distortion of what the bishops had said: for if the "local church" is the Church as it is present in a particular place, culture, etc., how can it be said to "appeal to the Church...

...One expression which often recurred at the Synod was "signs of the times," and it was used in the same optimistic sense as in Pope John's opening speech at the Vatican Council...

...The term was criticized by what we may call the "Roman school," mainly represented by Italians and the bishops from Eastern Europe (where the survival of the Church depends on the strength of a centralized organization, and all tendencies towards "autonomy" are considered dangerous...

...During the coffee-break there were more animated discussions than there had ever been during the preceding weeks, and it soon turned out that a large number of bishops considered the document totally inadequate as a basis for further discussion...

...The draft implied therefore a choice for one particular theological opinion, which happened to be the minority one...

...After three weeks of quiet speeches, which had shown a substantial agreement on some important topics (human liberation, local churches, "indigenization," small communities, etc...

...They do want a man they can look up to as Vice President...

...What they have in common is that they present a humbler, poorer image of the Church, less clerical also and more democratic...

...They proposed to speak of "particular churches," as opposed to the "universal church" (often tacitly identified with "Holy See...

...The Synod can hardly be said to have a history in the same sense as the Council: when, in another three years' time, it is convened again, it will be to discuss another topic, and the rejected document will never be rewritten, discussed, amended and approved, as was the decree on Revelation...

...But slowly some central questions emerged, and after being discussed in the 29 November 1974:204 twelve language groups, these were listed in the final note to the Pope...

...Indigenization," said the Archbishop of Dakar, Hyacinthe Thiandoum, "has not been invented by us, but by Jesus Christ in his Incarnation...

...he determines policy that concerns Rockefeller interests in Latin America...

...But it was characteristic of the present Synod that the bishops preferred not to bring the issue to a vote, and rather decided to dismiss the whole document...

...If this is what the bishops meant by their vote, the Synod has probably found its ideal function, of providing a platform for a peaceful exchange of ideas and experiences, of registering the Church's growth in its various forms and stages, and thereby stimulating further growth...

...the bishops were ready to leave, after the usual hasty votes on the final document...

...This was probably a wise decision, for if the Synod has made one thing clear, it is that the development in the Church goes on without waiting for Synods...

...The positive attitude of the Synod towards this phenomenon implies that the bishops themselves are beginning to take a different view of the Church and of their own role in it...

...Obviously, the bishops did not recognize themselves in the string of pious platitudes they had just heard...

...and, by comparison, they suddenly realized how much more vital and important had been their own discussions during the preceding weeks...

...The Universal Church, as they see it, can never be disembodied, something "up there": it is always incarnated in particular places and cultures and historical conditions...

...in other parts they offer an alternative to Catholics who feel no longer at home in the rigid institutions of the traditional Church...

...It would be tempting, but probably wrong, to compare the Synod vote to the famous rejection of the document on Revelation in November 1961, which was the turning point in the history of the Vatican Council...

...22, the fourth Synod of Bishops had been the most uneventful of the series...

...One could perhaps detect some ingenuousness in the Synod's interpretation of some of these signs, such as the "modern trend towards contemplation" and "youth's search for Jesus," but on the whole the bishops were refreshingly open to a world which was no longer regarded as the enemy...

...But this cannot mean, as Archbishop Paulo Evaristo Arns of Sao Paulo said, that the Church's mission is to save souls: it must save people and therefore it must take sides with the poor and oppressed in their struggle against the sins of the modern world: hunger, poverty, oppression, injustice and violence...

...It is clear that in this view "indigenization" does not stop at liturgical folklore: it goes to the deepest roots of the Gospel message, and affects not only church discipline (celibacy, marriage laws etc...

...The recipients are instruments of his power...

...Nor can we accept him as an object of sympathy, a victim of the so-called "post-Watergate" standard of morality--as if public demand to know the full story on the man who might be President is a novel, and therefore unfair, request...

...In his speeches, both at the beginning and at the end of the Synod, Pope Paul warned that the mission of the Church is in the first place a religious one: it must proclaim, first of all, liberation from sin and death...

...but theology and the proclamation of the Gospel itself...

...When the meeting was resumed, the chairman, Cardinal Koenig, announced that "some difficulties had arisen," which made an immediate vote advisable...

...Probably the most important question discussed at this Synod was the problem of the "local churches...

...then, as the text was read to them by the relatores, they grew angry and excited...

...Not all of them received equal attention (disappointingly little was said, e.g., on ecumenism), but on the whole the list presents a fairly faithful reflection of the main questions discussed by the bishops...

...They do not ask for moral heroism...

...This would partially explain the air of general satisfaction at the end of the Synod, four days later, though the bishops had so little to show for their work: a short "message to the people of God" and an even shorter note to Pope Paul which read like the table of contents of the original working paper...

...But those who continued to speak of "local churches" (most notably the Africans, who for the first time played a leading role at this Synod) used it on a different theological level, where the distinction does not hold, or does not hold in the same sense...

...Especially to men who are already high-salaried government employees...

...it must be examined and discussed at regular intervals, but should not be fixed at any particular stage by decisions which may be outdated before they ever become operative...

...But the most pathetic aspect of RoekefeUer's situation is that he and his defenders do not seem to understand what people are disturbed about...

...HENRY TEN KORTENAAR Commonweal: 205...

...He calls the Goldberg book a "mistake" while others see it as a key to his character--a willingness to play dirty to get what he wants...

...Since when is true friendship best sealed by satchels of cash...

...0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 REPORT FROM ROME THE SYNOD SH u NO Until Tuesday, Oct...

...Another important issue on which there was almost general agreement was the essential link between salvation and human liberation...

...The most disconcerting part of the draft considered precisely the local churches: they were listed, along with "non-practicing Catholics," "youth," "workers," etc., among the "various groups expecting an answer from the Church" ("Ecclesiam interpellantes...

...Senator Jacob Javits ($15,000) will have to vote on Rockefeller's confirmation...

...The real results of the Synod must therefore be sought elsewhere, and especially in the communications on the work of evangelization as it is carried out in different parts of the world...

...But it is also clear that the bond with the Pope, as head of the universal Church, does not become less, but far more important, as was forcefully stressed by the defenders of the local churches: for it is precisely this bond which represents the essential unity of what outwardly would seem many different churches...

...At first, the bishops were only surprised to find that they were supposed to vote on a 41-page declaration...

...It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Rockefeller bought loyalty--and maybe even silence...

...They contradicted the pessimistic tone of Pope Paul's recent speeches and also of the preparatory paper for the Synod, with its insistence on impediments and obstacles...

...Too long and too often, Bishop Helder Camara added, the Church has told people to wait for salvation after this life, and thereby given the impression that Marx was right when he called religion "the opium of the people...

...Here is evidence that wealth and security do not free the mighty from the temptation to play dirty but rather delude them into playing by their own rules...