Snapd
ragon
THE P RTAL
December 2013
Page 8
Marriage and
family life
“D
emocracy:
a
system in which people
keep on voting until they give the
right answer.” So cynically read one
tweet following the latest synodical
result in the Church of England’s
debate on its favourite topic.
The C of E has been working
towards the “right answer” on women
bishops for years and now seems to have it in its sights.
questionnaire
After
watching
some
lunchtime news coverage
of the result, I sat down
to offer the Synod of
Bishops (that’s the
Catholic
one)
my
wisdom on matters
relating to the family,
ahead of its Extraordinary
General
Assembly in 2014 on “Pastoral challenges of the family
in the context of evangelisation”.
The questionnaire distributed to the Catholic faithful
round the world seems to be asking us (in a not very
user-friendly way, I have to say) what we really think
about the Catholic Church’s teaching on marriage and
family life.
“About time too!”
It is my guess that a good number of Catholics
(laity and clergy) will have received the questionnaire
with the thought “About time too!”, and relished the
opportunity to have their say, and be listened to at
such a high level within an organisation that they feel
has never really taken much interest in their views and
experiences.
quite happy
It is also my guess that many Catholics listened to
Father telling them all about the Vatican’s latest idea,
but walked straight past the tower of photocopied
questionnaires on the table at the back of church,
quite happy not ever to have been asked their views
on this or that, and unlikely ever voluntarily to pick
up a questionnaire of such size and bearing such a
dull title.
There is probably also another group of people
who did pick one up, but on skimming through the
questions decided that the Sunday Telegraph cryptic
crossword was a simpler option.
Unrepresentative …
section of Catholics
I find myself in another group. It consists of people
who are glad of the Vatican’s interest in what people
beyond the rarefied world of the Vatican are actually
thinking and believing and experiencing as Catholics,
and therefore filled in the questionnaire to the
best of their ability; but who are nervous
about what the bishops intend
to do with the results
of the faithful’s hours
of
head-scratching,
pen-chewing
and
scribbling,
and
concerned that the
Synod is likely to hear
only the voices of an
unrepresentative
(literate,
educated) section of Catholics anyway.
understand its own social context
The Church does need to get a handle on the new
and very different situations and social realities in the
lives of many of the faithful; it needs to understand
its own social context, so that it can better conn ect
people as they are (rather than as it would like them to
be) to Christ. To that end I hope the questionnaire is a
profitable tool for the Synod of Bishops.
some greater, universal truth
outside ourselves
But getting a handle on the world around us is not
the same as hooking up with it. Unlike other bodies,
the Catholic Church does not subscribe to the belief
that all truth comes from public debate.
It believes that the “right answer” is not arrived at
arbitrarily by sounding out, or by democracy, majority
vote and concensus. Right and truth are based in some
greater, universal truth outside ourselves. These we
can discover, but never decide, together.
For what they’re worth, my answers are in the post.
Now it’s over to the Bishops…