Tweeting the Synod

Today the Synod of Bishops will convene for the first session of their fifteenth ordinary general assembly on “Young People, Faith and Vocational Discernment”, which will run until the 28th of October. In the past, the daily deliberations and individual contributions of delegates were summarised and published by the Holy See press office, but this is no longer the case. An unwise decision, in my opinion, as it makes the entire process a secretive one. As outsiders, all we will have are rumours and the eventual final document. During the previous Synod we have seen what damage rumours can do, especially when they are neither confirmed nor denied in any clear way..

That said, there is always social media, and a number of Synod delegates are enthousiastic (or less so) users of those media. Below, I present a short (probably incomplete) list of delegates who use Twitter. It is mostly western prelates using the medium, with English being the dominant language. Other languages used are Italian, French, Spanish, German and Maltese.

1. Pope Francis (obviously). As pope he convenes the Synod and acts as its president, although he delegates that duty to four delegate presidents. Pope Francis will not be commenting on the Synod proceedings, but offer prayers and short items to reflect on spiritually.
2. Archbishop Charles Scicluna. Archbishop of Malta. One of three members of the Commission for Disputes.
3. Bishop Robert Barron. Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles and CEO of Word On Fire.
4. Bishop Frank Caggiano. Bishop of Bridgeport, Connecticut.
5. Archbishop José Gómez. Archbishop of Los Angeles.
6. Archbishop Leo Cushley. Archbishop of Edinburgh.
7. Archbishop Eamon Martin. Archbishop of Armagh.
8. Archbishop Anthony Fisher. Archbishop of Sydney.
9. Leonardo Cardinal Sandri. Prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches.
10. Robert Cardinal Sarah. Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.
11. Kevin Cardinal Farrell. Prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life.
12. Peter Cardinal Turkson. Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.
13. Gianfranco Cardinal Ravasi. President of the Pontifical Council for Culture.
14. Gérald Cardinal Lacroix. Archbishop of Québec.
15. Daniel Cardinal Sturla Berhouet. Archbishop of Montevideo.
16. Blase Cardinal Cupich. Archbishop of Chicago.
17. Carlos Cardinal Aguiar Retes. Archbishop of Mexico City.
18. Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia. President of the Pontifical Academy for Life,
19. Archbishop Peter Comensoli. Archbishop of Melbourne.
20. Father Antonio Spadaro. Member of the Vatican Media Committee.
21. Christoph Cardinal Schönborn. Archbishop of Vienna.
22. Wilfrid Cardinal Napier. Archbishop of Durban.
23. Luis Cardinal Tagle. Archbishop of Manila.
24. Vincent Cardinal Nichols. Archbishop of Westminster.
25. Carlos Cardinal Osoro Sierra. Archbishop of Madrid.

Not all of the prelates above use their accounts equally often or in the same way. For example, Cardinal Tagle only posts links to his ‘The Word Exposed’ Youtube catechesis talks, Cardinals Sturla Berhouet and Farrell mostly retweet, Archbishop Fisher hasn’t tweeted since February of 2017, and most use Twitter as a one-way channel. Among those who do respond to what their followers say are Cardinal Napier, Archbishop Comensoli (his Twitter profile picture at left) and Bishop Barron.

Other delegates, such  as Philadelphia’s Archbishop Charles Chaput and Passau’s Bishop Stefan Oster, are active on Facebook, while Belgian Bishop Jean Kockerols keeps the youth of his country up to speed via a blog.

Several delegates have already shared their arrival in Rome, and it is these (such as Archbishop Comensoli and Bishop Barron) who will perhaps offer the best idea of what goes on in the coming weeks. That said, all we will get are glimpses, and no tweeting delegate will share what goes on in the debates. So, in this age of social media and high-speed communication, the Synod of Bishops remains firmly behind closed doors.

 

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The little consistory

The consistory that Pope Benedict XVI announced at today’s general audience, and set for the 24th of November, has all the appearances of an in-between consistory. With only six cardinals to be created it is quite small, and it is as non-European as the previous consistory was European.

