UPDATED: I have added some additional columns to the table to show how the composition of the Synod looks if one spreads the appointees out over the regional elected members. I have also added a column for those who are cardinals, and identified how Francis appointments effected their participation.
Pope Francis’ picks for the synod are in
and suggest this will be a Vatican meeting like no other!
|
Categories |
Original Groups |
Papal |
Total |
Non bishops |
Total |
Cardinals |
|
Ex officio |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Vatican Departments |
14 |
6 |
20 |
|
20 |
10 & 3 & 3 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Council for Synod |
17 |
|
17 |
|
17 |
11 |
|
Continents |
5 |
|
5 |
|
5 |
2 |
|
Staff |
4 |
|
4 |
|
4 |
1 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Patriarchs |
6 |
|
6 |
|
6 |
5 |
|
Elected |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Africa |
43 |
3 |
46 |
10 |
56 |
1 |
|
North America |
9 |
6 |
15 |
10 |
25 |
1 & 3 |
|
South America |
38 |
8 |
46 |
10 |
56 |
1 & 3 |
|
Asia |
25 |
1 |
26 |
10 |
36 |
7 |
|
Europe |
48 |
23 |
73 |
10 |
83 |
1 & 3 |
|
Oceania |
5 |
1 |
6 |
10 |
16 |
0 |
|
Oriental |
20 |
1 |
23 |
10 |
33 |
1 |
|
Religious |
10 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Appointed |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Papal |
50 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
from nominees |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Women |
35 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Male Non Bishops |
35 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total |
364 |
49 |
|
70 |
|
56 |
The role of the Vatican Departments has been trimmed back to 14 ex officio. However Francis added another six appointments. He also added three former Vatican Cardinals, and made three of the ex officio department heads cardinals. Was this designed to insulate Francis from the accusation that he is leaving the Curia out?
The Council of the Synod, elected by the last synod plus five continental synod heads does offer the opportunity for their being more influence from the bishops as a whole. The Council of the Synod included eleven cardinals. All together there are 30 cardinals whose membership was determined by the present or former positions.
The Patriarchs are those from the Eastern Churches whose office gives them an automatic role in the Synod.
Africa has 43 elected members plus 3 added by Francis and 10 non-bishops for a total of 56 members, most of whom are bishops, only one of whom is a cardinal.
North America started with 9 elected plus 6 added by Francis and 10 non-bishops for a total of 25 members of whom 10 are bishops (Martin is a priest) and 4 are cardinals. Actually they only elected one cardinal. Francis added 3 cardinals. A much different composition than Africa.
South American started with 38 elected plus 8 added by Francis and then 10 non-bishops for a total of 56 members (same as Africa) of whom 42 are bishops, and 4 are cardinals, three appointed by Francis. Their continental composition is more similar to Africa.
Asia started out with 25 elected members, Francis only added 1 plus ten non bishops. However they elected 7 cardinals!. Interesting! Perhaps they decided they would have more clout in the synod by electing their cardinals?
Europe started out with 48 elected members, slightly more than Africa and South America, but Francis added 23 more members bring them up to 73 members before adding the 10 non bishops. An interesting development especially since Francis has the reputation of being a third world pope. The configuration of the European continent is more weighted toward bishops (and priests, some of Francis appointments were priests). Again Francis appointed three cardinals just as he did in the US and Latin America. Are these cardinals going to be his floor managers if one thinks of this as a political convention.
Oceania started out with five elected, gained only one papal appointment but ten non-bishops. In other words the non bishops are the majority!
The Oriental churches elected 20 delegates, Francis added only 1, plus 10 non-bishops for a total of 33. Only one cardinal among them. However one must added in 6 patriarchs of whom 5 are cardinals.
The papal appointees are a significant block of votes but not much larger than Africa, Asia and the Americas.
