A church of the heart?
Pope Francis has stirred great expectations for reform of the Roman Catholic Church. A rare gathering of bishops next month to examine doctrine on marriage, same-sex unions and sexual morality will be a test of his push for a more caring and open institution At the end of August, Pope Francis warned the faithful “against the belief that outward observance of the law is enough to make us good Christians.”
He made clear to the thousands gathered at St. Peter’s Square that he was referring to long-established religious norms.
“Literal observance of the precepts is a fruitless exercise which does not change the heart,” he said.
“It is not the external things that make us holy or unholy, but the heart which expresses our intentions, our choices,” he added. “Without a purified heart, one cannot have truly clean hands and lips which speak sincere words of love — it is all duplicitous, a double life.”
Catholics who run afoul of some church doctrines hope bishops got Francis’s point: rules do not good Christians make.
In early October, bishops will gather in Rome for a general assembly, known as a synod, to discuss “challenges to the family.” Pope Francis will open it shortly after attending a celebration of family life — the World Meeting of Families — in Philadelphia on Saturday.
The synod will grapple with issues like divorce, birth control, same-sex unions and adoption by gay couples. The last time a synod discussed family matters, in 1980, the Vatican reaffirmed church rules: marriage — defined as exclusively between men and women — is “permanent and indissoluble,” birth control is banned, and Catholics who divorce and remarry can’t receive communion.
Church pews in many western countries have since emptied, an exodus fuelled by the sexual abuse of children by some priests. Catholics who remain don’t think twice about using birth control or taking communion despite having divorced and remarried. They might argue, to use Francis’s words, that their hearts are pure.
“It certainly puts the authority of the bishops in question because people are simply ignoring them,” says Rev. Tom Reese, author of Inside the Vatican: the Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church.
The excitement that followed the 2013 election of the first Latin American pope created great expectations. Francis hasn’t changed church doctrine and perhaps never will. But he has pushed for a more democratic, caring and open church, reflected in his now famous comment about gays who seek Jesus Christ — “Who am I to judge?”
By calling the synod, and sending questionnaires on family issues to the faithful, Francis has also forced a church-wide debate on matters conservatives thought had long been settled. But the outlook for reformers so far is less than promising. The majority of bishops and cardinals, having been appointed by previous popes, are a conservative group.
When the bishops convene in October, the best chance for major change will be for divorced and remarried Catholics. Whether they should be allowed to receive the eucharist has resulted in unprecedented public displays of top cardinals and bishops arguing different sides of the issue.
The challenge is to balance two of Jesus’ teachings: the indissolubility of marriage and the imperative of mercy, says Gatineau Archbishop Paul-André Durocher, who attended last year’s preliminary synod as president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Bishops pushing for change believe divorced and remarried Catholics should receive communion after a period of penance and forgiveness. Francis went some way to forcing a solution in September by making marriage annulments faster and easier to get.
The church doesn’t accept divorce. But a marriage that is annulled — if a spouse did not freely consent to it, for example — is a marriage that never happened. That couple is then free to marry again and receive communion.
Durocher, one of six Canadian bishops who will participate in the general synod, says the Pope’s annulment ruling caught bishops by surprise. And some aren’t happy.
“They felt (the changes) were imprudent, that it wasn’t the right way to move forward,” he says.
Francis will have the final say on recommendations the synod makes. If he judges they don’t go far enough, he may be in a bind. He has made decentralizing power to bishops a signature of his papacy. Overruling them would compromise that process. Sticking to it might push changes many years down the road.
“This is a very big church that is very slow-moving,” Reese says.
Durocher has no doubt, however, that Francis would impose his will.
“He is absolutely a man of decision,” he says, adding that, as a Jesuit, Francis adheres to a method of inquiry that listens to all sides but forges ahead once a spark of truth comes to light.
“It’s more the heart than the mind,” Durocher says. “Once the heart is made up, you follow your heart fully, radically. And that really describes Francis.”