A Catholic Debate
Nov. 1, 2014
To the Editor:
“The Pope and the Precipice,” by Ross Douthat (column, Oct. 26), doesn’t mention two fundamental facts about the Extraordinary Synod on the Family. First, Pope Francis intends to revive the synod as a deliberative body, and second, honest deliberation is a welcome development intended by the Second Vatican Council.
For most of its history, the synod has functioned only as a consultative body whose discussions and documents were closely controlled by the Vatican Curia. Francis’s hope is to return it to the role the Second Vatican Council intended as a normal organ of church governance.
As to the turmoil of the just concluded session, it is better to have consensus emerge from semipublic dialogue and debate than from back-room politics in the Vatican, as it has for so long. Free exchange is welcomed by the bishops as well as the faithful.
DREW CHRISTIANSEN
Washington, Oct. 27, 2014
The writer, a Jesuit priest and a professor of ethics and global development at Georgetown, is a former editor of America, the Jesuit magazine.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/02/opinion/sunday/a-catholic-debate.html?_r=0