It’ll be Benedict’s fifth consistory, and by far his smallest. In fact, it will be the smallest consistory since Pope Paul VI elevated 4 cardinals in 1977. It will also be the first time since 1929 that there have been 2 consistories in one calendar year.

The six prelates to be elevated are:

Archbishop James Michael Harvey (63), the Prefect of the Papal Household, who will be appointed as archpriest of the papal basilica of St. Paul-outside-the-Walls..

Patriarch Béchara Boutros Raï (72), Patriarch of Antioch of the Maronite Church.

Archbishop Baselios Cleemis (Isaac) Thottunkal (53), Major Archbishop of  Trivandrum of the Syro-Malankarese Church. Pictured at right.

Archbishop John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan (68), Archbishop of Abuja, Nigeria.

Archbishop Jesús Rubén Salazar Gómez (70), Archbishop of Bogotá, Colombia.

Archbishop Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle (55), Archbishop Of Manila, Philippines.

Archbishop Tagle and Patriarch Raï were among the expected choices for the red hat at a future consistory, but the others were not. Only Archbishop Thottunkal is from a see which until now was not traditionally associated wih the title of a cardinal.

Archbishops Thottunkal and Tagle will be the youngest members of the College.

Another indicator that this is something of an in-between consistory, intended to keep the number of electors at or near 120, is that there are metropolitan archbishops of traditionally cardinalatial sees – such as Léonard of Brussels, Nichols of Westminster, Chaput of Philadelphia and Gómez of Los Angeles – still awaiting the red hat. At least some of them will be made cardinals in the future, but, apparently, now is not yet the time.

Barring any deaths, next month’s conclave will bring to size of the College of Cardinals to 211, with a round 120 of them being electors (Cardinals Arinze and Martino will turn 80 beforehand), including all six new ones.

Synod of Bishops – Day Six

With the Saturday sessions, presided by Cardinal Monsengwo Pasinya (pictured), the Synod of Bishops wrapped up its first week. As usual, there were interventions, 24 by Synod fathers and one by a fraternal delegate.

The Patriarch of Venice, Francesco Moraglia, made an important point about catechesis and youth:

“[T]he majority of young people, once their Christian initiation is complete, lose their relationship with the Church, the faith, God. There are multiple causes for this: however, I believe that in a not insignificant number of cases the faith is not supported by a catechesis that is friendly towards reason, able to offer a true anthropological instruction and able to legitimize the plausibility of the Christian choice. It is necessary to relaunch the CCC, giving greater space to its content in order to avoid reduction to a “do-it-yourself” faith; the fides quae is often missing from our catechesis.”

Other topics discussed were the personal experiences in the social pastoral field of several countries, but also, once more, the use of mass media in the new evangelisation.

Cardinal George Alencherry had interesting things to say about the lives and ministries of priests in recent decades:

“During the 50 years after Vatican II, the renewal of the Church has been multifaceted and highly productive. At the same time the lives and ministry of priests and men and women of consecrated life have become more functional than spiritual and ecclesial. It would seem that the present-day formation of priests and the religious personnel tends to make them functionaries for different offices in the Church, rather than missionaries inflamed by the love of Christ. Even in places of ad gentes missions of the Church, functioning through institutions have made the priests and the religious lose the impelling force and strength of the Gospel to which they are committed by their vocation. Secularization has impacted the lives of individual Christians and also of ecclesial communities. New Evangelization demands a thorough renewal of the lives of individual Christians and the reevaluation of the structures of the Church to empower them with the dynamism of the Gospel values of truth, justice, love, peace and harmony.”

Bishop António Da Rocha Couto (pictured), of Lamego in Portugal, asked himself, his fellow Synod fathers, and in extension all of us,

“Yes, we need proclaimers of the Gospel who are without gold, silver, copper, bags, two tunics… Yes, it is of conversion that I speak, and I ask myself this question: why did the Saints fight so hard, and with so much joy, to be poor and meek, while we work so hard to be rich and important?”

