Synod on the Family: Hermeneutics and Hope

This October marks the Third Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, which will deal with the topic: “The Pastoral Challenges to the Family in the Context of Evangelization”—better known as Pope Francis’s synod on the family. Just a few weeks ago, the synodal working document (instrumentum laboris) was released—a comprehensive look at the motivations for the synod vis-à-vis responses by Catholics around the world to questions concerning the nature, purpose, and problems of marriage and family life and ethics. Already, certain high-profile disagreements—especially on the topic of divorce, remarriage, and the sacraments—have made this synod one for the ages.

Here at Ethika Politika, a new discussion aims to shed light on themes arising from the instrumentum laboris, as well as more general questions concerning Pope Francis’s approach to and reception on central issues of pastoral practice.

For many reasons, the October synod is being viewed as a decisive moment for the Franciscan papacy if not also for the Church. While synodal structure and significance is mostly unfamiliar (especially with the extraordinary qualifier), Francis’s populist tendency, paired with a doubled-down controversy over an exploding sacramental crisis, has spiked massive interest as well as sharp reactions toward an otherwise obscure institution. The upside, as ever, is increased visibility for the Church’s mainly misunderstood internal processes. The downside is a fantastically politicized and misconstrued notion of just what a synod should resolve, and which factors it ought to take into account in achieving such resolution.

Beyond the popular disagreements lie equally serious ones: A synod is a very rough-and-tumble setting for dealing with such a broad range of individual issues as is presented in the instrumentum. Moreover, the document—and arguably the surveys and process that informed it—appear to remain incredibly ambiguous on certain core aspects of long-standing Christian doctrine and practice. Of course, the synod’s “main event”—the significance and process of nullity—is peppered with contentious language and hyperspecific terminology about which tomes have and will be written (and, we’re led to believe, may even be thrown across the synod hall).

Yet ultimately, the extraordinary synod should be a cause for hope. Despite any troubles that threaten to plague it, a synod on the family is a catalyst for the domestic church; it is a further reason to take seriously the vocation to holiness that many of us hear not principally as academics or bureaucrats, but as fathers, mothers, spouses, and neighbors. Whatever the “right answers” we hope for in October, the right practice that accompanies the Church’s ancient sacramental tradition is already available to us, who wish to act in accord with the moral law and the revealed teachings of the Gospel. These items also bind the bishops of the Third Extraordinary General Assembly; and our analysis and considerations—whether optimistic or critical, preemptive or reactive—should not fail each to recall this truth.