Inductive method encourages freedom of speech at the Synod

Oct 17, 2014

By Gerard O'Connell
“What’s going on in the Synod is, we’re seeing a more inductive way of reflecting, starting with the real situations of people… and finding that the lived experience of people is also a theological source, a place of theological reflection", he stated.“The bishops are speaking as pastors”, many participants confirmed. They are speaking from personal experience and honest conviction on a wide variety of issues. At times, they are doing so with great passion, also from their experiences of the happy or broken marriages of their own parents.

Bishops from the Middle East and Africa, as well as married couples from that part of the world, spoke often in heart-breaking ways about the terrible impact of war and violence on families, while bishops from Asia, Africa and Latin America spoke of the destructive effects of poverty and immigration on countless families.

A great many bishops spoke about the plight of children in broken marriages - “the ping-pong children” who shuttle between their separated parents, and those in situations of war, violence and as a result of immigration. They spoke about how the Church is responding in different countries to such situations and what more it might do.

It came as no surprise to see that different positions have emerged among the synod fathers on such issues as the relation between doctrine and pastoral practice, how to marry mercy and justice, how one measures faith when a couple wish to contract marriage, and the possibility of a penitential path that can open the door to the reception of the sacraments of reconciliation and communion for divorced and remarried Catholics. As was evident before the synod started, there are two different positions on the question of the admission to communion of divorced and remarried Catholics; what is not yet clear is the level of support for each position.

Pope Francis has long favored the inductive method; it was the one that worked well at the 2007 Aparecida gathering of the Bishops Conferences of Latina America and the Caribbean (CELAM), where he was the editor-in-chief of its final document which is now a fundamental text for understanding his thinking. He is convinced that the process of synodality can bear fruits — even unexpected ones — if all the synod fathers participate in it with hearts and minds that are open to what the Spirit is saying on the different situations in today’s world.

It is noteworthy that this climate of freedom fostered by the Pope, and the methodology of synodality that he has promoted, has helped avoid polarization at the synod, and it has led participants to think that a synthesis and eventual consensus can be reached, even on the most controversial issues, by the end of the synod process in 2015. --America