Post by Daniel on Oct 23, 2015 8:35:09 GMT -5
Vatican meeting reveals growing Catholic divide over divorce and homosexuality
By Anthony Faiola October 22, 2015
VATICAN CITY — During a major summit of the Roman Catholic hierarchy that will end this weekend, a senior conservative bishop took the floor inside the Vatican’s assembly hall and promptly charged his liberal peers with doing the devil’s work.
The three-week gathering, known as a synod, has erupted into a theological slugfest over Pope Francis’s vision of a more-inclusive church, and it has displayed the most bitter and public infighting since the heady days of Catholic reform in the 1960s.
Archbishop Tomash Peta of Kazakhstan captured the magnitude of the divide, raising eyebrows — and a few incredulous laughs — as he decried some of the policy changes floated at the meeting as having the scent of “infernal smoke.”
It was just another day at a gathering that, more than any event since Francis began his papacy in 2013, has highlighted how the pontiff’s outreach to once-scorned Catholics has triggered a tug of war for the soul of the Catholic Church. More important, it underscored just how hard it may be for the pope to recast the church in his image.
The pushback by traditionalists has been so strong that the chances of fast changes on contentious family issues — whether to offer Communion to divorced and remarried Catholics or to craft more-welcoming language for gays and lesbians — have substantially dimmed, if not died.
As the synod’s end nears, there has been a last-ditch push to find common ground that could at least open the door to policy alterations. But some observers already are comparing Francis to President Obama — a man whose reformist agenda was bogged down by a conservative Congress.
“Francis has the same problem that Obama had,” said the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a senior analyst for the National Catholic Reporter. “He promised the world, but Congress wouldn’t let him deliver. If nothing much comes of this synod, I think people will give the pope a pass and blame the bishops for stopping change.”
continue reading
www.washingtonpost.com/world/at-vatican-synod-outreach-pushback-and-stuggles-over-soul-of-the-church/2015/10/22/6da0a5c6-71b9-11e5-ba14-318f8e87a2fc_story.html
By Anthony Faiola October 22, 2015
VATICAN CITY — During a major summit of the Roman Catholic hierarchy that will end this weekend, a senior conservative bishop took the floor inside the Vatican’s assembly hall and promptly charged his liberal peers with doing the devil’s work.
The three-week gathering, known as a synod, has erupted into a theological slugfest over Pope Francis’s vision of a more-inclusive church, and it has displayed the most bitter and public infighting since the heady days of Catholic reform in the 1960s.
Archbishop Tomash Peta of Kazakhstan captured the magnitude of the divide, raising eyebrows — and a few incredulous laughs — as he decried some of the policy changes floated at the meeting as having the scent of “infernal smoke.”
It was just another day at a gathering that, more than any event since Francis began his papacy in 2013, has highlighted how the pontiff’s outreach to once-scorned Catholics has triggered a tug of war for the soul of the Catholic Church. More important, it underscored just how hard it may be for the pope to recast the church in his image.
The pushback by traditionalists has been so strong that the chances of fast changes on contentious family issues — whether to offer Communion to divorced and remarried Catholics or to craft more-welcoming language for gays and lesbians — have substantially dimmed, if not died.
As the synod’s end nears, there has been a last-ditch push to find common ground that could at least open the door to policy alterations. But some observers already are comparing Francis to President Obama — a man whose reformist agenda was bogged down by a conservative Congress.
“Francis has the same problem that Obama had,” said the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a senior analyst for the National Catholic Reporter. “He promised the world, but Congress wouldn’t let him deliver. If nothing much comes of this synod, I think people will give the pope a pass and blame the bishops for stopping change.”
continue reading
www.washingtonpost.com/world/at-vatican-synod-outreach-pushback-and-stuggles-over-soul-of-the-church/2015/10/22/6da0a5c6-71b9-11e5-ba14-318f8e87a2fc_story.html
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