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Catholic World News News Feature

Synod of Bishops: Third General Congregation October 09, 2008

The Holy See has released summaries of the interventions delivered Tuesday morning during the third general congregation of the Synod of Bishops, which is devoted to the Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church. Cardinal George Pell of Sydney, one of the synod’s three president delegates, presided over the congregation, which began with the celebration of Terce and concluded with the praying of the Angelus.

Twenty-three synod fathers made interventions (remarks), beginning with Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, who emphasized that the Word of God is contained in Sacred Tradition as well as Sacred Scripture and that priests, united to their bishops, have an irreplaceable role in proclaiming the Word of God. Cardinal Franc Rode, prefect of the Congregation for Religious, then discussed how each religious community’s charism consists of ‘particular aspects of the whole Gospel’ and called communities to go back to their roots in the Gospel. Noteworthy among the morning’s other interventions were the following:

--Australian Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Canberra-Goulburn expressed concern that many parishioners have been insufficiently evangelized with the basic Christian message. He called for the Vatican publication of a General Homiletic Directory.

-- Several speakers emphasized the importance of the proclamation of the Gospel at Mass and preparation for the homily. Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson called for a ‘year of preaching’ to follow the Year of St. Paul (June 2008-June 2009) in order to help priests prepare better homilies. Ukrainian Catholic Archbishop Lawrence Huculak of Winnipeg said that the proclamation of the Gospel should elicit the ‘awe-inspired fear of God, for this is the same God who created light out of darkness.’ Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne emphasized that Sacred Scripture is the book of the Church and ought above all to be proclaimed by the bishop from the pulpit.

-- Cardinal Francis George of Chicago called upon preachers to convert the intellect, imagination, and will of those to whom they preach. ‘Too often,’ he said, ‘the contemporary imagination has lost the image of God as actor in history. The contemporary intellect finds little consistency in the books of the Bible and is not informed by the regula fidei. The contemporary heart has not been shaped by worship and the submission to God's word in the liturgical year.’

-- Likewise, Hungarian Cardinal Peter Erdo of Esztergom-Budapest lamented the contemporary intellect’s lack of concern for historical truth. ‘The elementary categories of the search for historical truth,’ he said, ‘appear to carry less weight than before. Publications that are more sensationalist than scientific can create notable confusion in the thinking of the faithful and sometimes even of priests. The greatest risk is not that some people will not know what credibility they may give to an apocryphal text such as, for example, the Gospel of Judas, but that many people have no idea how to distinguish credible sources from non-credible sources regarding the history of Jesus Christ. Rather, it appears that more than a few people do not feel it is important to seek out the true history, because they think in a subjective and subjectivist way even about history.’

-- Phillipine Bishop Luis Tagle of Imus discussed how contemporary culture’s inability to listen posed challenges. ‘In Scriptures, when people listen to God's Word they experience true life. If they refuse, life ends in tragedy. Listening is a serious matter.’

--Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo of Manila called for guidelines for the interpretation of Scripture, a theme taken up by several other synod fathers. French Archbishop Pierre-Marie Carre of Albi called for guideline for the practice of lectio divina to help avoid subjectivist interpretations. Echoing other comments, Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois of Paris urged exegetes to be attentive not only to literatary and historical genres, but also to the ‘harmony of Scriptures of the old and the new Covenant, to the unity of Scriptures and Tradition, and to the analogy of faith.’ Italian Bishop Luciano Monari of Brescia urged all to remember that the purpose of reading Sacred Scripture is friendship with Christ. Several speakers echoed the synod working document’s statement that a ‘separation sometimes exists between biblical scholars and the pastors and everyday people of the Christian community.’

--Father Carlos Azpiroz Costa, master general of the Dominican order, called Christianity a religion of the Spirit and not of the book and upheld Dominican Father Marie-Joseph Lagrange (1855-1938) as a model exegete who was attentive to the historical and literary context in which Sacred Scripture was written. (Father Lagrange, founder of L’Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem and the father of modern biblical studies, is included in the late Father John Hardon’s Catholic Lifetime Reading Plan.)

-- Criticizing ‘a fundamentalist and subjective interpretation of the Word of God,’ Kinshasa Archbishop Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya decried ‘the cancerous proliferation of all types of sects.’

-- Bishop Florentin Crihalmeanu of Cluj-Gherla (Romania), an Eastern Catholic prelate, spoke on how the Sacred Scripture enters Eastern Catholic liturgy through sacred hymns and iconography, ‘to make our faith more profound, to transform our life into a daily liturgy and to recover, ourselves, the face of the icon [Christ] by whom we were created.’

-- Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, Archbishop of Lyon (France), lamented that the lectionary omitted certain passages of Scripture-- omissions that ‘weaken our catechesis’ and show Jesus’ anger. Cardinal Barbarin added, ‘Can we doubt Jesus’ anger is but an expression of His love?’

-- Bishop Norbert Strotmann Hoppe of Chosica (Peru) suggested that the synod’s working document, while theologically sound, was pastorally deficient, in part because it lumped all of North and South America into one category (the Americas).

-- Surprisingly, Archbishop Glen Adrian Lewandowski, OSC, master general of the Order of the Holy Cross, criticized developments in the Church’s liturgical tradition for ‘silencing’ the proclamation of the Gospel. ‘We regret how the turn in past history came to isolate the institution narrative as the consecration, separating it from its kerygmatic context and silencing it.’

-- In perhaps the morning’s most moving address, Bishop Benjamin Marc Ramaroson of Farafangana, Madagascar, urged the synod fathers to remember the illiterate who with great faith respond to the proclamation of God’s Word. ‘The majority of our people do not know how to read or write. Practicing the Word of God is often limited to reading done in the church during liturgical celebrations.Fortunately, this sad situation does not stop the Word of God from taking root … These illiterate persons have a strong sense of the sacred … It is easy for them to comment on this word and we are often surprised by the depths of certain spontaneous comments that would astound specialists. Sometimes, the richness of comments, marked by a spiritual depth which is never wrong, recalls that of the Fathers of the Church.’