A study group established by Pope Francis to develop a synodal way of discerning the Catholic Church’s teaching on so-called controversial issues, including sexual morality and life issues, has proposed what it calls a “new paradigm” that is loaded with situational ethics but downplays moral absolutes and established Church teaching.
The group, which is one of 10 study groups that the Pope created in February to provide an “in-depth analysis” of the “issues of great relevance” that had arisen during the 2023 Synodality session, presented his findings to the synod assembly on October 2, the first day of its 2024 session. A text of the presentation was shared with the press.
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The group spoke of discerning doctrine, ethics, and pastoral approaches by measuring people’s lived experience through consultation with the People of God and responding to cultural changes. The group presented these sources as places where the Holy Spirit speaks in a way that can override and seemingly contradict what the Church has already authoritatively taught.
The group, whose seven members include a controversial theologian known for questioning the existence of moral absolutesdescribed this approach as part of a “conversion of thought or reform of practices in contextual fidelity to the Gospel of Jesus, who is ‘the same yesterday, today and forever’, but whose ‘richness and beauty are inexhaustible’.”
“Ethically speaking, it is not about applying pre-packaged objective truth to different subjective situations, as if they were mere particular cases of an immutable and universal law,” said the group’s status report to the Synodality Assembly. yesterday. “The criteria of discernment are born from listening to the (living) gift of Revelation in Jesus in the present of the Spirit.”
In a possible contrast to the group’s report, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the fundamental “distinct modes of transmission” of the revelation of Christ are Scripture and Tradition and that the authoritative interpretation of these sources “has been entrusted only to the living Magisterium of the Church.” Christian revelation also includes absolute and universally applicable moral precepts, which do not appear to be subject to change based on subjective experience or widespread consultation. The study group intends to offer “concrete guidelines for discernment” based on its new paradigm to two sets of issues: global peace and co-responsibility; and “the meaning of sexuality, marriage, the generation of children and the promotion and care of life.”
Like the other nine synodal study groups established by Pope Francis, the group focused on discernment of controversial issues has a mandate that extends until June 2025, well beyond the conclusion of the Synodality Synod on the 27th. October 2024. It is unclear what status the study group’s eventual report will have.
At a press conference on October 3, the Synod’s special secretary, Jesuit priest Giacomo Costa, said that others could submit proposals for consideration by the study groups and that the study groups should not be considered “closed.” . The general secretary of the Synod of Bishops, Cardinal Mario Grech, will be responsible for ensuring that the study groups are developed “according to the synodal method,” organizers said.
“I invite you not to think that these groups are separated from the life of the Church, but that they are true laboratories of synodal life,” said Father Costa. “Workshops, really.”
According to the text of the study group presentation, the group emphasized the need to develop an anthropology and a “historical-cultural ethics” that are in harmony with the “kerygma and its essential implications” and also with “the new that is revealed in reality.”
The group linked the discernment of these “emerging states” to the Synodality Synod’s discussion on the participation of non-bishops in the Church’s decision-making processes.
At the same time, the paradigm proposed by the study group repeatedly diminished the relevance of established Church pronouncements, underscoring the need to go beyond “proclaiming and applying abstract doctrinal principles” to “be open to the ever-new impulses of the Holy Spirit.”
“Only a vital, fruitful and reciprocal tension between doctrine and practice embodies the living Tradition and is capable of counteracting the temptation to trust in the sterility of verbal pronouncements,” says the text of the group’s report.
At several points, the group’s presentation characterizes moral truth as subordinate to human salvation, rather than being an integral part of it. The implication is that teaching on a moral issue must change if it is experienced as a barrier to someone’s membership in the Church.
The presentation text does not mention the relevance of moral absolutes in the discernment of ethical, doctrinal and pastoral issues. In the encyclical The Splendor of Truth (The Splendor of Truth) 1993, Saint John Paul II taught that, contrary to moral relativism, absolute moral truths exist, are rooted in human nature, and are therefore universally applicable, and are accessible to reason. human.
Previously, observers of the Synod of Synodality have expressed concern that its theological basis depends too much on the thought of Father Karl Rahner (1904-1984), a controversial Jesuit theologian who minimized the ability of doctrinal formulations to refer reliably. to supernatural realities and emphasized God’s continuing revelation through the personal experience of believers.
Among the members of the study group is Father Maurizio Chiodi, a moral theologian who has been criticized in recent years for challenging established Church teachings and denying moral absolutes.
Father Chiodi has argued that the use of contraception in marriage could be morally permissible in some circumstances and said in 2017 that homosexual relations “under certain conditions” could be “the most fruitful way” for people with attraction to the same sex “enjoy good relationships.”
The Italian priest, who is a professor at the John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences and a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, was recently appointed consultant to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) by Pope Francis.
Jesuit priest Carlo Casalone, a moral theologian at the Gregorian University and appointed by Francis to the Pontifical Academy for Life, is also a member of the study group. It caused controversy in 2022 by supporting legislation to legalize assisted suicide in Italy.
The other members of the group include the Archbishop of Lima (Peru), Bishop Carlos Catillo, also a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life; Archbishop Filippo Iannone, Italy, president of the Dicastery for Legislative Texts; the Italian priest Piero Coda, professor of dogmatic theology at the Sophia University of Loppiano (Italy) and secretary general of the International Theological Commission (ITC); Sister of Saint Andrew Josée Nagalula, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, professor of dogmatic theology at the Catholic University of the Congo in Kinshasa and member of the ITC; and Stella Morra, from Italy, fundamental theologian at the Gregorian University and DDF consultant.
As a biblical model of the “paradigm shift being propagated by the synodal process,” the group selected the Acts 15 account of the Council of Jerusalem, which resulted in the Church no longer requiring circumcision. The study group said this event highlighted “the prohibition of hindering God’s universal saving will with anything that no longer has any effective meaning.”
The group recognized potential difficulties in applying their framework, including “the paucity of, and lack of familiarity with, necessary vocabulary and concepts” and “implicit paradigmatic resistances,” but nevertheless expressed confidence that they could develop their framework. proposed paradigm more fully.
We are “called to a complete and challenging conversion; a conversion that takes shape in the way we present and translate the truth of the Gospel,” the group said in its presentation, “as manifested and practiced in the agape of God in Christ.”
Translated and adapted by the ACI Prensa team. Originally published in National Catholic Register.
Jonathan Liedl
Jonathan Liedl is a senior editor at the National Catholic Register. He studied Political Science and Arabic Studies at the University of Notre Dame and has a Master’s Degree in Catholic Studies from the University of St. Thomas. He is currently completing a Master’s Degree in Theology at Saint Paul Seminary. He lives in the Twin Cities of Minnesota.