Maybe I am being over-optimistic, but I am greatly encouraged by what I am reading about the first two days of the Synod.
Clearly Francis has created a very different mood and atmosphere from previous Synods. His encouragement to all speakers to speak their truth without fear, or without concern about what people might think of them, or if the Pope might be offended, is a great help. And it seems to me that it is already working.
Dear Cardinal Pell,
In the lead-up to next month’s Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family you and a number of your confreres are re-asserting the church’s longstanding exclusion of divorced and remarried people from communion.
Your foreword to The Gospel of the Family appears to leave us with little doubt: outsiders are not welcome.
The news, as reported by the current Tablet (http://www.thetablet.co.uk/UserFiles/Files/3_Letter_from_Fitzpatrick_to_Archbishop_Cushley.pdf)
of the behaviour of the CDF towards the Edinburgh Newman Circle makes for depressing and confusing reading.
In summary, the CDF responded to an anonymous complaint after a lecture given by Joe Fitzgerald, accusing him of challenging Church teaching on Original Sin. They made no contact with Joe, or with anyone who could give them a proper account of the lecture or of the book that Fitzpatrick has written outlining his views on the subject.
