Saturday, November 9, 2013

A Powerful Set Of Answers To The Vatican's Questions

 
It would sure be nice if this meant more than just a neat picture. 



I have to admit I've actually been very surprised with the amount of coverage that has been given the Vatican's solicitation of input for the 2014 Synod on the Family.  It has certainly sparked a conversation, whether or not the USCCB ever gets on board, or whether or not the Vatican actually uses any of the input.  I personally have not yet responded to any of the survey links, and after reading the thoughts of Basque theologian Jose Arregi, know for a certainty my input can't possibly add anything to his thoughtful reflection.  Below I have excerpted his answers to the four main categories of the Vatican survey that I myself was most interested in answering.  The blog Iglesia Descalza has the entirety of his response.  It was written as an open letter to Pope Francis.  Thanks to Rebel Girl for her translation of this beautiful and honest response.



1. Whether the teachings of Sacred Scripture and the hierarchical Magisterium on sexuality, marriage, and the family are known and accepted among the faithful.

Perhaps they're not well known, and certainly they are poorly accepted or simply ignored. We note that in recent decades the gap, or rather the rupture, between official doctrine and the feelings of a wide majority of believers, has grown to a critical degree. It's serious and it grieves us. But we sincerely believe that the reason for the growing break is not the ignorance, much less the irresponsibility of the believers, but rather the hierachy's being locked into patterns from the past.

Times have changed a lot in a short period in everything that has to do with family, matrimony, and procreation, and with sexuality in general. We know they are delicate subjects, that what is most holy is at stake, that the utmost care is necessary. But you can't care for life by repeating the past. We believe deeply that the Spirit of Life goes on speaking to us from the heart of life, with its joys and sorrows. We believe that the living Ruah cannot be closed in any doctrine, or document, or words of the past, and that it goes on inspiring the feelings of all believers and all men and women today. Nothing should ever remain closed.

Pope Francis, we congratulate you on your willingness to listen again to the voice of the Spirit in the men and women of today, and we dare to ask you to keep speaking words of mercy and encouragement, to not go back to obsolete and meaningless "truths" and "norms". In the name of Life!



 2. On the place that the concept of "natural law" in relation to marriage has among believers.

We will tell you simply and frankly: For the great majority of thinkers, scientists, and believers in our society, the concept of "natural law" no longer has any place at all. Yes, the nature that we are has a wondrous order, some marvelous laws, and thanks to them, science is possible. But the supreme law of nature is its capacity for change and novelty. Nature is creative and inventive. The fruits of that creative and inventive capability, of that holy creativity, are all the atoms and molecules, every star and galaxy. All of us living beings, all languages and cultures, all religions are fruits of it. For billions of years to come, infinite new forms yet unknown to us will be the results of it.

Nature is inhabited by the Spirit, by the holy Ruah that blew on the waters in Genesis, that goes on vibrating in the hearts of all beings, in the heart of every atom and particle. The family too has been changing unceasingly, from the first clans to the nuclear family, through the patriarcal family we have known until recently.

Before our very eyes, the model of the family is still changing: families without children, single parent families, families with children of different fathers and mothers...And it will go on changing, we don't know how. It's all very delicate. There's a lot of pain. We ask the Church not to speak ill of the new forms of family, since they already have enough living day to day and getting ahead amid the greater threats that come to us from a cruel, inhumane economic system. It's not the Church's job to dictate but, first of all, to provide accompaniment, relief, and encouragement, as you yourself have said.


 5. On same-sex unions.

The harm caused by the Church to homosexuals is huge, and someday it will have to ask their forgiveness. Let's hope that Pope Francis, in the name of the Church, will ask forgiveness for so much shame, contempt, and feelings of guilt that have been laid on them over the centuries.

The vast majority of men and women in our society today can't understand this obsession, this hostility. How can they go on saying that homosexual love isn't natural, being that it has been so common and natural, for biological and psychological reasons, among so many men and women of all times and on all continents, and in so many other animal species?

In this case, as in many others, the Church should go first, but society precedes us. We celebrate that there are increasingly more countries that recognize that persons of the same sex have the same right as persons of the opposite sex to form unions. What prevents us from calling them "marriages"? Aren't heterosexual unions that, for whatever reason, aren't going to have children called that too? So, let the dictionaries and canon law change to conform to the times and meet the needs of the people.

And what is stopping us from calling homosexual marriage a sacrament? It's love that makes us human and makes us divine. It's love that makes the sacrament. And everything else is gloss and human tradition.


 7. On the openness of spouses to life.

Fortunately, there are very few among us believers under 60 who have heard of Humanae Vitae, that encyclical by Paul VI (1968) that declared it a mortal sin to use any "unnatural" contraceptive method, any method other than abstinence or adjusting to the female fertility cycle. But it made almost all our parents suffer a lot. That doctrine, adopted against the advice of much of the episcopate, was unfortunate in its time and it is no less regrettable that it is still maintained today.

