REALITY BITES

LIMA, PERU CATHOLIC LEADERS WANT A LATIN AMERICAN CHURCH THAT’S SYNODAL

The church in Latin America and the Caribbean is called to be a missionary church that heeds the cry of the poor and excluded; a synodal church where women, young people, and laypeople have greater roles; and a church that is evangelised even as it evangelises, according to the final document of the church’s First Ecclesial Assembly held a year ago in Mexico.

The document of reflections and pastoral challenges resulting from the assembly was released by leaders of the Latin American bishops’ council, CELAM, on October 31 during a news conference at the Vatican.

The publication reflects a desire for a church that “goes out to the periphery … a Samaritan church … a church that builds fraternity, which is grounded in love, in the encounter with those who suffer most,” Archbishop José Luis Azuaje of Maracaibo, Venezuela, president of Caritas in Latin America and the Caribbean, said in a video message at the presentation.

The document is the fruit of a months long process that included a “listening” period from April to August 2021, during which some 70,000 people throughout the region provided input, followed by the weeklong assembly on Nov. 21-28.

That process made the ecclesial assembly “a practical laboratory” for the Synod of Bishops on synodality, which began with listening sessions this year, to be followed by meetings in Rome in 2023 and 2024, said Archbishop Miguel Cabrejos of Trujillo, Peru, CELAM president.

SYNOD REPORTS SHOW ENTHUSIASM FOR MISSION, BUT ALSO IDENTIFY OBSTACLES

Catholics around the globe long to share the Gospel with a world in need, but they see situations and tensions within the church that challenge their ability to do so, said one of the drafters of the document for the continental phase of the Synod of Bishops.

The reports sent to the Vatican from local and national listening sessions show “a deep, deep hunger for a new confidence in the church, a confidence in its ability to proclaim the Gospel to a world so deeply in need,” said Anna Rowlands, a professor of Catholic social thought and practice at Durham University in England.

Rowlands, who read many of the contributions to the synod before helping draft the new document, told reporters at the Vatican on October 27 that the reports showed that confidence is challenged by internal church problems, especially the clerical abuse scandal.

With “just as much” focus on mission, she said, the reports ask, “What condition does the church have to be in in its own internal life and relationships to be able to carry that message to the world? To meet Christ in the world and bring Christ to the world in a Spirit-led way?”

In talking about exclusion and clericalism and a lack of listening to each other, “the reports are saying there are aspects of our own relationships, our capacity for genuine unity in diversity,” that stand in the way, Rowlands said. The reports acknowledge that it is difficult to speak authoritatively to the world of reconciliation in Christ “if we cannot ourselves be brothers and sisters, if we can’t heal our own divisions, our mutual suspicions, our lack of fundamental trust.”

The synod document is titled “Enlarge the Space of Your Tent,” a quotation of the Lord’s command to the people of Israel in the Book of Isaiah.

“Enlarging the tent requires welcoming others into it, making room for their diversity,” the document said. But echoing the submissions to the synod’s Vatican office, the document listed people and groups who often feel excluded or are seen to be excluded: women, young people, people with disabilities, the poor, those who are divorced and civilly remarried, single parents, those in polygamous marriages and members of the LGBTQ communities.

VATICAN CITY

NAIROBI, KENYA AFRICAN BISHOPS: NO CLIMATE JUSTICE WITHOUT LAND JUSTICE

As the U.N climate change conference unfolded in the Egyptian city of Sharm elSheikh, Catholic bishops in Africa warned that there cannot be climate justice without land justice.

The bishops of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar said on November 8 that land, natural resources, and the ecosystem were the main sources of subsistence for the people in Africa, but many did not have access to land due to perverse commercial relations and ownership.

At the same time, as the people struggled against the current global climate crisis, they were victims of land and water grabs, experienced pollution of their water and soil by pesticides, and were losing biodiversity and traditional seeds, according to the bishops.

