The remarkable gathering of global Catholic leaders in Rome that ended on Saturday has mostly been filtered through a political lens, as a debate between factions. Thus the hopes of gay people and the divorced were raised by a swing to the liberals but dashed by the conservatives reasserting themselves. But that doesnâ??t capture what happened. The actual dynamic was more complex, and very different.
For the bishops who attended, assent to doctrinal orthodoxy was the starting point. What Pope Francis called â??the fundamental truths of the sacrament of marriageâ? were never in question: before, during and after the synod, sex was for marriage, marriage was for a man and a woman, open to life, for life, and sexually faithful. There was no debate on these points. Pope Francis did not call this synod to change teaching, but to expand it to include the missing part: the â??missionaryâ? and â??pastoralâ? dimension â?? the merciful, healing, loving, welcoming part of Catholicism, which those outside the faith donâ??t get to see. Understand why they donâ??t and you get the point of the synod.
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