By Gerald E. Murray, First Things, April 20, 2023
The Rev. Gerald E. Murray, J.C.D. is pastor of Holy Family Church in New York.
The recently published North American Final Document for the Continental Stage of the 2021–2024 Synod (NAFD) confirms suspicions that the discussions at the October 2023 Synod on Synodality will almost certainly center around the alleged failure of the Church to be inclusive, welcoming, and respectful. The supposedly aggrieved include well over half of the faithful: “women, young people, immigrants, racial or linguistic minorities, LGBTQ+ persons, people who are divorced and remarried without an annulment.” Not listed here are faithful Catholics, exiled from their parishes, who prefer to attend the Traditional Latin Mass. Not all grievances are created equal.
The NAFD takes for granted that there is a tension between being inclusive, welcoming, and hospitable and being faithful to Christ: “Alongside the desire to be a more inclusive and welcoming Church was the need to understand how to be more hospitable, while maintaining and being true to Church teaching.” The just-below-the-surface assumption here is that fidelity to the Church’s teaching needs to be re-imagined and re-worked so that various people will not feel that they are being excluded and rejected. Church teaching is put on trial. Rejection of that teaching is accorded pride of place. …
