No Clash Foreseen at Extraordinary Synod

Expectations of a clash between liberal and conservative forces in the Roman Catholic Church next week when representatives of the world’s bishops meet here in an Extraordinary Synod have been energetically dampened by Vatican officials and organizers of the synod.

Fears of a conflict first surfaced in January when Pope John Paul II summoned the bishops and other church leaders to gather for an extraordinary two-week session beginning Nov. 25 to review the results of Vatican Council II, which has brought sweeping changes in church life since it ended 20 years ago.

Liberal Questions

Liberal Catholics in many parts of the world, particularly in Northern Europe and North America, questioned whether the conservative Pope planned to use the synod to roll back the spirit of openness and freedom that swept much of the church after the trail-blazing Vatican II.

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” said the Rev. Thomas Herren, an American priest in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the former Vatican Holy Office that serves as the church’s theological watchdog. “If the Holy Father wanted to revise something said by the council, he would not need a synod to do it.”

“The Extraordinary Synod is not and cannot be a minicouncil,” said Archbishop Jan Schotte, the synod’s secretary general. He pointed out that two weeks is not enough time to take up and resolve 20 years of questions.

Two other senior churchmen here who are familiar with planning for the synod said there is virtually no room in the structure of the meeting to allow time for controversy.

“The synod is only consultative, not deliberative,” one of them said, “so if you’re expecting fireworks, forget it.”

They said that the time limitation makes impossible any general debate among the 165 voting participants. They said the delegates will hear a keynote address by Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels outlining three essentially non-controversial areas of Vatican II for discussion.

The three areas, they said, will be Revelation, the Nature of the Church and Liturgy. Controversial questions such as the role of women in the church and marriage for priests will not be raised, they said.

Following Danneels’ address, they said, representatives of the 102 national conferences of bishops, along with 63 other senior churchmen whom the pontiff has invited as voting delegates, will then separate into language groups to discuss the three areas. They will come back together a week later to bring their conclusions together and, finally, vote on a joint report based on the discussions.

“The aims of the synod are to celebrate, to verify and to promote Vatican Council II, in which the Holy Father was a prominent participant,” church spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said.