Bishop Berislav Grgic, prelate of Tromsø in Norway, painted the following picture of the Church in Scandinavia:

“The Catholic Church in the Northern Lands – Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden – is a very small minority and therefore has neither the advantages nor the disadvantages that the Catholic Church often comes across in traditional and prevalently Catholic regions. Despite its limited relevance, numeric as well as social, our Church is nonetheless a growing Church. New churches are built or bought, new parishes are instituted, non-Latin rites are added, there is a relatively high number of adult conversions and baptisms, there are vocations to priesthood and to religious life, the number of baptisms is much higher than the number of deaths and number of those who abandon the Church, and attendance at Sunday Mass is relatively high.
In certain sectors of society there is great interest for the faith and spirituality, by non-believers who are searching for the truth as well as by Christians committed to other religions who wish to deepen and enrich religious life. It is also interesting to see that during the past years a relatively high number of contemplative orders have opened their own convents.
The transmission of the faith, often however, is made difficult because of the vast distances. Our priests must travel far – sometimes up to 2,000 km per month – to visit our faithful who live in distant places and celebrate Mass. This is very tiring during the winter months.”

The fraternal delegate who also intervened was Dr. Geoffrey Tunnicliffe, general secretary of the World Evangelical Alliance. He spoke about ‘holistic evangelism,’ evangelisation which lies at the heart of the person and which is radically committed to worl evangelisation.

Following the interventions, the composition of the Commission for Information, supplying media and interested parties with information about the Synod, was announced. The Commission is chaired by Archbishop Claudio Celli, the president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, with Archbishop Ján Babjak, of Prešov of the Catholics of the Byzantine Rite in Slovakia, serving as vice president. The other regular members of the Commission are:

Archbishop John Onaiyekan, of Abuja, Nigeria
Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, of Minsk-Mohilev, Belarus
Bishop Manuel Macário do Nascimento Clemente, of Porto, Portugal
Archbishop José Gómez, of Los Angeles, United States
Archbishop Francis Kovithavanij, of Bangkok, Thailand

There are two members ex officio: Archbishop Pierre-Marie Carré, the Synod’s general secretary, and Archbishop Nikola Eterovic, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops.

Lastly, Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, serves as secretary ex officio.

In the afternoon the interventions continued, this time by 15 Synod fathers. Father Heinrich Walter, Superior General of the Schönstatt Fathers, spoke about the role of the family in the renewal of the Church in the west:

“The family remains the foundation for learning the faith. The family means seeing one’s home as the house of God. Children, with their parents, follow the lengthy path in learning the faith. The vitality of a community is connected to these homes. Families are not only the privileged location for evangelization, but inasmuch as they are laity they are also agents of evangelization.”

Bishop Leonardo Ulrich Steiner (pictured), auxiliary bishop of Brasilia, raised an interesting point. He said, “New evangelization should take youths into consideration as ‘new agents’ of evangelization: the young who evangelize the young.” Rather than seeing young people strictly as ‘consumers’ of catechesis and education, it should be possible to turn some of them also into educators themselves. That would mean a different focus on the sort of catechesis presented to young people. Not only would they need to be able to learn, but also to teach by example and certainly also through being catechists themselves.

Presenting the Synod Fathers

In addition to delegates from the world’s bishops’ conferences, three president-delegates (Cardinals Tong Hon, Robles Ortega and Monsengwo Pasinya), the relator-general (Cardinal Wuerl) and the secretary (Archbishop Carré), the Holy Father specifically appointed 36 Synod fathers for this autumn’s Thirteenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, which will focus on the new evangelisation. Later, there will be additional lay men and women who will be invited to contribute as well.

The list of the 36 Synod Fathers is as follows:

• Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals.
• Cardinal Joachim Meisner, archbishop of Cologne, Germany.
• Cardinal Vinko Puljic, archbishop of Vrhbosna, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
• Cardinal Polycarp Pengo, archbishop of Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania and president of SECAM/SCEAM (Symposium of the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar).
• Cardinal Christoph Schönborn O.P., archbishop of Vienna, Austria.
• Cardinal George Pell, archbishop of Sydney, Australia.
• Cardinal Josip Bozanic, archbishop of Zagreb, Croatia.
• Cardinal Péter Erdö, archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest, Hungary and president of CCEE (Council of European Episcopal Conferences).
• Cardinal Agostino Vallini, His Holiness’ vicar general for the diocese of Rome.
• Cardinal Lluis Martínez Sistach, archbishop of Barcelona, Spain.
• Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, archbishop of Paris, France.
• Cardinal Oswald Gracias, archbishop of Bombay, India and secretary general of FABC (Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences).
• Patriarch Francesco Moraglia of Venice, Italy.
• Archbishop John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan of Abuja, Nigeria.
• Archbishop Hector Ruben Aguer of La Plata, Argentina.
• Archbishop Antonio Arregui Yarza of Guayaquil, Ecuador, president of the Ecuadorian Episcopal Conference.
• Archbishop John Atcherley Dew of Wellington, New Zealand, president of FCBCO (Federation of Catholic Bishops’ Conferences of Oceania).
• Archbishop Jose Octavio Ruiz Arenas, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelisation.
• Archbishop José Horacio Gomez of Los Angeles, U.S.A.
• Archbishop Carlos Aguiar Retes of Tlalnepantla, president of CELAM (Latin American Episcopal Council).
• Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham, England.
• Archbishop Ricardo Antonio Tobon Restrepo of Medellin, Colombia.
• Archbishop Luis Antonio G. Tagle of Manila, Philippines.
• Archbishop Filippo Santoro of Taranto, Italy.
• Bishop Javier Echevarria Rodriguez, prelate of the Personal Prelature of Opus Dei.
• Bishop Dominique Rey of Frejus-Toulon, France.
• Bishop Menghisteab Tesfamariam M.C.C.J., eparch of Asmara, Eritrea.
• Bishop Benedito Beni dos Santos of Lorena, Brazil.
• Bishop Santiago Jaime Silva Retamales, auxiliary of Valparaiso, Chile and secretary general of CELAM.
• Bishop Luigi Negri of San Marino-Montefeltro, Italy.
• Bishop Alberto Francisco Sanguinetti Montero of Canelones, Uruguay.
• Bishop Enrico Dal Covolo S.D.B., rector of the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome.
• Fr. Julian Carron, president of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation.
• Fr. Renato Salvatore M.I., superior general of the Clerks Regular Ministers to the Sick (Camillians).
• Fr. Heinrich Walter, superior general of the Schönstatt Fathers.
• Fr. Jose Panthaplamthottiyil C.M.I., prior general of the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate

Four of the Synod Fathers: Cardinal Bozanic, Archbishops Onaiyekan and Longley, and Fr. Walter.

The list is an interesting mix of the old guard (Sodano, Meisner) and the up and coming (Gomez, Tagle), and also includes a number of prelates who have recently worked closely with the pope on papal visits (Pengo, Longley, Onaiyekan, Negri). Although hand-picked for the Synod, these prelates are not more or less important then the delegates from all over the world. They will be full and active participants on the Synod, though, and at least some of them may be expected to contribute significantly.

Pallium Day

Which is also, of course, the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, the rock and the apostle to the gentiles, in many ways the foundations of the Church. And also, it is the day upon which Pope Benedict XVI celebrates 60 years of priesthood.

As every year, the metropolitan archbishops, standing firmly in the line of the aforementioned saints and in union with the Holy Father, today receive their pallia. In the words of the pope, from today’s homily:

“What does this mean? It may remind us in the first instance of Christ’s easy yoke that is laid upon us (cf. Mt 11:29f.). Christ’s yoke is identical with his friendship. It is a yoke of friendship and therefore “a sweet yoke”, but as such it is also a demanding yoke, one that forms us. It is the yoke of his will, which is a will of truth and love. For us, then, it is first and foremost the yoke of leading others to friendship with Christ and being available to others, caring for them as shepherds. This brings us to a further meaning of the pallium: it is woven from the wool of lambs blessed on the feast of Saint Agnes. Thus it reminds us of the Shepherd who himself became a lamb, out of love for us. It reminds us of Christ, who set out through the mountains and the deserts, in which his lamb, humanity, had strayed. It reminds us of him who took the lamb – humanity – me – upon his shoulders, in order to carry me home. It thus reminds us that we too, as shepherds in his service, are to carry others with us, taking them as it were upon our shoulders and bringing them to Christ. It reminds us that we are called to be shepherds of his flock, which always remains his and does not become ours. Finally the pallium also means quite concretely the communion of the shepherds of the Church with Peter and with his successors – it means that we must be shepherds for unity and in unity, and that it is only in the unity represented by Peter that we truly lead people to Christ.”

