St. Daniel Church

The Vatican has long called for a two-state solution. But Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa told an EWTN audience that “you need something new, creative—I don’t know what—but the previous agreements, ideas, the prospective two-state solution, everything is not realistic now.”

Cardinal Pizzaballa declined to offer a proposal of his own, saying that the opposing parties must negotiate a viable peace agreement. “I don’t think the Church should enter these things,” he said, stressing that the role of the Church is simply to appeal for peace.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Even if some members of the Synod of Bishops end up feeling disappointed by the results of the synod, "God's providence is at work in this assembly, bringing us to the Kingdom in ways that God alone knows," the spiritual adviser to the synod on synodality told them.

"The triumph of the good cannot be frustrated," and "we may be at peace whatever the result" of the synod's monthlong second session, said Cardinal-designate Timothy Radcliffe, offering his morning reflection in the Vatican's Paul VI Audience Hall Oct. 21 before members began reading, discussing, amending and voting on the final document to be presented to Pope Francis Oct. 26.

He also cautioned people, especially the media, against trying to look for "startling decisions, headlines" to come out of the final text, saying, at a Vatican briefing with reporters, that that would be a mistake.

The document will need to be read as something seeking to bring deep renewal of the church not "through dramatic decisions, but it evokes new ways of being a church in which we relate to each other much more profoundly in Christ and to Christ much more profoundly with each other," he said at the afternoon briefing.

"I think many people in the synod, out of the synod, in the church, still struggle to understand the nature of the synod. They still tend to see it as a parliamentary body which will make big administrative, structural changes. I think it's natural because that's the model that dominates our world," he told reporters. "But we've seen and it's been repeated endlessly that is not the sort of body it is."

The world is experiencing growing "violence and war, social disintegration. You've only to look at the election process in the United States to see how there is a danger of social collapse," he said. "In this perilous difficult moment, I think the church has a very particular vocation to be a sign of Christ's peace and Christ's communion and that means all sorts of steps which will not make headlines."

The Dominican theologian helped open the final week of the Oct. 2-27 assembly with a reflection in the morning on how members should embrace their freedom and responsibility. 

"Christ has set us free," he said, and "our mission is to preach and embody this freedom."

This freedom, however, has two features: "It is the freedom to say what we believe and to listen without fear to what others say, in mutual respect," he said, and it is the freedom of knowing that God always works for the good of those who love God.

"God's providence is gently, silently at work even when things seem to go wrong," Cardinal-designate Radcliffe said.

"If we have only the freedom to argue for our positions, we shall be tempted by the arrogance of those who, in the words of (Jesuit Father Henri) de Lubac, see themselves as 'the incarnate norm of orthodoxy.' We shall end up beating the drums of ideology, whether of the left or the right," he said.

"If we have only the freedom of those who trust in God's providence but dare not wade into the debate with our own convictions, we shall be irresponsible and never grow up," he added. "God's freedom works in the core of our own freedom, welling up inside us."

"The more it is truly of God, the more it is truly our own," he said, pointing to some lessons offered by two theologians who had been silenced and shunned at one point by the Catholic Church's hierarchy -- popes and Vatican officials -- in Rome. 

The late Dominican Father Yves Congar wrote "that the only response to this persecution was 'to speak the truth. Prudently, without provocative and useless scandal. But to remain -- and to become more and more -- an authentic and pure witness to what which is true,'" he said.

This shows, he said, "we need not be afraid of disagreement, for the Holy Spirit is at work even in that."

And the late Father de Lubac, who also "endured persecution," wrote that "far from losing patience," the one who is being persecuted "will try to keep the peace" and strive "to retain a mind bigger than its own ideas," the cardinal-designate said.

A Christian must cultivate the freedom to transcend himself and avoid "'the terrible self-sufficiency which might lead him to see himself as the incarnate norm of orthodoxy,' for he will put 'the indissoluble bond of Catholic peace' above all things," he said.

"Often we can have no idea as to how God's providence is at work in our lives. We do what we believe to be right and the rest is in the hands of the Lord," he said.

"This is just one synod. There will be others. We do not have to do everything, just take the next step," he said, and those who come after will "go on beginning. How, we do not know. That is God's business."

Synod: Don't be afraid to disagree

Cardinal-designate Timothy Radcliffe talks about the work of the last week of the Synod of Bishops on synodality.

The new saints are

• Saints Manuel Ruiz López and seven companions, and Francis, Abdel Mohti and Raphael Massabki, martyred in Damascus in 1860
• St. Giuseppe Allamano, founder of the Consolata Missionaries
• St. Marie-Léonie Paradis, the Canadian foundress of the Little Sisters of the Holy Family
• St. Elena Guerra, the Italian foundress of the Oblates of the Holy Spirit

“When we learn to serve, our every gesture of attention and care, every expression of tenderness, every work of mercy becomes a reflection of God’s love,” Pope Francis preached. “So in this way, let all of us—each one of us—continue Jesus’ work in the world. In light of this, we can remember the disciples of the Gospel who are being canonized today.”

On the afternoon of October 18, participants in the second and final session of the synod on synodality had the opportunity to engage in dialogue with members of study groups that are examining some of the controversial issues raised during the synod’s October 2023 session.

The number of baptisms administered in the Church worldwide plunged from over 16 million in 2016 to 13,327,037 in 2022—a decline of 17% over six years, according to the appendix to statistics published by the Fides news agency (CWN coverage).

The conference, entitled “From the Council to the Synod. Rereading a Church’s journey 60 years after Lumen Gentium (1964-2024),” will feature speeches by Cardinal Mario Grech, Secretary General of the Synod; Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, the synod session’s relator general; and Fathers Riccardo Battocchio and Giacomo Costa, special secretaries at the synod session.

According to the university, the conference’s title

tells the story of the Church’s journey, which the congress intends to reread, taking the circularity between the Synod and the Council as the criterion for interpretation: rereading the Synod in the light of the Council and the Council in the light of the Synod. The 60 years of the Church’s journey are a challenge to understand the complexity of the reception process and the question of whether what the Church is experiencing with the Synod process is really the mature fruit of the Council and its ecclesiological proposal.

Lumen Gentium, mentioned in the conference’s title, is the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church.

Although the draft will not be made public—in keeping with the orders of Pope Francis—Father Radcliffe said that Synod participants should respond “without fear of what others say, in mutual respect.” In a reflection on the role of the draft document, he said that participants “need not be afraid of disagreement.”

Reflecting on the influence of theologians who have “endured persecution prior to the [Second Vatican] Council,” Father Radcliffe said: “Freedom is the double helix of the Christian DNA.”

The SCV, a lay movement founded in 1971 by Peruvian Luis Fernando Figari, has been the target of repeated Vatican investigations. In 2017 Figari was banned from the movement, and this August the Vatican ordered the expulsion of several other leading members.

Cardinal-designate Castillo, in an essay that appeared October 19 in El Pais, condemned the movement as “the revival of fascism in Latin America, using the Church cunningly” to advance a political agenda.