Synod to Open with Penance for Sins, Including “Doctrine as Stones to Be Hurled”
In one week, the Synod on Synodality’s second and final global assembly will begin, marking the end of a three-year process through which Pope Francis and many Catholics have aspired to reform and renew the church.
By now, the prominent—and arguably central—role that LGBTQ+ issues have played is well-known. The faithful on nearly every continent were clear that greater inclusion is strongly desired, which was also reflected for the first time in Vatican documents. And yet, there have been stark disappointments, too, such as the absence of any mention of concern about LGBTQ+ ministry in the 2023’s global assembly’s final report.
Throughout this October’s assembly, Bondings 2.0 will be reporting live from Rome on LGBTQ+ developments and related news. Today’s post begins that coverage with a possible moment where LGBTQ+ issues could emerge next month.
Penitential Service: Doctrine as Hurled Stones
On the eve of the General Assembly’s opening, Pope Francis will lead a penitential service at St. Peter’s Basilica. During the service, the institutional church will “ask for forgiveness by calling out sins by name, feeling pain and even shame” with a view “towards the beginning of a new way of being Church.”
A press release about the service names seven sins for which the institutional church asks forgiveness, and most relevant to LGBTQ+ Catholics are the “Sin of using doctrine as stones to be hurled” and the”Sin against synodality / lack of listening, communion, and participation of all.” The others are sins against peace; against creation, Indigenous peoples, and migrants; of abuse; agains women, family, youth; and against poverty.
While the press release does not name LGBTQ+ people, few communities have so routinely and so harmfully had church doctrine used against them “as stones to be hurled.” Indeed, it is not only the recitation of negative teachings to the community, but the language and substance of the teachings themselves which denigrate queer people. And these doctrinal stones have deeply pained loved ones and allies, too, as the synodal process forcefully made clear.
The service is potentially an historic moment in church history. While individual church leaders have made apologies to LGBTQ+ people for the harms done, this has never been done at such high-level and in such a formal manner. The press release is clear the penitential service is not just naming sin, but acknowledging the institutional church’s complicity “by omission or action” in being “responsible for the evil inflicted on the innocent and defenceless.”
As the press release states, “To confess one’s sins is the condition for a new beginning.” And there is an emphasis on young people, who have been given a special invitation to attend, because “the request for forgiveness is the first step of a faith-filled and missionary credibility that must be reestablished.”
Still, the penitential service may face the same limitations for “a new beginning” that last year’s Synod assembly faced: how far can forgiveness and reconciliation go if the institutional church cannot apologize to LGBTQ+ people directly by name? Perhaps opening this year’s assembly by recalling the doctrines hurled as stones will give delegates an impetus to go further.
Other Notable Events
This years’ assembly will also include four public “Theological-Pastoral Forums” on the following topics: “The People of God, Subject of the Mission,” “The Role and Authority of the Bishop in a Synodal Church, “The Mutual Relations between the Local Church and the Universal Church,” and” The Exercise of the Primacy and the Synod of Bishops.” On October 11th, an ecumenical prayer service will again be held. And a retreat day will be held in the assembly’s final week on October 21st, complementing the opening retreat on September 30th to October 1st. For a full schedule (in Italian), click here.
For reports on the Synod and all the latest Catholic LGBTQ+ news, opinion, and spirituality, subscribe to Bondings 2.0 and receive updates delivered to your inbox each day. You can subscribe by clicking here.
—Robert Shine (he/him), New Ways Ministry, September 24, 2024
Again homosexuality dares not speak our name. The Church has missed its calling. The sins as listed are true particularly against women who are half the world and the source of all of us.
Regardless. Jesus wept.
Make it so! But I fear it is too little too late for me and for many to which harm by the institutional legalistic misogynist leadership of the Catholic Church has done for decades if not centuries. Are they really listening? or is it just lip service. I am very weary of the Church looking at the LBGTQ+ community as ‘the problem’ or the ‘more sinful damned element of the Church’ that needs to be ‘fixed’ or even worse ‘eradicated’. We are not the problem but have been made to feel like the problem when in our purest creative moment through the hands of God have been made just like the rest of humanity originally, all equal as heard in Genesis “very good’. We are no worse or no better than the next human being created by God, but WE are all as with ALL of humanity made ‘Children of God’ by love, for love and hopefully in love. In our purest sense over the ages of time WE as a community, the LBGTQ community are truly ‘lights to the world’ We are in all our beginning innocence made and are continually damned just because WE are judged by who and how we express our God given gift of sexuality in LOVE. We have been too often psychically damaged by the institutional church who has, and I still discern hypocritically and halfheartedly says they want us. Do they really? as I am or how they are to try to change us. Here in Buffalo the diocese is pushing the Courage Model in parishes, at least at the ones that the bishop will allow to remain open on some level, as over 70 parishes in WNY are set to close and be sold to pay off errors of action by pedophile priests in a bankrupt diocese. We are not the problem and will the church stop be deferring and acting as such to us all and our allies. The churches that remain are emptying out, shouldn’t that give the Church more insight not to keep doing what they are doing and look at themselves are the reason and not hurt us to avoid facing the fact that for years the church still refuses to understand or to expand their knowledge of the gift of sexuality, not only to condemn us for our love but to understand also the gift of sexuality for the heterosexual people as well, which with the high divorce rate among heterosexual couples, I would think that would be a red flag for the church to do better on that sexual orientation issue takes high priority. I refuse to continue to accept priests who continue to say one thing to the LBGTQ+ on a personal level but still talk the ‘party line’ from the pulpit or to their diocese leaders. What a blessing it would be if one day all the LBGTQ oriented priests, nuns, brothers, Third Orders etc of leadership and their allies would all proclaim how really hateful and harmful the church has been and continues to be, pushing change, pushing conformity, pushing forced celibacy, pushing the concept that our love is more damming and sinful then the leadership of the church in their pride hate continually pushed upon all of us all the time. Enough is enough. Opening the Synod without naming, without full transparency isn’t enough for me anymore. I am tired of the hypocrisy in the church. I cannot condone or accept this evil anymore. And like the Jews that didn’t speak up being led to the trains in WWII the survivors who are still alive today say, if that was to happen today, we would say NO and refuse to board those trains. So, like the rooted Jewish culture of Jesus, I would say NO to the church. This is not accepted by me I will not contribute any further to my persecution by accepting these hypocritical attempts halfheartedly given. I have lost trust in church leadership but not my trust in Jesus and his message of love for the world and the people in it. WWJD????