Today no one understands it and almost nobody complies with it among Catholics themselves. And few priests or bishops dare to lay it out these days. It no longer makes sense to state that sex has to be open to reproduction. It no longer makes sense to distinguish between natural and artificial methods, much less to condemn a method for being "artificial", since for the same reason one would have to condemn any vaccination or injection.

Nowadays we are witnessing a momentous change in everything that has to do with sexuality and reproduction: for the first time after many millennia, sex is no longer necessary for reproduction. It is a technological change that brings with it an anthropological change and requires a new moral paradigm. Sexuality and life remain as sacred as ever and it is necessary to care for them with utmost delicacy. But the criteria and standards of Humanae Vitae don't help in this, but rather make it harder. Let the words of the Church be light and comfort, like the Spirit of God, as Jesus' words were in his time and would also be in ours.

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This is just such a powerful piece.  I have just a couple of observations.  The first is in line with Jose Arregi's first answer about the reception of the Church's teachings on sex and the family.  I would just add that the influence of the Holy Spirit, as this Spirit propels humanity forward in consciousness and understanding, can not be locked in a box of unchanging dogma and doctrine.  To believe otherwise is anti Gospel and opposed to the true nature of humanity as an expression of God's creative and ever evolving and expanding love.

My second thought, which pertains to mostly to questions 4, 5, and 7 is that the Church needs to prioritize love over legalisms.  I keep going to back to a quote from Fr Mychal Judge in which he asks a very pertinent question:   “Is there so much love in the world that we can afford to discriminate against any kind of love?!"  The answer of course is NO.  The Church should be in the business of increasing and sanctifying the amount of love in the world.  Perhaps if that was the first priority people would find it much easier to value and respect their own sexuality and that of others and they would willingly and responsibly bring new life into the world.  Life that would be welcomed as a true joy--and not the burden it becomes all too frequently in a competitive and consumer driven culture.


7 comments:

  1. A beautiful and honest piece of writing. Thank you for posting this.

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  2. Very well expressed, solid ideas that must be considered if the RCC hopes to rebuild after the current implosion.

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  3. I hope you CC'd Pope Francis on this, Colkcoch. You and Jose Arregi nailed it!

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  4. What Jose Arregi has written is very powerful. Regarding #4 in the questionnaire, I am glad that this is a question and I am grateful for Jose Arregi's answer. I don't know if the men in the hierarchy know just how much pain and suffering the official Church teachings have caused millions of people. I know that in my own life I know that what Jose is saying is right. Yet the Church has become such a terrible obstacle instead of helping to create life. The terrible obstacle and resultant heartache and suffering of being denied Holy Communion has caused me personally to be ever more bitter and angry at the Church, and I know that I'm not the only one. It is the antithesis of Christ's teachings to teach against compassion for human beings.


    I can only hope that I am cured of the bitterness I have towards a Church that has essentially turned its back on those who are suffering, denied the sacraments, told they are never ever worthy enough.


    Thank you for your posting this, Colleen. I am grateful for Jose's thoughtfulness & mercy in his answers. I've been too angry and bitter at the Church for its cruelty in its acts against the very people it should be serving with the peace & love of Christ. So, I thank him for not burying me under heaps of scorn and wrath and of the RCC's bent for instilling suffering upon suffering and ignorance upon ignorance.


    "Let the Church not go on adding more pain to their pain. And let it in no way prevent them from sharing the Bread of comfort at Jesus' table, because Jesus did not impede anybody."

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  5. I can only add to this that it is not a fun or joyful experience to find oneself targeted by a religious institution's biases, prejudices, narrow-mindedness and cold heartedness. It's not a fun time to find oneself angry and/or bitter at anything or anyone. It is not a state of mind or heart that one will stay in if one turns to prayer and begs for divine assistance for relief and comfort. However, there is an ache that remains that can severely hamper, hold back, deter and impede a healthy process for growing spiritually within an institution that teaches by way of bitterness and anger thrown at others by many who are bitter and angry in the hierarchy. That bitterness and anger shows up in the politics in the RCC and its decisions to blacklist certain persons such as divorced and remarried and gays, women priests and theologians.

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  6. I would be more than willing to return to Sunday Mass on a regular basis if the Vatican/Bishops would give us back our English liturgy. If we could just back to praying together and not slamming each other. As it is I've put the old responses in my phone to use the next time I go to Mass. They can't make me say bad LatinEnglish.

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  7. I know this comment is late and probably won't get a reading. But I have read the questionnaire in question. It is located at http://www.news.va/en/news/preparing-for-the-synod Nothing new to see here is right. There is nothing about how is economic hardship affecting the families of the diocese. Nothing I saw about how do families accept living in newly multicultural or diverse religious neighborhoods. Nothing about what is the common reaction when a family member come out as gay. No, the whole survey is on do people know about Natural Law? How can we increase the number of births? And so on. There were a few points of faint hope. One spoke of those people living in irregular families (rather than imitation families I guess.) Another was, could there be a way to simplify the annulment process. This could have been a hopeful in if this were done in 1964. Getting rid of Natural Law then as the way to do ethics would have been responding honestly to the findings of science. The world has moved on, way too little and too late.

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