Brendan Hoban: Francis’s new Rome won’t be built in a day
Western People 8.10.2024
“And they’re off” conveys a sense of excitement and expectation at the start of what everyone hopes to be, for better or for worse, a memorable even a life-changing and possibly historic event. Throwing in the ball on All-Ireland day; a first day at school; the first race of the Galway summer festival; an Olympic marathon; a newly married couple flying out to some exotic destination on their honeymoon.
For some years those of us interested in overdue change in the Catholic Church would have circled the date October 2, 2024 in bold red in our diaries, the beginning of the final gathering of the Roman Synod, 2023-24. But between then and now, that diary date has lost its confident red colour and has been muted into a faint pink.
A more appropriate exclamation to register expectations for the opening of the synod in Rome might be ‘They’re off but they still haven’t moved’. Cynical, yes. But understandably so, I suspect, after the promise of Pope Francis guiding the synodal pathway for more than a decade and encouraging us ‘to Dare to Dream’. And even though we did dream, the omens are not promising.
When Francis launched the synodal pathway – a new way of being Church – we found ourselves on the crest of a wave from which change was confidently predicted. Francis was clear that synodality was the only way forward for the Catholic Church, what the Jesuit theologian, Gerry O’Hanlon described as ‘a paradigm shift, a fundamental change which goes beyond even important adjustments to the existing model of Church, a revolution in the sense of a radical change to an existing structure’.
Clearly Francis was signalling that the promise of the Second Vatican Council was to be revisited and he would be leading it, as in the words of Maynooth theologian, Michael Conway, synodality represented ‘a more horizontal, egalitarian, communitarian dynamic in marked contrast to the patriarchal, hierarchical structures of the past’. Change was on its way and all the ducks seemed to be holding their place in a steady row.
What seemed to confirm an acceptance of inevitable and wide-ranging change was the positive response such a possibility evoked among Catholics around the world. A global inquiry throughout the Catholic dioceses of the world had produced an extraordinarily analogous range of hopes and expectations.
There was some push back, as expected. A small minority of traditional Catholics – once convinced that the tide of the Second Vatican Council had retreated and bolstered by a tiny minority of cardinals who conveniently placed their oath of loyalty to the pope in temporary cold storage – led an assault on Pope Francis and accused him of an array of culpable transgressions, including heresy. Even though one by one his accusers – Vigano, Pell, Muller and others – were gradually exposed as the bearers of a variety of spleens against Francis, their opposition and that of a handful of bishops around the world had embedded the belief that the opposition to Francis’ reform was more widespread than it actually was.
Fears that a great schism would lead to a fragmented Catholic Church, led to a decision to postpone reforms in the wake of the Amazon Synod of 2019 and an announcement that no change could be expected in the opening session of the Rome Synod in 2023 with the unspoken presumption that the 2024 session of that synod would deliver widely supported reforms. This in turn was followed by an announcement that in October 2024 proposed changes would be parked before another series of study groups had deliberated on any possible change. And optimism for change evaporated when in June of this year, in response to a question to clarify the possible ordination of women as deacons, Francis simply said ‘No’.
So now questions abound. Including what exactly Pope Francis is trying to achieve in terms of reform of the Catholic Church. That he is serious is not in doubt but whether he sees himself as delivering that reform or leaving it to his successor is open to question.
One view as to what Francis is at has been presented recently by a Canadian theologian, Michael Higgins, in The Tablet under the title ‘The disruptor Pope’. Higgins presents a complicated palate of explanations by presenting a number of sides to Francis: his disruption of papal traditions and protocols, of spiritual complacency, of the way the Church works in the world, of centring our priority on the poor, of encouraging a synodal rather than a dictatorial way of being Church and so on. He is also, Higgins argues, a healer and a unifier.
In seeking to clarify what it is that Francis is at, Higgins presents two incidents from parish life.
In the first a priest announced at Mass that only Catholics in a state of grace were to receive Communion and listed those excluded as the divorced, those living together but not married, those who are gay, those not opposed to abortion and those who have not gone to Confession in the past year. This sermon represents, Higgins writes, ‘a Church that excluded, a club of the saved’ and, in his opinion, ‘a desecration of authentic Catholic teaching’.
In the second a father, distanced from the Church for some time, was cajoled into accompanying his daughter to Communion but felt that he should alert the priest to his predicament – as to whether he could receive Communion. He whispered to the priest that it had been over 20 years since he had been to Mass. In response the priest held up the host, placed it in the palm of the man’s hand, smiled, and said, ‘Welcome home’.
This is the Church of the big tent, the field hospital, a sanctuary in a troubled world. This is Francis’s Church. This is where Francis seeks to bring us.
The journey may be long but we’ll get there, with God’s help.