As Cardinal Eijk, unlike his Belgian and German colleagues, chose not to make his Synod intervention(s) public, here is his monthly contribution to the archdiocesan magazine, written in Rome. In it, the cardinal looks back on the World Meeting on Families in Philadelphia and his paticipation in the Synod of Bishops.
“The Church’s great focus on the family takes you places. Last year, in October, I was in Rome for two weeks for the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family, in which I took part as president of the Dutch Bishops’ Conference. Two weeks ago I was in Philadelphia for the World Meeting of Familes. I gave an address there as part of one panel, and chaired another panel. At the moment I write this text, I am in Rome for the Ordinary Synod of Bishops. The Bishops’ Conference asked me to represent them here. This year, the Synod even takes three weeks.
Philadelphia was like a warm bath. Some 17,000 people took part in the convention on the family. While the Church’s teaching about marriage and family is seen by many as hopelessly old-fashioned and is heavily criticised from all sides, a great number of families which strongly believed in and practiced that teaching had come together in Philadelphia. The great joy this gave them was apparent in the great enthusiasm with which they took part in this meeting.
On Sunday 26 September* the Pope spoke to the cardinals and bishops present in the chapel of the seminary of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. This is an enormous building with a chapel larger than the cathedral in Utrecht. It gave me a minor case of feeling like Calimero**. The number of seminarians there is 110, ten times as much as in our archdiocese.
Of course the Pope spoke to us about the family: “For the Church, the family is not first and foremost a cause for concern, but rather the joyous confirmation of God’s blessing upon the masterpiece of creation. Every day, all over the world, the Church can rejoice in the Lord’s gift of so many families who, even amid difficult trials, remain faithful to their promises and keep the faith!”
The people of Philadelphia were very pleased with the papal visit. The city – especially the centre – was largely closed of. They did have to accept some discomfort for it. During the papal visit the ever-present security only allowed me to enter the hotel booked for me – likewise in the city centre – if I wore a red armband around my left wrist. Since I was unable to remove it, and I didn’t carry a pair of scissors with me, I had to carry it with me back to the Netherlands. In the airplane next to me some musicians teasingly asked me to what rock festival I had been. Participants in such a festival also get such an armband, apparently. The first thing I did when I came home, was getting rid of that stupid armband.
Something I will certainly not be getting rid of, is the encouragement I took with me from Philadelphia. And I can use it well at the second Synod of Bishops on the family. Life according to the teachings of the Church about marriage and sexuality is something that many people in modern society find difficult, if not impossible. And witnessing to it is no less difficult. Perhaps we consider it in the same way as the rich youth thought about giving up all his possession in order to follow Jesus. And what is Jesus’ answer to such concerns? “To God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26). In other words: it is possible to live according to the teachings of the Church, actually the teachings of Christ, if we have faith in the strength that God gives instead of only in our own strength. The participants in the World Meeting of Families 2015 in Philadelphia give enthusiastic and contagious witness of that.”
*27 september, actually, according to the Vatican website
**Cartoon character quite well known in the Netherlands, a small black chick forever complaining that everyone around him was bigger (“and that’s not fair!”).
In Caelo et in Terra 