A one-day study meeting — open only to a select group of individuals — took place at the Pontifical Gregorian University on May 25 with the aim of urging “pastoral innovations” at the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the Family in October.

Around 50 participants, including bishops, theologians and media representatives, took part in the gathering, at the invitation of the presidents of the bishops’ conferences of Germany, Switzerland and France — Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Bishop Markus Büchel and Archbishop Georges Pontier.

One of the key topics discussed at the closed-door meeting was how the Church could better welcome those in stable same-sex unions, and reportedly “no one” opposed such unions being recognized as valid by the Church.

Participants also spoke of the need to “develop” the Church’s teaching on human sexuality and called not for a theology of the body, as famously taught by St. John Paul II, but the development of a “theology of love.”

One Swiss priest discussed the “importance of the human sex drive,” while another participant, talking about holy Communion for remarried divorcees, asked: “How can we deny it, as though it were a punishment for the people who have failed and found a new partner with whom to start a new life?”

Marco Ansaldo, a reporter for the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica, who was present at the meeting, said the words seemed “revolutionary, uttered by clergymen.”

French biblicist and Ratzinger Prize-winner Anne-Marie Pelletier praised the dialogue that took place between theologians and bishops as a “real sign of the times.” According to La Stampa, another Italian daily newspaper, Pelletier said the Church needs to enter into “a dynamic of mutual listening,” in which the magisterium continues to guide consciences, but she believes it can only effectively do so if it “echoes the words of the baptized.” 

The meeting took the “risk of the new, in fidelity with Christ,” she claimed. The article also quoted a participant as saying the synod would be a “failure” if it simply continued to affirm what the Church has always taught.

The closed-door meeting, masterminded by the German bishops’ conference under the leadership of Cardinal Marx, was first proposed at the annual meeting of the heads of the three bishops’ conferences, held in January in Marseille, France.

The study day took place just days after the people of Ireland voted in a referendum in support of same-sex “marriage” and on the same day as the Ordinary Council of the Synod of Bishops met in Rome. Some observers did not see the timing as a coincidence.

The synod council has been drawing up the instrumentum laboris (working document) for the October synod on the family. Integrated into the document, expected to be published late this month, will be the responses of a questionnaire sent to laity around the world. Those responses, particularly from Switzerland and Germany, appeared to be overwhelmingly in favor of the Church adapting her teachings to the secular world.

No one would say why the study day was held in confidence. So secret was the meeting that even prominent Jesuits at the Gregorian were completely unaware of it. The Register learned about it when Jean-Marie Guénois was the first to report the information in a story in the French newspaper Le Figaro.

Speaking to the Register as he left the meeting, Cardinal Marx insisted the study day wasn’t secret. But he became irritated when pressed about why it wasn’t advertised, saying he had simply come to Rome in a “private capacity” and that he had every right to do so. Close to Pope Francis and part of his nine-member council of cardinals, the cardinal is known to be especially eager to reform the Church’s approach to homosexuals. During his Pentecost homily, Cardinal Marx called for a “welcoming culture” in the Church for homosexuals, saying it’s “not the differences that count, but what unites us.”

The meeting’s participants included Jesuit Father Hans Langendörfer, general secretary of the German bishops’ conference, who has been the leading figure behind the recent reform of German Church labor laws to controversially allow remarried divorcees and homosexual couples to work in Church institutions.

Among the specialists present was Father Eberhard Schockenhoff, a moral theologian. Faithful German Catholics are particularly disturbed about the rise to prominence of Father Schockenhoff, who is understood to be the “mastermind” behind much of the challenge to settled Church teachings among the German episcopate and, by implication, at the synod on the family itself.

A prominent critic of Humanae Vitae (The Regulation of Birth), as well as a strong supporter of homosexual clergy and those pushing for reform in the area of sexual ethics, Father Schockenhoff is known to be the leading adviser of the German bishops in the run-up to the synod.

In 2010, he gave an interview in which he praised the permanence and solidarity shown in some same-sex relationships as “ethically valuable.” He urged that any assessment of homosexual acts “must take a back seat” on the grounds that the faithful are becoming “increasingly distant from the Church’s sexual morality,” which appears “unrealistic and hostile to them.” The Pope and the bishops should “take this seriously and not dismiss it as laxity,” he said.