The harvest is quite large today, with 49 new metropolitan bishops appointed since last year’s ceremony. A significant number comes from traditionally Catholic countires and areas, such as South-Anmerica, the Philippines, but also various sub-Saharan countries, North-America, and a few nations in Europe and Asia.

Archbishop Lacroix of Québec receives his pallium from the Holy Father

Below follows the list of new metropolitan archbishops. The vast majority of these men were specifically apointed to archbishops, but a number became so because their dioceses were elevated to archdioceses. Recently, this happened with two dioceses in Angola – Malanje and Saurimo – and three in Brazil – Passo Funda, Pelotas and Santa Maria.

Archbishop Augustine Obiora Akubeze, Benin City
Archbishop Thumma Bala, Hyderabad
Archbishop John Barwa, Cuttack-Bhubaneswar
Archbishop Jacinto Bergmann, Pelotas
Archbishop Vincenzo Bertolone, Catanzaro-Squillace
Archbishop Pedro Brito Guimarães, Palmas
Archbishop Pierre-Marie Joseph Carré, Montpellier
Archbishop Thaddeus Cho Hwan-kil, Daegu
Archbishop Fernando Natalio Chomalí Garib, Concepción
Archbishop Paul Stagg Coakley, Oklahoma City
Archbishop Sérgio da Rocha, Brasília
Archbishop Charles Henry Dufour, Kingston in Jamaica
Archbishop Ricardo Ezzati Andrello, Santiago de Chile
Archbishop Antoine Ganyé, Cotonou
Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller, San Antonio
Archbishop José Horacio Gómez, Los Angeles
Archbishop José Manuel Imbamba, Saurimo
Archbishop Gérald Cyprien Lacroix, Québec
Archbishop Dimas Lara Barbosa, Campo Grande
Archbishop Jairo Jaramillo Monsalve, Barranquila
Archbishop Darío de Jesús Monsalve Mejía , Cali
Archbishop Pascal N’Koué, Parakou
Archbishop Cesare Nosiglia, Turin
Archbishop Paul Yembuado Ouédraogo, Bobo-Dioulasso
Archbishop Jose Serofia Palma, Cebu
Archbishop Luis María Pérez de Onraita Aguirre, Malanje
Archbishop Guire Poulard, Port-au-Prince
Archbishop Juan Alberto Puiggari, Paraná
Archbishop Johannes Maria Trilaksyanta Pujasumarta, Semarang
Archbishop Murilo Sebastião Ramos Krieger, São Salvador de Bahia
Archbishop Gonzalo Restrepo Restrepo, Manizales
Archbishop Hélio Adelar Rubert, Santa Maria
Archbishop Juda Thadaeus Ruwa’ichi, Mwanza
Archbishop Rémi Joseph Gustave Sainte-Marie, Lilongwe
Archbishop Jesús Rubén Salazar Gómez, Bogotá
Archbishop James Peter Sartain, Seattle
Archbishop Pedro Ercílio Simon, Passo Fundo
Archbishop William Slattery, Pretoria
Archbishop George Stack, Cardiff
Archbishop Zbignev Stankevics, Riga
Archbishop Fausto Gabriel Trávez Trávez, Quito
Archbishop Marjan Turnšek, Maribor
Archbishop Sergio Lasam Utleg, Tuguegarao
Archbishop Oscar Julio Vian Morales, Guatemala
Archbishop Lewis Zeigler, Monrovia

Five of these men, namely archbishops Barwa, N’Koue, Poulard, Pujasumarta and Zeigler, were unable to be in Rome for the ceremony. They will receive their pallia at a later date.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Tony Gentile