What is the Instrumentum Laboris anyhow?

(photo: Register Files)

Friday morning, the synodal assembly will reconvene in the hall of the blessed Pope Paul VI in the Vatican. In the morning session, there will be the fourth general congregation, consisting of relazione (or, reports) from the circuli minores (or, small groups). Additionally, there will be the first meeting of the Commissione per l'Elaborazione della Relazione finale. That commission is tasked with preparing the final synodal report.

The afternoon will continue with a report from Rapporteur General Cardinal Péter Erdő of Esztergom-Budapest, Hungary, the Cardinal-Priest of Santa Balbina in Rome. At the start of this week, he presented this synthesis of the Church’s Gospel of the Family. His presentation tomorrow will highlight the themes of the second part of the Instrumentum Laboris to be discussed next week.

That second part on “The Discernment of the Family Vocation” consists of three chapters: (1) ‘The Family and Divine Pedagogy,’ (2) ‘The Family and Church Life,’ and (3) ‘The Family and the Path Leading to its Fullness.’ Those chapters cover a range of topics, including: ‘Natural Marriage and the Fullness of the Sacrament,’ ‘Indissolubility: Gift and Task,’ ‘The Family in the Church’s Documents,’ ‘The Indissolubility of Marriage and the Joy of Sharing Life Together,’ ‘The Truth and Beauty of the Family towards Broken and Fragile Families,’ and ‘Mercy and Revealed Truth.’

The second chapter, scheduled for discussion in four small group sessions and two more general congregations next week, synthesizes teachings from the New Testament; the documents of the Second Vatican Council, especially Lumen Gentium and Gaudium et Spes; texts of Pope St. John Paul II, most notably his Exhortation Familiaris Consortio; Pope Benedict XVI’s third encyclical letter Caritas in Veritate; and catecheses on the family from Pope Francis, among other texts.

Saturday continues with the sixth and seventh general congregations. Before the Synod concludes on Sunday, October 25, there will have been eighteen such plenary sessions. During the sixth and seventh of them, there will be further interventions from the Synod fathers. In accordance with the particular law of the Synod, lay and non-voting members of the assembly are not permitted to speak from the floor of the aula. Between the evening hours of 18:00-19:00, there will be ‘interventi liberi’ (or, ‘free interventions’) on the themes of the aforementioned Instrumentum Laboris.

Inside the synodal aula, lay and non-voting members are not permitted to offer interventions. But, select lay auditors or experts are asked to deliver testimonies. A Vatican television interview with one of the married couples participating in the synodal assembly is available for viewing here. And, the Vatican Information Service has published a summary of yesterday’s testimonies here.

Unlike last year’s Synod, the assembly this month consists mostly of the work of the circuli minores (or, small groups). There are one German, two Spanish, three Italian, three French, and four English small groups. As Edward Pentin reported today, the small groups elected their moderators and rapporteurs or relators on Wednesday. Here are some highlights of the elections:

  • Archbishop Joseph Edward Kurtz, the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, was elected rapporteur of the Circulus Anglicus ‘A’ (or, English small group A).
  • Archbishop Charles Chaput, O.F.M., Cap. of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania was elected rapporteur of the Circulus Anglicus ‘D’ (or, English small group D). Last month, he hosted Pope Francis and the World Meeting of Families.
  • Cardinal Robert Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, was elected moderator of Circulus Gallicus ‘B’ (or, French small group B). Most recently, he is the author of God or Nothing, published by Ignatius Press.
  • Cardinal George Pell, Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, was elected moderator of Circulus Anglicus ‘A’  (or, English small group A). He is a member of Pope Francis’ Council of Cardinal Advisers, formally established by chirograph on September 28, 2013.  
  • Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster in England, was elected moderator of Circulus Anglicus ‘B’ (or, English small group B). Currently, he serves as the President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales.

Throughout the period of the Synod this month, there will be thirteen small group sessions, interrupted by general congregations. Their main task will be to discuss and comment upon the Instrumentum Laboris. Reports of their discussions will be collated and worked into the final report to be submitted to the pope.

This represents a significant change in synodal procedural methodology. Previously, synodal assemblies centered around plenary sessions, allowing for minimal discussion. Vatican News’ Philippa Hitchen interviewed Cardinal Vincent Nichols about this year’s changes. She reports that “Cardinal Nichols says the changes are important because they recognize that ‘this is part two’ of the Synod process and not a re-run of last October’s meeting.” The cardinal also noted that “Having a text to work on and ‘more time to get to know each other,’ with fuller participation of the women and married couples, is ‘really taking a forward step.’”

All this begs a question. What is the Instrumentum Laboris after all? To answer that question, it is necessary to take a step back in time.

In an intervention made Tuesday morning, Pope Francis stressed that the official documents of the 2014 Third Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on “Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization” are limited to his opening address of Monday, October 6, 2014; his closing address of Saturday, October 18, 2014; and the Relatio Synodi.

