Listen and follow the Holy Spirit, not those sowing confusion in the Church
At Wednesday’s (Oct 11) Synod press briefing, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea’s Grace Wrackia (main photo, in red) stood out because what she said encapsulates the essence of what is taking place at the Vatican: Listening.
The first Christian missionaries to arrive in her homeland on the northern tip of Australia in 1845 were Marists from the Society of Mary. Since then, she tells us, the country of over eight million today has grown to 20 Dioceses in Papua New Guinea, with another three in the Solomon Islands (Population: 707, 8510). Both have a combined total of 23 Bishops.
About 25% and 20% of their respective population are Catholic. How this happened in Papua New Guinea, a country of a thousand tribes speaking 840 languages – which is the most diverse in the world – is nothing short of a miracle.
Before Christianity arrived, Wrackia says spirituality of four elements dominated the Melanisian community, as the Papua people are collectively known. These elements are community living, an integrated worldview, harmonious relationships with the cosmos and spiritual and physical beings, and religious rituals.
These elements enabled my ancestors to embraced Christianity, especially Catholicism. That way of life continues to live today in my generation, but it is a struggle to keep these elements together because of so many influences we have had – from the period of colonisation to currently globalisation and secularisation. This has affected the integrity of community living.
Grace Wrackia of Papua New Guinea
Still, Wrackia, adds that despite these developments, community living is very much alive in her country. They continue to live in communion with one another, and this, she points out, resonates with the three pillars of Synodality – communion, participation, and mission – where they see each other as family. For the Melanisians, their view of family and relationship extends beyond bloodlines, ethnicity and geography.
Giving a heartfelt nod to Pope Francis’ Synod on Synodality, Wrackia, says, “For so many years we have been listening. Now we’d like to speak and we’d like you to listen. We have something to give to the world. And what we give is from our heart is our way of living, living in communion, living together and building relationships.”
Listening and changing how we think
It is listening to such witnesses as Wrackia, that moved Cardinal Gérald Cyprien Lacroix, Archbishop of Québec (Canada), who was also present at the press briefing, to share his experience of “enrichment” during the Synod at the Vatican’s Paul VI hall.
“The methodology we are using is directed towards listening to the Lord, His Word, His presence in every baptized person, and this allows us to be open to the other and to the others. We can find nuances, change what we think, and that is how we see that God is working and is working in all people.” He adds that living all this on a personal level “leads me to adjust, to refine, to change my thinking a little”.
The Canadian Cardinal’s words resonate with what Pope Francis said about the Synod – that the Holy Spirit, and no one else, is its Protagonist, not only during the assembly at the Vatican, but in the mystical Body of Christ in the entire world right from the start.
So why has there been resistance, and even opposition, to this event that Pope Francis launched in the autumn of 2021, a negativity that continues to this day?
I woke up this morning to a message from a friend, who posted a defiant meme he saw from a prominent Catholic theologian, who has a large following. The theologian used the Synod’s official image and changed the actual tagline of “Walking Together” to “Falling Together.”
If the Holy Spirit is the One moving everything in the Synod, such antagonistic behaviour, including the recent dubias of five Cardinals, can only be described as contrary to this Divine movement.
But before we conclude their actions are the work of the Devil, please stop there.
God endowed men and women with free will, and the good or evil choices we make are entirely ours and not Satan’s. Baptism cleanses us of original sin, but it does not free us from finding sin attractive.
This defect, called concupiscence, is part of our fallen human condition that responds to the allure of sin. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church (No. 2515) teaches: “Concupiscence stems from the disobedience of the first sin. It unsettles man’s moral faculties and, without being in itself an offence, inclines man to commit sins”.
So, leave the poor devil alone and don’t blame him as the cause for all the wrong choices we make. It does not mean, though, he will not exploit our concupiscence and tempt us to choose sin instead of the Grace of Christ. After all, if he had the audacity to tempt Our Lord in the desert, we are chicken feed to him.
But Christ has shown us the way, which is to keep our eyes focused on Him because without Him, we can do nothing that is pleasing to God. As St Paul entreats us in Ephesians 6:10, “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”
Our goal, therefore, must be to shut out all the disruptive noises directed against Pope Francis and the Synod. The Holy Father started the Synod to prompt the Church to find a better way of moving forward to listening to our brothers and sisters, no matter who they are, where they come from and the state they are in.
The ‘three’ Synods
It seems at this point in time, though, there are three Synods going on simultaneously: the synod of mainstream Catholic and non-Catholic media, the social media synod and the actual Synod in Rome.
The first two, full of false and biased opinions not based on facts, are disproportionately weighed against Pope Francis and the Synod. Unfortunately because of the powerful influence they yield, they have been able to sway many well-meaning Catholics, including not a few prelates, clergy and theologians, to their point of views. What those who have read or viewed the misleading content have done is to only repeat all the misinformation they’ve consumed without, I suspect, doing any due diligence to verify the actual facts.
Fortunately, there are honest Catholics who have done this work and thanks to them, we can get a complete picture of what is going on.
One of these is Archbishop Richard Smith of Edmonton, who across the Atlantic Ocean in Canada, gives a good analysis of the so-called three synods, which all Catholics of goodwill ought to listen to. He speaks on the programme, Synod Anxiety: Archbishop Speaks Out on the Synod, Changes in Doctrine, and Dubia Questions, which was released earlier this week. Watch the video below.
Another podcast worth watching and listening to is that of well-known theologian Michael Lofton Faith and Reason’s programme, Will the Dubia Cardinals Stop This Chaos?, on his Youtube Channel.
Perhaps, newly created Polish Cardinal Gregorz Ryś, 59, best sums up the opposition to Pope Francis and the Synod in an interview he gave earlier this month. The following is the full quote from His Eminence.
I don’t want to defend the pope. I want to follow him and to obey his teaching. He’s Peter; not me. When I am asked about all this (opposition to Pope Francis), I usually answer that we behave completely unjustly toward the pope because the opposition to him is always based on one or two phrases taken out of context. I always ask [the pope’s critics]: Have you read ‘Evangelii Gaudium’? What do you think of it? ‘Evangelii Gaudium’, not the one or two sentences that he said to the journalists on the plane, is the program for Francis’ pontificate and for the church.
Cardinal Gregorz Ryś
Adds the Cardinal, “I noticed only one week ago when he was in Marseille, Francis gave a speech that in my view is one of the most important speeches he has given as pope, and I looked in the Polish newspapers and blog sites for at least a summary of it, but there was nothing. Nothing!
“On the other hand, there was much criticism of the pope after his speech to young Russian Catholics in St. Petersburg. But nobody speaks about his real speech to them. He gave a long speech; he spoke half an hour, and he offered them all his teaching from the World Youth Day in Lisbon, knowing that they couldn’t go to Lisbon. It was a wonderful speech again, but they only look at one sentence that he added on at the end. This is unjust. It is completely unjust how we treat Francis in our discussions [in Poland].”
We need to ask a question of ourselves: How many of us are among the unjust when it comes to Pope Francis and his Synod?
Our worldview is shaped by what we choose to read. A follow-up question is: Are we being honest when we selective read, watch or view content because they affirm our preconceived views? If we are, and propagate this, then, we risk misleading Catholics who look up to us for our opinions.
Don’t be the one who leads innocent sheep astray.
