POPE Francis thanked God for the disputations that beset the Extraordinary Synod on the Family, because a noncontentious synod is one that’s not necessary to convene.
Saint Ignatius Loyola likened animated discussions to movements of the spirit. Indeed, unanimity suggests an easy conformity to comfortable truths or a widely shared stupidity. Okay, I said that. But Francis did say: I have seen and I have heard with joy and appreciation speeches of pastoral zeal, words of wisdom and frankness, of courage and parresia. A Catholic should know what parresia is, because Francis didn’t bother to explain.
He went on: For this is the Church—one, holy, catholic, apostolic and composed of sinners—needful of God’s mercy.
This, Francis said, is the true bride of Christ, who seeks to be faithful to her husband, obedient to His word. (Yikes, feminists won’t like that.) This is the Church that is not afraid to eat and drink with prostitutes and tax collectors. (But I myself think the Church should draw the line at public officials who must explain their wealth.)
This is the Church that has its doors wide open to receive the needy and the penitent, and not just the just or those who think they are just—what a laugh! (Okay, I added that last part, too.) And when the Church expresses herself in communion, by the very variety of her opinions she cannot make a mistake, because that is the Holy Spirit speaking in the tumult of opposing views.
The same Spirit, I guess, that gave the gift of tongues to the apostles.
Indeed, noise is life and silence is death, though stillness is the condition of communion as Francis’s favorite writer said on preparing for prayer and the necessity for silence and stillness. For in a raging storm at sea, above the screams of the passengers, the Holy Spirit speaks in the keening of the wind in the rigging. Christ was a sailor, after all.
Francis concluded by saying that the conclusions of the synod will be subjected to a year of silence, of utter stillness, before they are released for the guidance of families.
The coming year will be the calm after the storm, like the calm of complacency that preceded the synod. The boat is still far from the shore.
Image credits: Jimbo Albano