Religious seem to me to be very underrepresented in comparison to their role in the church. I think in former times there were ten male religious which was divided now that women religious are included. I would have given male and female religious at least 20 delegates each; perhaps even better to have given them 30 delegates each
If that I been done I would have appointed 30 lay men and 30 lay women, and created a separate group for 30 parish priests from around the world.
O well, they have to let the bishops get used to having to deal in synod with non-bishops.
Francis did a good job of balancing out the USA delegation with his picks. Cardinal Dolan and Bishop Baron are articulate spokesperson for the conservative American bishops as are those appointed by Francis to represent progressive views.
Conservatives are sure to criticize Father Martin's appointment, but it guarantees the LGBTQ community a voice.
Francis also gave the conservative critics of synodality a potential strong voice in terms of Cardinal Muller the former CDF head.
But with his usual political astuteness Francis appointed the recent CDF head, a middle of the road Jesuit to be a delegate. The new CDF appointee is an Argentinian theologian that is the closest thing to a Francis theologian. He automatically gets a seat.
Let the conservatives cry that Francis is changing doctrine, and he can point to the presence of three CDF heads who are likely to disagree on many things.
Francis also appointed conservative German bishops to offset the liberal choices of their bishop's conference.
The synod will meet in both this October and October 2024 with the same people! Could be the beginning of a very interesting year in church history!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteFrancis didn’t pick Barron. He’s one of those chosen by the bishops themselves - all conservatives. Francis picked progressives - From Americas website
ReplyDeleteFrancis’ picks included four U.S. cardinals: Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago; Wilton Gregory, the archbishop of Washington, D.C.; Robert McElroy, the bishop of San Diego; and Sean O’Malley, archbishop of Boston. Archbishop Paul Etienne of Seattle and James Martin, S.J., editor at large for America …. were also invited by the pope. (Another American, Cardinal Joseph Tobin, archbishop of Newark, will also participate in his capacity as a member of the Vatican body that plans synods.
These are the bishops ‘ picks
The U.S.C.C.B. president, Archbishop Timothy Broglio …will attend, and joining him will be Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Tex., ….Also elected by the bishops were Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, who chairs the conference’s religious liberty committee, and Bishop Kevin Rhoades, the bishop of Fort Wayne… Bishop Robert Barron, the bishop of Winona-Rochester, Minn.
Jack - how many are women? Is that known?
ReplyDeleteFrom the America story
Deletehttps://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2023/07/07/pope-francis-synod-synodality-members-245654
The total number of members with the right to vote, 363, is the highest number ever to participate in a synod. It includes 54 women (both religious and lay), who for the first time ever will have the right to vote.
First time ever that women will vote. Still far short of 50-51% of votes for women, but a dramatic change anyway.
I agree that this event feels like something consequential.
ReplyDeleteI'm not an expert on Vatican II (and it was sort of before my time), but I've read somewhere that the Holy See had a carefully prepared agenda for the Council, which the Council Fathers immediately tossed out the window. I don't know whether anything similar would happen with this synod, but I think there is a chance that it go in unplanned directions. I don't have a good reason for thinking that; just my intuition.
The Curia had prepared draft documents on most of the areas that were later covered by the Council. They had done this after elaborate written consultations from bishops throughout the world which are archived in many volumes.
ReplyDeleteOne of the draft documents, that on the Liturgy, was in fact, after some much debated modifications, adopted as the working document for the Council by a vote of 2162 approved vs 46 opposed. The hotly debated questions were vernacular in the liturgy and the authority of bishop’s conferences over the liturgy.
The liturgy was already being reformed by Pius XII. His team led the drafting of the document. So progressives could rightly claim that this was the legacy of Pius XII.
The document was able to avoid deadlock on issues by compromise: affirming the important of Latin but permitting the vernacular under the authority of bishop’s conference. It gave those conference significant power so that bishops in a conference did not have to go the way of the rest of the world. At the same time changes by conferences had to be reviewed by Rome, so a conference could not do whatever it wanted.
