Tomorrow, Pope Francis opens a monthlong meeting of Bishops on engaging young Catholics as the Church reels from the scandals in the way it covered up for Clergymen who raped and molested young people.
Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia suggested postponing or canceling the Synod, given the poor optics of assembling the Church hierarchy to discuss a demographic harmed by the culture of concealment the same hierarchy has been accused of fostering.
A Dutch bishop, outraged that the Vatican has yet to respond to claims that Francis himself rehabilitated a predator American Cardinal, announced he was boycotting the meeting. An American Cardinal, Joseph Tobin, asked the Pope to let him stay home to cope with the scandal’s fallout in his Diocese.
The Synod is bringing together 266 Bishops from five continents for talks on helping young people find their vocations in life — be it lay or religious — at a time when Church marriages and Religious vocations are plummeting in much of the West.
What the Bishops say regarding homosexuality will be the most closely watched topic. The Vatican’s preparatory document made what is believed to be the first-ever reference in an official Vatican text to “LGBT.”
In addition, the role of women in the church will be watched, although no woman has any vote on the final document. Only a handful of women are attending as experts or as some of the 34 young people picked to attend — a structural imbalance in the Vatican’s synod process.
The Synod’s working document says young people in many secularized parts of the world simply want nothing to do with the Catholic Church, because they find it not only irrelevant to their lives but downright irritating.
“This request does not stem from uncritical or impulsive scorn, but is deeply rooted in serious and respectable reasons: sexual and economic scandals,” for which they demand the Church enforce a zero-tolerance policy.
But at the same time, the Vatican itself has fueled the latest scandal by refusing to respond to claims by a retired ambassador, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, that Pope Francis and a long list of Vatican officials before him covered up for ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former Archbishop of Washington.
Many have expressed grave concerns that Synod organizers will take the opportunity it to advance their agenda to dilute Church teachings and, instead of calling young people to join the Church on the narrow path to Christ, want to have the Church move to meet them on the secular world's easy, wide path.
How?
By discarding centuries of wisdom about formation and how to evangelize young people under the guise of offering a listening ear, "meeting them where they are," and attention to "practical realities," giving in to worldly concerns.
I share these concerns, articulated by Archbishop Chaput.
Accompanying young people down the secular world's wide path is not the way to God. Permissiveness and dependence on human relationships is tempting, but it is treacherous. Young people don't need the Church to walk with them on this dangerous path, they need to the Church to show them the way to Christ!
The mission of the Church is to proclaim the Truth, and it is hard, except for God's grace and mercy. A formation that gives young people the tools, knowledge, and moral discipline to help them embrace the true path of holiness is what they need, often not realizing that need themselves.
We ask the Holy Spirit to bless the Synod and to inspire the Synodal Fathers to impart the Truth of the Lord Jesus and his Gospel to young people everywhere.
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