“Communities share the experience that, as they claim their rights to land, they are being persecuted, which is leading to more violent conflicts, despair, and instability,” Congolese Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, president of SECAM’s Justice, Peace and Development Commission, said in a statement titled, “No climate justice without land justice.”

The cardinal said it was clear the communities would be better if their resources were not captured by powerful people and corporations and given away by weak public institutions.

“We are denouncing false solutions that deprive local communities of their livelihoods, their land rights, and tenure. We join communities in mobilising against ill-advised large-scale land acquisition investments and their struggle against land grabs,” said Cardinal Ambongo Besungu, archbishop of Kinshasa.

The statement listed multinational companies it said were involved in land grabs in Congo, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Mozambique, Uganda, and Tanzania.

VATICAN CONFIRMS IT IS OPENING ABUSE INVESTIGATION OF FRENCH CARDINAL

VATICAN CITY

The Vatican has decided to open an investigation into French Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, the retired archbishop of Bordeaux, who admitted in a public letter that he had abused a 14-year-old girl 35 years ago.

“As a result of the elements that have emerged in the last few days and the statement made by the cardinal, in order to complete the examination of what happened, it has been decided to initiate an ‘investigatio praevia,’” or preliminary investigation, Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, said on November 11.

Bruni would not say if the decision was made by Pope Francis, although because the case involves a cardinal who is a member of Vatican dicasteries and who, at 78, is still eligible to participate in a conclave, people familiar with the workings of the Vatican assume the pope had to agree.

The person “best suited” to conduct the investigation “with the necessary autonomy, impartiality and experience is now being evaluated, also in view of the fact that the French judicial authorities have an open file on the case,” Bruni said.

The Vatican’s customary practice, he said, would be to wait until the French civil authorities have closed their case to begin any kind of canonical procedure, in which case the Vatican could request documentation from the judicial authorities to use in their process as well.

During the French bishops’ autumn meeting in Lourdes on November 7, Archbishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort of Reims, president of the bishops’ conference, read a letter from Cardinal Ricard admitting to the abuse.

Later, the archbishop said he had been informed in February of Cardinal Ricard’s past and that he had been in communication with the victim, who did not want to be identified publicly.

The Marseille public prosecutor’s office also heard of the allegations before Cardinal Ricard’s letter was read; it opened an investigation of Cardinal Ricard on suspected “aggravated sexual assault” in late October.

In his letter, Cardinal Ricard admitted to engaging in “reprehensible” conduct against the girl when he was a priest. He said his behaviour “has necessarily caused serious and lasting consequences for this person.”

VATICAN CITY LIVE THE GOSPEL BY TREATING OTHERS AS A BROTHER OR SISTER, POPE SAYS

Treating everyone as a brother or sister is the clearest, most simple way to live the Gospel each day, Pope Francis has said.

“It is an invitation without exclusion: brothers and sisters all in humanity and love,” the pope wrote in a message to members of FOCSIV, a federation of mostly Italy-based Catholic volunteer organisations that work internationally.

Representatives of the federation met the pope at the Vatican on November. 14 as part of their celebration of the organisation’s 50th anniversary. Twenty organisations founded the group in 1972; today it includes 94 organisations working in 80 countries.

Ivana Borsotto, the group’s president, told Pope Francis, “We seek to be a neighbour in the most abandoned peripheries, in the most remote villages, in the most inhumane prisons, along the cruelest migratory routes, in the most crowded refugee camps and in war-torn countries.”

In his prepared text, Pope Francis said development work, like what FOCSIV members promote in many of the world’s poorest countries, is the only real response to concerns about migration.

“Think of how many young people today are forced to leave their land in search of a dignified existence; how many men, women and children face inhumane journeys and violence of all kinds in order to seek a better tomorrow; how many continue to die on the routes of despair, while their fate is discussed or we turn away,” the pope wrote.

“Forced migration — to escape war, hunger, persecution or climate change — is one of the great evils of this age,” he said, and “we will only be able to address at its root by ensuring real development in every country.”