When it comes to marriage, sexuality and family life there is a gulf between what the Church teaches and what Catholics live. The Instrumentum Laboris, the document prepared as a basis for discussion in the first session of the synod on the family to be held between today and October 19, referring to the answers given to the questionnaire, states that: “Many respondents confirmed that, even when the Church’s teaching about marriage and the family is known, many Christians have difficulty accepting it in its entirety”.

This divergence is worrying Pope Francis and he is hoping that the synod contributes towards its elimination. While the related issues include birth control, divorce and remarriage, homosexuality, cohabitation, fidelity, premarital sex, and in vitro fertilisation, among others, the issues of birth control and the position of remarried divorced Catholics will probably occupy centre stage.

As causes for this divergence, the Instrumentum Laboris mentions the influence of the mass media, the hedonistic culture, relativism, materialism, individualism, the growing secularism and the prevalence of ideas that lead to an excessive, selfish liberalisation of morals, among others. It adds: [a lack of] “an authentic Christian experience, namely, an encounter with Christ on a personal and communal level, for which no doctrinal presentation, no matter how accurate, can substitute.”

These reasons are external to the Church but there seem to be difficulties that come from the teaching itself. The document also states that there is divergence between the Church’s official teaching and the position of some theologians.

At the heart of this divergence there is the question of natural law which the Church uses to define most doctrine on family life. The Instrument Laboris itself admits that the concept of natural law “poses difficulty today”. Theologian Charles Curran argues that throughout the centuries, people understood different things by the concept. (The Tablet, July 10)

The synod Fathers will have quite a tough nut to crack

In the mind of the Church, “natural” means objective and rational, implying non-change. However, the document itself states that many contend that, “scientific research poses a serious challenge to the concept of nature. Evolution, biology and neuroscience, when confronted with the traditional idea of the natural law, conclude that it is not ‘scientific’”.

Both the teaching that marriage is a union between a man and a woman and that which deals with the necessity for every sexual act to be open to procreation, are based on natural law. The Church teaches that this is so because it is the nature of things. Challenging the concept of natural law, one would be saying: “But is it?”

One interesting phrase in the Instrumentum Laboris is that “The encyclical Humanae Vitae certainly had a prophetic character in reiterating the unbreakable link between conjugal love and the transmission of life”.

That Humanae Vitae had a prophetic character is quite new. Yet, the late Jesuit Fr Gustav Martelet, considered to have been the ghost writer of Humanae Vitae, had written an article precisely on this point. He wrote that Pope Paul VI was drawing the attention of the world that breaking this link was opening the way to rendering sex banal. Time proved him right. However, the question remains: “Was it just prophetic or was it more?”

From this we can easily see that the synod Fathers will have quite a tough nut to crack. Possibly this is the reason why Pope Francis wants this synod to have two sessions rather than one. Being compassionate is important, but truth must also be respected. So, there will also be a great effort to get to know the truth better.

As Michael Winters remarked: “The most important thing will be its methodology. Will it be, like previous synods, a series of canned speeches… or will there be real dialogue, time to question assertions, explanations of different cultural realities faced by the particular churches throughout the world?” (National Catholic Reporter, June 26)

True collegiality demands that it be according to the second way, as it was in Vatican II.

alfred.j.micallef@um.edu.mt

Fr Alfred Micallef is a member of the Society of Jesus.