A series of questions were appended to the Relatio Synodi (or, Synod Report), thus constituting the Lineamenta of the 14th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the “Vocation and Mission of the Family in the Church and the Contemporary World.”

That document was circulated among the various local churches and episcopal conferences, including the synods of the Eastern Catholic Churches sui iuris, the Union of Superiors General, and the Roman Curia. In a letter dated Friday, December 12, 2014, that accompanied the text, Synod General Secretary Cardinal Lorenzo Baldiserri noted that

The previously mentioned ecclesial entities are asked to choose a suitable manner to engage all components of the particular churches and academic institutions, organizations, lay movements and other ecclesial associations in an ample consultation of the People of God on the family, within the framework of the synodal process. Once this consultation is completed on the local level, the same ecclesial entities are to submit a summary of the results to the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops by Easter, 15 April 2015.

In the period between the two synodal assemblies, there have been numerous consultations of the faithful on the issues, concerns, and questions of the 2014 Synod. These have taken place at a variety of levels within global Catholicism. Writing for the Catholic World Report, I covered some of them here, here, and here.

Upon their conclusion, reports were submitted as requested. The collated submissions were appended to the Relatio Synodi/Lineamenta, thus comprising the Instrumentum Laboris for this month’s three-week-long synodal assembly. This document was announced at mid-summer of this year.

At Roman noon on June 23, 2015, the Holy See Press Office called a conferenza stampa moderated by Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J. He introduced Synod General Secretary Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, Relator General Cardinal Péter Erdő, and Special Secretary Archbishop Bruno Forte of Chieti-Vasto, Italy.

After Fr. Lombardi’s introduction, Cardinal Baldiserri introduced the Instrumentum Laboris. Cardinal Erdő presented the first part of the document while Archbishop Forte discussed the theological and pastoral aspects of the second and third parts of the text.

In his remarks, Cardinal Baldiserri stressed that the Relatio Synodi constitutes a “clear and faithful summary of all that has been said and discussed in this hall and in the small groups.” And, he noted that “The text of the Lineamenta … confirms the extraordinary interest and active participation of the whole People of God.” And so, “In this way, the inter-Synodal period proved another valuable opportunity for the auditus Ecclesiae, or more exactly of listening to ‘what the Spirit says to the Churches’ (Rev. 2:17) in the plurality of [her] components.”

He characterized the document as comprised of three inter-related parts. In this connection, he observed that the document’s component parts “follow the structure of the Relatio Synodi, showing the close relationship between the two assemblies and their internal development.” These three call for “Listening to the challenges to the family (part I), drawing more directly the first synod; discernment of the vocation of the family (part II); and, the mission of the family today (part III), which is intended mainly to introduce the theme of the next Synod.”

Viewed in this way, the Instrumentum Laboris is best identified as an ecclesial text, aiming to represent the collegiality of the pope and the bishops, the synodality of the local churches, and the ecclesial co-responsibility of lay women and men. This does not mean the text is beyond reproach, however. And, some scholars have offered insights into how the text can be developed. It will be the business of the Synod to work on the text. Nevertheless, any responsible engagement with it will require what Pope Francis has called “ecclesial expression.”

What does that mean? The pope himself supplies the answer. At the start of this week’s first general congregation, and in the context of the synodal assembly’s celebration of the Church’s Liturgy of the Hours, he spoke these words:

I should mention that the Synod is neither a convention, nor a parlor, nor a parliament or senate, where people make deals and reach compromises. The Synod is rather an Ecclesial expression, i.e., the  Church that journeys together to read reality with the eyes of faith and with the heart of God; it is the Church that interrogates herself with regard to her fidelity to the deposit of faith, which does not represent for the Church a museum to view, nor even something merely to safeguard, but is a living source from which the Church shall drink, to satisfy the thirst of, and illuminate, the deposit of life.

The Synod moves necessarily within the bosom of the Church and of the holy people of God, to which we belong in the quality of shepherds – which is to say, as servants. The Synod also is a protected space in which the Church experiences the action of the Holy Spirit. In the Synod, the Spirit speaks by means of every person’s tongue, who lets himself be guided by the God who always surprises, the God who reveals himself to little ones, who hides from the knowing and intelligent; the God who created the law and the Sabbath for man and not vice versa; by the God, who leaves the 99 sheep to look for the one lost sheep; the God who is always greater than our logic and our calculations.

Let us remember, however, that the Synod will be a space for the action of the Holy Spirit only if we participants vest ourselves with apostolic courage, evangelical humility and trusting prayer: with that apostolic courage, which refuses to be intimidated in the face of the temptations of the world – temptations that tend to extinguish the light of truth in the hearts of men, replacing it with small and temporary lights; nor even before the petrification of some hearts, which, despite good intentions, drive people away from God; apostolic courage to bring life and not to make of our Christian life a museum of memories; evangelical humility that knows how to empty itself of conventions and prejudices in order to listen to brother bishops and be filled with God – humility that leads neither to finger-pointing nor to judging others, but to hands outstretched to help people up without ever feeling oneself superior to them.