The above is the type of an “inspired document” for a synod. Yes, married priests are allowed at the discretion of bishops' conferences but they get to decide if, when and how to implement the option. All this coupled with tributes to celibacy and its retention much like those about Latin in the liturgy.
Many documents were substantially redone, e.g. that on the Church began with the People of God rather than the hierarchy. Some were completely new, e.g. Constitution on the Church in the World.
Would Francis welcome such initiatives. I suspect he might if he thought they would get the Church past its present condition and debates, open us new pathways be based on reality rather than ideas, and allow for local variation. That is what he has said in his four principles.
I don't quite understand conservatives objection to Fr. Martin. I have his book, Building a Bridge. It is not my impression that he is advocating changing church teaching, in the book, or elsewhere. What he is advocating is how we treat other people, including those who identify as LBGT+. On that he and Pope Francis appear to be in agreement.
ReplyDelete"I don't quite understand conservatives objection to Fr. Martin."
DeletePersonally, I don't think it's in good faith. Whenever I've seen them try to justify it, they very quickly stray from what the church teaches.
I think it's 90% homophobia, and 10% ignorance of what the Catholic church actually teaches.
I think part of it is that fundamentalist-tinged ugliness has crept into American Catholic culture. Whenever you hear a Catholic invoke the word "abomination" in reference to LGBTQ people, you can be pretty sure they've absorbed catch-phrases from non-Catholics.
I went to a Catholic high school in the 1970s. Young men suspected of being gay were jeered at and bullied on a near-constant basis. I am not gay, but in high school I was in the school musicals, which meant that I sang, danced, wore costumes (including tights for "Once Upon a Mattress") and wore stage makeup. That rendered me suspect in the eyes of some classmates. I wasn't really bullied, but some friends went through hell. Not that any of the tormentors could have recited chapter and verse of church teaching. (Although, if they could, as David has pointed out many times, they would find distressing instances of support for their ugliness in what the church taught in those days.) They learned bigotry the same way most people learn it, I daresay.
If you figure that today's bishops are more or less my contemporaries (I'll turn 62 later this summer), there is a fair-to-good chance that most of them came out of a similar Catholic sub-culture.
It wasn't only a Catholic subculture that was homophobic. My husband and I attended the same public high school (though we didn't know each other in high school days). Girls at that time (1960s) didn't talk about homosexuality, I barely knew what it was. K. said it was like you described, with the boys, that they hassled and tormented one another if they perceived any "gay vibes". K. was small for his age through part of high school, which would have made him a potential target. But he had some friends who were very big guys, the "gentle giant" types. Nobody messed with them or their friends.
DeleteI think I was 16 before I found out what it meant. Guys sexually attracted to guys?
DeleteReally? I thought the pejoratives meant not-macho-enough. I had no subjective referent for it.
The organizational dynamics of this synod could be very interesting.
ReplyDeleteThey have already said that they are not going to use the semi-circular conference room but rather the large auditorium used for papal audiences. Participants will be seated around tables rather than all facing the speaker.
Probably will be seated in language groups. It will be interesting to see how the various categories spread out into language groups. Will they mix up geographical areas? Will they mix the non-bishops in with bishops?
What about outside the synod sessions? Will the non-bishops socialize with each other across the world, or with bishops within the geographic areas? Or both?
What about between the 2023 and 2024 meetings? Will the non-bishops have opportunities to meet with each other either within their geographic areas or around the world?
Sometime accidental decisions may have profound results. There was debate at Vatican II as to whether each day should be opened with a Mass. John XXII encouraged them to do so. As a result, they frequently experienced Eastern Rites Masses which likely opened them to concelebration, vernacular languages, and very different rites.
About the Eastern Rites, I think most lay people at the time of the Council were not aware that there were uniate rites other than the Latin one. I think VII did expand people's consciousness about the various Eastern rites which were and are part of Catholicism.
Delete