The Extraordinary Synod on the Family

Week 1

As you may have heard on the news or seen in the papers, there is something very important happening this week in the Church as bishops from all over the world respond to Pope Francis’ call to meet in an extraordinary synod on the family.  The synod follows in the footsteps of one called by Pope St. John Paul II in 1980 on the same general theme and will take place from October 5^th to the 19^th. 

What will the bishops discuss over the course of these two weeks?  It’s likely that you have heard about at least one of the topics: the question of how the Church can better care for divorced and remarried Catholics. Since the Synod was first announced one year ago, the news media and even some bishops have focused heavily on this issue.  However, the bishops will delve into many other topics as well. They will discuss improving marriage preparation programs, how to better educate Catholics on the Church’s teaching on the family, fostering greater familial spirituality, domestic violence, improving ministry to spouses with different faiths, the difficulties posed by tight finances to families, teenage pregnancy, combating the modern tendency to delay or even skip marriage altogether, the difficulties of raising children, and many other issues.  All of this is laid out in a document called Instrumentum Laboris, which was sent to bishops in June and based upon their own reports about how family life has been going in their dioceses.

The Church wants to discuss, come to a greater understanding, and come up with some ideas about all of these topics because the family today is suffering many dangers and attacks from every side.  The synod can be thought of as a kind of “war room” for planning how to protect and promote family life.  For thousands of years, philosophers and political scientists have recognized that families are the building blocks of society and history has borne this out: when the state of family life is going well, societies flourish, and when it is not, societies have tended to crumble.    The Church also holds a unique interest because in a particular way family life is the foundation of Christian life.  After all, God is Himself a family: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In the Scripture, the Lord’s first command to humanity was to “be fruitful and multiply,” and since then the people of God have created and raised up families which have served as earthly manifestations of that “communal” love of God.  In fact, Catholic thought has long referred to the family as “the domestic Church!” 

It’s very important to be aware of the full breadth of topics to be discussed next week, but the subject of divorced and remarried Catholics is definitely the hot button issue that we will probably be hearing the most about on the nightly news.  This is not surprising: the population of divorced and remarried Catholics is very large, and it is an area where the Church recognizes a genuine need for better ministry. While we may not be likely to see any earth-shattering moves in this area, Instrumentum Laboris lays out a variety of things that we can expect the bishops to discuss.  First, they will try to find a way to make sure Catholics are better educated on the Church’s teachings about the subject.  For example, the bishops reported that many Catholics think that divorce alone without remarriage poses a problem, when in fact this is not the case.  Similarly, they want to make sure all Catholics understand what annulments really mean – and streamline the process for obtaining one.  Another big point of emphasis will be helping divorced and remarried Catholics to feel more welcome in the Church and to recognize that their presence and prayers belong amongst the flock. 

Can we expect anything else?  Only time will tell.  Ultimately, it is unlikely that we will see much official news from the synod anytime soon.  That will come after weeks or months in the form of one or more documents which will discuss the bishops’ thoughts, concerns, and recommendations.  The news media is likely to offer sensationalized reports of what the synod “says” on almost any of the issues under discussion which might encourage us, discourage us, or create or destroy expectations.  It’s important that we take a measured view of the meeting and let the Holy Spirit do His work.   At the end of the day, God’s in charge – and we can all be thankful for that.