It’s time for a new apostolic exhortation

“Argh,” I said to my husband. “Just thinking about the Synod on the family is making my stomach hurt again.” 

“Well, stop thinking about it,” said Mark. 

“I can’t,” I said. “I’m writing a column about it.” 

“What are you going to say?” 

“I’m going to say that everyone should forget the whole thing and just read Familiaris Consortio.” 

The apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio of Pope John Paul II to “the episcopate, the clergy and the faithful of the whole Catholic Church” is also known as “On the Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World.” It was promulgated in 1981, and although I have met many Catholics whose family lives have been strengthened and enriched by it, I do not recall ever having heard a Sunday homily about it. 

I hope it is my memory that is at fault, for Familiaris Consortio is the richest contemporary source of Catholic teaching on the family, short of the catechism. 

Unlike documents from the synod on the family, Familiaris Consortio is authoritative. It was the bishops’ pledge to Catholic families that the Church supported them in a time when the very family itself was under siege by changing social mores. 

It discusses contemporary problems facing the family; it defines the family; it describes the mission of the Christian family — to serve the cause of life, to educate children, and to serve and evangelize society — and it discusses the pastoral care of the family, which is the responsibility of the family itself (and associations of families) as well as the clergy and, especially, the bishops. The situation of the “divorced and remarried,” whose problems are dwarfed by those of migrant workers, military families, families of the imprisoned, homeless families, families of children with disabilities, families of drug addicts, refugee families and politically persecuted families, is discussed at the very end. 

One of the sources of Catholic anguish over this year’s Synod’s so-called “mid-term report” was the media’s overemphasis on the sections about divorced-and-remarried Catholics and the perceived inclusion of sexually charged same-sex friendships under the definition of “family,” a situation described in Catholic Poland as “the hermeneutic of betrayal.” Stanisław Gądecki, the Archbishop of Pożnan, said this relatio departed from the teachings of St. John Paul II and even included traces of anti-marriage ideology. 

“Is the purpose of this Synod pastoral support to families in difficulties, or is the purpose special case studies?” he demanded rhetorically. “Our main pastoral task is to support the family, not to hit it by exposing these difficult situations, which do exist, but do not make up a family nucleus themselves and do not negate the support that should be given to good, normal, ordinary families who are not fighting so much for survival but for fidelity.” 

He also observed, and has observed since, that this document (since replaced by the final, less news-making, final report) gave the impression that the teaching of the Church on family matters had been “merciless” until that very day. 

The paragraphs concerning Catholics who identify as homosexuals were not actually part of the deliberations of the bishops, but once released they fired the imaginations of the secular media. They were accepted by the public as the assembled bishops’ own work until Gądecki and other bishops publicly disavowed them — and here comes my tummy-ache again. 

Although I was so relieved by Gądecki’s intervention that I wept, I am still scandalized by the episcopal jiggery-pokery that necessitated it. 

It is hard enough as it is to walk the very fine line between being friends with the many homosexuals in the Church — laity, clergy and bishops — and agreeing that homosexual acts are free from sin or that an allegiance based on a shared homosexual desire is the moral and cultural equivalent of an ethnic community. 

The fact that many Catholics do indeed believe these things makes it all the harder for faithful Catholic families to withstand them. This is particularly true when those who reject Catholic teaching on sexuality, which is based firmly on the Word of God, are Catholic schoolteachers, lay ministers, priests and perhaps even bishops. 

Therefore, as much as I would love to forget about next year’s Synod on the family, and just ponder Familiaris Consortio, I have to admit that the threats to the Catholic family — and to the very definition of a Catholic family — have changed dramatically since 1981. We do indeed need a new apostolic exhortation. 

I just pray that it builds on, not contradicts, the lifework of St. John Paul II. 

(Cummings McLean is a Canadian writer living abroad and the author of two books, Ceremony of Innocence and Seraphic Singles.)