Father Schockenhoff has also insisted that the indissolubility of marriage is “not seriously called into question” by admitting remarried divorcees to holy Communion, writing a book to push his thesis in 2011 entitled “Opportunities for Reconciliation?: The Church and the Divorced and Remarried.” He has further proposed that the term the “official Church” should be done away with because of a growing gap between the institutional Church and the Church of the faithful. 

Also present were Marco Impagliazzo, president of the Sant’Egidio lay community; Jesuit Father Andreas Batlogg, professor of philosophy and theology and chief editor of the liberal periodical Stimmen der Zeit (Voices of the Time) — the journal has devoted its June issue to same-sex relationships and the synod — and Salesian Msgr. Markus Graulich, prelate auditor of the tribunal of the Roman Rota, one of very few Curial officials to attend. Some of those participating, such as Msgr. Graulich, took part in the previous synod.

This meeting is just the latest attempt to subtly steer the upcoming synod in a direction opposed by many faithful Catholics. A statement on the study day released by the German bishops’ conference May 26 said there was a “reflection on biblical hermeneutics” — widely seen as code words for understanding the Bible differently from Tradition — and the need for a “reflection on a theology of love.”

Critics say this, too, is undermining Church teaching. By replacing the theology of the body with a “theology of love,” it creates an abstract interpretation that separates sex from procreation, thereby allowing forms of extramarital unions and same-sex attractions based simply on emotions rather than biological reality. Gone, say critics, is the Catholic view of marriage, which should be open to procreation. The statement, which conspicuously failed to mention sin, ended by saying that “further discussion on the future of marriage and family is necessary and possible” and that it would be “enriched by a further, intensive theological reflection.”

This, too, is code for wanting a change in teaching, giving the impression that the doctrine in these areas is open to change. But for the Catholic Church, it is a settled issue.

“Imagine if the Church accepted homosexual relationships,” said one source speaking on condition of anonymity. “Ultimately, that is what these people want.”

 

Topics of Discussion

The Register obtained a copy of the topics of discussion at the May 25 event at the Gregorian. Translation is provided by Maike Hickson.

 

The Words of Jesus

The words of Jesus concerning marriage and divorce have to be interpreted in the context of his entire proclamation and of the Tradition of the Church. According to the dogmatic constitution on Divine Revelation in the Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum (8), the understanding of Tradition is the cause for progress in history: namely, because of the study and the considerations of the faithful, their own understanding of spiritual things and because of the teaching of the magisterium. What is the meaning of the spiritual experiences of the faithful for the hermeneutic of Scripture and Tradition? What significance lies in the experiences of the faithful in marriage and in the family, with respect to the understanding of the words of Jesus concerning marriage and divorce and their concretization in the context of the contemporary life realities?

 

‘Theology of Love’

The Second Vatican Council and the post-conciliar doctrinal developments have promoted a personal understanding of sexuality which considers sexual relationships as expressions of marital love. However, love between a man and a woman exists also outside of a canonically valid marriage. What significance can sexuality have in such relationships? A newly developed theology of love is therefore necessary, which can build upon the Tradition of the moral-theological capacity to differentiate and which includes new insights from anthropology and sociology. Part of this would be a personal understanding of sexuality which is not concentrated upon sexual acts or their consummations [compare to Schockenhoff’s comments on homosexual acts], but, rather, looks at the connection between eros and agape. How can these different forms of love be assessed moral-theologically and in a differentiated way? What is the “added value” of the sacramental marriage in comparison to other forms of living? The “Law of Graduality,” as it has been discussed at the last synod, or the reference to the teaching of the logoi spermatikoi, as made by the relatio: Can both — is it not so? — be starting points for a further development of the Church’s teaching on marriage?

 

‘Theology of the Biography’

Socially, in a highly complex and pluralistic society, the individual has a greater responsibility for one’s own way of life. Often, it does not follow traditional patterns anymore. The personal concepts of life and the conscientious decisions of the individual [now] play a greater role; biographical developments [sic] are part of the planning of life. To this fact, the pastoral practice concerning marriage and the family has to respond. What kind of new role could the proclamation of the Gospels and the formation of conscience play when the faithful in their relationships and in their sexual life do not live up to the demands of the Gospels? Concerning those people who have failed with their life designs, how can the Church accompany them with regard to pastoral care as well as, possibly, with regard to the liturgy? How can the Church proclaim convincingly the presence of God in such failures?