A young woman prays during Mass in 2017 at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Beijing. The synod’s final document will seek to address issues concerning all young people and not just those issues facing young men and women living in Western countries, said members participating in the Synod of Bishops. (CNS photo/Wu Hong, EPA)
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The synod’s final document will seek to address issues concerning all young people and not just those issues facing young men and women living in Western countries, said members participating in the Synod of Bishops.
The various speeches and small-group discussions within the synod process have “enabled us to see the entirety of the many issues that young people face around the world,” Samoan observer Joseph Sapati Moeono-Kolio said Oct. 23 at a Vatican briefing for journalists.
Throughout the discussions leading up to the synod’s final week, Sapati said, small groups “have been very specific and intentional that we don’t become too Western with our approach.”
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“Whether or not there will be a Western focus on the document, we don’t know, we haven’t read it, it’s not fully finished yet. But I can say for certain that in the process leading up to that, everyone that has been part of the synod has been very intentional in making sure that that it is not Eurocentric,” he said.
Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila told journalists that, as someone involved in the preparations leading up to the synod, “there was this sort of attention to the diversity and complexity of contexts so that” the process would not be “accused again” of being Eurocentric.
However, he noted, even the small language groups are challenged in understanding and expressing the issues discussed because “every language carries a whole world and culture.”
“I belong to the English-speaking group. But we came from different continents and, wow, I realized we were using eight or nine different types of English,” Cardinal Tagle said. “And so, having the label ‘English Group D’ doesn’t mean we understand the same things when we use the same word. So, there will always be this challenge of finding some sort of common ground in the midst of diversity.”
Congolese Bishop Bienvenu Manamika Bafouakouahou of Dolisie also confirmed that during the synod discussions, there was “a universality of themes” that centered on how they affect all young people and not just those in Europe or farther West.
Discussions, such as those concerning Catholics who identify as LGBTQ, are not a major issue in Africa compared to Europe, Bishop Manamika said.
However, the Congolese bishop said the issue of how best to minister to people in the LGBTQ community “will be more widespread” in Africa as time goes on and, therefore, will be an important theme to discuss.
Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro, editor of La Civilta Cattolica, told journalists that the increasingly diverse representation throughout the history of the Synod of Bishops “makes the conversation between synod fathers richer and more complex” and allows the church to be able to listen to and “immerse itself in different cultures.”
“An event like the synod,” Father Spadaro said, “becomes almost a miraculous event where people from every part of the world share the same faith but embody it in different cultural contexts where they can converge on some issues.”
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It is difficult for me to comprehend how the Instrumentum Laboris left out any mention of the challenge of chastity and yet there is so much talk going forward about ‘sexual identity.’ It seems the same influences that impoverish discussions at the UN are present and active.. But who should be surprised if our bishops can’t talk the truth in love about chastity when it seems endemic that so many can’t govern their own dioceses in that light. God bless and help you and all of us.
How can an article seem like it’s headed towards bringing to light the actual sufferings of so many migrants, of exploited and unemployed youth, of impoverished peoples — how could the article end up spending so much time talking about LGBTQ? What about the ground of such identity suffering: addiction to porn, cultural and media saturated sexual craziness, abusive family situations, inappropriate use of social media and in the encouragement of so many in the medical and psychological fields towards experimentation of younger and younger children with hormone gender therapy readying for self-mutilation and of labeling oneself one way or the other at younger and younger ages?
I respect Father Martin’s vocation but find his current messages very myopic and very disturbing. To whom is he talking? To the young people (from age 4 up to 15) whose ‘gender dysphoria’ is being coddled and encouraged and who are embarking on life-changing sex changing therapies? To folks who are mean to others different than themselves? Be clear because all of the above are thinking it’s they who are being talked to but the mean folks may not be listening as much as the young ones.
I would like to see a sign like this outside our churches. No need to single out any one of us abnormal sinners. (BTW let’s change the Hail Mary: “pray for us abnormal sinners” because who isn’t in today’s world?)
Here’s the message:
We’re a mess. But we go in here because we want to be holy. Join us if you want to pray for and with us.
I apologize for the West. We have been subverted by our own love of comfort, our fears, and the money that is going big time into destroying family and the common good through the media and perhaps into our church leadership.I am a grandma whose lifelong vocation for the child and the church are sensing extreme danger and dissonance in a way that going forward could leave many young people in the water with sharks. I do hope to hear from the ‘smaller islands’ that Archbishop Fisher of Australia spoke of. They might help turn our attention from the big islands we are making of ourselves.
Look not on our sins, Lord, but on the faith of your Church and save your people. Please.