Opening weekly series on family, Pope speaks of open debate at Synod
December 10, 2014
At his public audience on December 10, Pope Francis began a new series of weekly talks on the subject of the family, in preparation for the October 2015 meeting of the Synod of Bishops, which is dedicated to that topic.
The Pope began by looking back on the recent meeting of the Synod, in October. The media, he observed, had often covered the discussions as if they were a sporting event. “They often spoke of two teams: pro and con, conservatives and liberals, and so on.”
In reality, the Pope said, the October meeting was a candid exchange among brother-bishops. The entire meeting, he observed, took place “cum Petro et sub Petro,” and the presence of the Pontiff was “a guarantee of freedom and trust for all, and a guarantee of orthodoxy.”
While there was not a factional contest during the Synod, Pope Francis acknowledged that there were open disagreements. He said that he had been asked whether there were fights among the bishops who participated, and answered: “I don’t know about ‘fought’ but they had strong words.” That was not a problem, the Pope added. “This is freedom; this is just the kind of freedom that there is in the Church.”
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