Conservative bishops move away from gay overture
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| Cardinal Angelo Scola, left, and Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, are reflected on the glass door of the Paul VI hall as they arrive for a morning session of a two-week synod on family issues at the Vatican, Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2014. Catholic bishops signaled a radical shift in tone Monday about accepting gays into the church, saying they had gifts to offer and that their partnerships, while morally problematic, provided homosexual couples with "precious" support. In a preliminary report, released half-way through a Vatican meeting on family life called by Pope Francis, the bishops also said the church must welcome divorcees and recognize the "positive" aspects of civil marriages and even Catholics who cohabitate, as well as the children of these less traditional families. |
VATICAN CITY
(AP) -- A fight for the soul of the Catholic Church has broken out, and
the first battlefield is a document on family values that pits
increasingly alarmed conservatives against more progressive bishops
emboldened by Pope Francis' vision of a church that is more merciful
than moralistic.
On Tuesday, conservative
bishops distanced themselves from the document's unprecedented opening
toward gays and divorced Catholics, calling it an "unacceptable"
deviation from church teaching that doesn't reflect their views and
vowing to make changes to the final version.
The
report, released midway through a Vatican meeting on such hot-button
family issues as marriage,
divorce, homosexuality and birth control,
signaled a radical shift in tone about welcoming gays, divorced
Catholics and unmarried couples into the church.
Its
message was one of almost-revolutionary acceptance and understanding
rather than condemnation. Gays, it said, had gifts to offer the church
and their partnerships, while morally problematic, provided gay couples
with "precious" support. The church, it added, must welcome divorced
people and recognize the "positive" aspects of civil marriages and even
Catholics who live together without being married.
The
leaders of the bishops' meeting, or synod, that produced it stressed
Tuesday that it was merely a working paper and was never intended to be a
statement of church doctrine, but rather a reflection of bishops' views
that will be debated and amended before a final version is released on
Saturday.
Still, its dramatic shift in tone
thrilled progressives and gay rights groups, and dismayed conservatives
already deeply uncomfortable with Francis' aim to make the church a
"field hospital" for wounded souls that focuses far less on the rules
and regulations emphasized by his two predecessors.
The
document was remarkable both in what it said and what it didn't say:
Absent were assertions of Catholic doctrine present in most church
documents that gay sex is "intrinsically disordered" and that couples
who cohabitate are "living in sin." In their place were words of
affirmation and welcome.
"The report,
obviously composed under pressure, has easily given rise to some
misinterpretation," British Cardinal Vincent Nichols said Tuesday. "It
is not a doctrinal or decisive document. It is, as stated in its
conclusion, `intended to raise questions and indicate perspectives that
will have to be matured and made clearer on reflection.'"
Several
conservatives who participated in the synod immediately distanced
themselves from the report. The head of the Polish bishops' conference,
Cardinal Stanislaw Gadecki, called it "unacceptable" and a deviation
from church teaching.
South African Cardinal
Wilfrid Fox Napier said the report didn't reflect the opinion of the
synod in its entirety and contained problematic positions. He hoped the
final report "will show the vision of the synod as a whole and not the
vision of a particular group."
"My worry is
that the message has gone out - and it's not a true message - that this
synod has taken up these positions, and whatever we say hereafter is
going to be as if we're doing some damage control, which is certainly
not what is in my mind," he told reporters.
Hard-line
American Cardinal Raymond Burke, the head of the Vatican's supreme
court, told Catholic World Report that the document contained positions
"which many synod Fathers do not accept and, I would say, as faithful
shepherds of the flock cannot accept."
He
accused the Vatican press operation of releasing "manipulated"
information about the synod debate that didn't reflect the "consistent
number of bishops" who opposed such a tone.
To some extent, he had a point.
The
Vatican has greatly reduced independent access to information about the
closed-door proceedings, withholding bishops' individual speeches from
public view, much to the dismay of Burke and other conservatives who
want their side known. The only information released has been summaries
of the day's debate by the Vatican spokesman, whose briefings have
reflected a general a tone of opening and welcome.
The
briefings made scant reference to gays at all, and yet the provisional
report gave significant ink to the issue. The Vatican spokesman, the
Rev. Federico Lombardi, said while he only recalled one major speech
about gays out of 265, it was likely that bishops' written remarks
covered the material and were reflected in the document.
The big question looming is how the battle over the final document will shake out.
The
bishops themselves elected a host of known conservatives to lead the
working groups hammering out details of the final report. In an apparent
bid to counter their influence, Francis appointed six progressives to
draft the final document.
The Vatican on
Tuesday highlighted areas that will be debated in the coming days. In a
summary of bishops' reactions, the Vatican press office said bishops had
"appreciated" the report but that some offered additional reflections
"to bring together various points of view."
These
bishops suggested that the final document highlight faithful Catholic
families to avoid "a near-exclusive focus on imperfect family
situations."
On gays, they said "prudence" was
required "so that the impression of a positive evaluation of such a
tendency on the part of the church is not created."
"The same care was advised with regard to cohabitation," they said.
The
bishops noted that the word "sin" barely appeared in the document at
all and that the final document must better explain the "law of
gradualness" - a theological concept that encourages the faithful to
take one step at a time in the search for holiness.
Bishops
are concerned that an emphasis on that concept can lead to confusion
about whether Catholics really must follow church law to the letter on
hot-button issues like contraception.
