Africans not ‘blocking’ discussions at Synod

Oct 14, 2015

VATICAN: African prelates at the worldwide meeting of Catholic bishops on the family are not blocking discussions on sometimes-controversial subjects like the Church’s stance towards gay people and those who have divorced and remarried, Ghanaian Archbishop Charles Palmer-Buckle has said.

“It would be difficult for anybody to tell me Africa is blocking anything,” said Palmer- Buckle, speaking at a Vatican press conference on Oct 8.

“We are here to share our view,” said the archbishop. “So if somebody should think that Africa is blocking somebody, I think Africa is only proposing what it feels very strongly about.

“We are not here to block anybody,” he said. “We are here to share what we have as a value to the greater good of the universal Church.”

Palmer-Buckle’s comments touch on continuing speculation that there are divisions on certain issues under discussion at the synod, based upon the regional background of the different participants.

Among the issues known to be at discussion among the prelates are church practice towards Catholics who divorce and remarry without first obtaining annulments from the Church, and the possibility of using more inclusive language towards gay people.

Asked about the second issue at the press conference Thursday, the Ghanaian archbishop said that African attitudes towards gay people are changing slowly.

Mentioning Francis’ famous 2013 press conference — in which the pontiff said of gay people: “Who am I to judge them if they’re seeking the Lord in good faith?” — Palmer-Buckle said those words had “huge repercussions” in his country.

“People who are different from us are sons and daughters of God and we have to welcome them and be able to open the doors of the Church to them,” said the archbishop. “They are human, they have human rights and their human rights and dignity should be respected and upheld.

“We are doing what we can,” he said of African responses to homosexuality. “It takes time for individual voices like that to be heard — when you are dealing especially with something that is culturally difficult for people to understand.

“They have lived with it for millennia,” he continued. “Attitudes in Africa towards people who are different has been something that has been there for so long.

“It would be a bit deceptive to think, overnight, individuals will change their opinion, (that) overnight, documents would be written in favour and the rest of it,” said Palmer-Buckle.

“I’d say give the countries time to deal with the issues from their own cultural perspectives,” he said. “And I’d like you to know that we must underline that the rights of all sons and daughters of God are to be upheld by the Church everywhere.”

“And we are trying,” he continued. “I don’t want to say we have reached there. No, no, no — perfection is not yet something that we have obtained but we are working towards it.”

Palmer-Buckle was speaking at a briefing alongside Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Fr Federico Lombardi, and two other synod members: Italian Cardinal Edoardo Menichelli and Archbishop Ignatius Joseph III Younan, the Patriarch of Antioch and all the East of the Syrians.

The Ghanaian said he was one representative speaking on behalf of the African continent, which has eight regional episcopal conferences and 37 different individual bishops' conferences. -- NCR