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Comment of Dr Mary McAleese on the instrumentum laboris

Colm Holmes • 11 July 2024

It is a dull document but perhaps all the cans that have been kicked down the Synodal road will yet create a din that cannot be ignored. 

Comment of Dr. Mary McAleese on the instrumentum laboris

 

The instrumentum laboris, that is the working preparatory document which will inform the October 2024 meeting of the Synod of Bishops, is worthy, wordy and ultimately disappointing in its grating piousness and its tediously wordy repetition. 


Deep buried in its 20000 words are the barely recognisable remnants of the distilled discernment of those who in good faith participated in the global synodal process over these past two years believing as Pope Francis had promised that there would be freedom of speech, an open agenda and there would be “nothing about us without us”. The participants views have now been synthesized, edited and thinned out of any subject vaguely touching on controversy. Anyone hoping for clarity on the greater inclusion of women and LGBTIQ+ which were priority demands right across the globe, will likely be disappointed. The latter do not even merit a mention but presumably (hopefully) are among those described as feeling “excluded or on the margins of the ecclesial community or who struggle to find full recognition of their dignity and gifts within it. This lack of welcome leaves them feeling rejected, hinders their journey of faith and encounter with the Lord, and deprives the Church of their contribution to mission”. That message seems to have at least been received even if one has to dig to find in it some crumb of comfort for LGBTIQ+ Catholics. 


The issue of the exclusion of women fares a little better for at least they merit a particular mention. However discussion of their greater participation in ecclesial decision making is advanced mainly as a subject for further study and in the broader context of developing greater lay involvement in Church non-ordained ministries and administrative roles. Will a road-map to that promised land emerge in October 2024?


There are three references to “the circularity of the synodal process” and the “circularity of dialogue”. There can be little doubt that these references accidentally get close to the truth. The synodal process has led the Church round in circles to what purpose remains to be seen. Women and LGBTIQ+ are not only no better off at this juncture in the process but have endured emphatic dismissal of their cases from Pope Francis himself with regard to ordination to deaconate and priesthood, and blessing for same sex married Catholic couples. His interventions robbed the Synod of freedom of speech and an open agenda on two live issues which were manifestly of wide concern among the faithful. Will the synodal process over time prove to be the leaven in Church thinking which opens space for updating of the magisterial teachings, practices and processes which deliberately deprive the Church of the talents of many who do not just feel excluded but actually are excluded. The document fails to admit that these “feelings” of exclusion are grounded in a reality for which the magisterium is responsible and which the Pope has full primatial power to redress any day of the week.


The instrumentum laboris is not likely to excite or inspire the many who were baptised into the Catholic Church but who have exercised their inalienable human right to freely leave the Church (a right not recognised in canon law) whether to embrace another faith, give up on faith altogether, whether in righteous anger over clericalism, misogyny, homophobia, physical and sexual abuse of children by clergy, episcopal protection of criminal clergy and neglect of their victims …. the reasons are many, all valid and unlikely to be reversed by the synodal process so far.


It is a dull document but perhaps all the cans that have been kicked down the Synodal road will yet create a din that cannot be ignored. The People of God made this Synodal process their own until their voice was dubbed over in Vatican-speak but in the vague plans the instrumentum laboris discloses for ongoing, regular formal synodal dialogue at every level of the Church there remains the hope that that voice of the faithful will not be snuffed out but will grow stronger, more synodally sure of itself. 


Meanwhile let us hope the circus full of elephants left out of the synodal room are noisy enough to be heard inside despite the heavy duty sound-proofing.

 


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A reflection by Soline Humbert for the Women’s Ordination Conference Retreat “Hidden Springs, Holy Radiance” 9 February 2025 [ see recording on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szP5h1kzEsU ] We have been gathering over the past three days in the presence of Brigid of Kildare, and I am sure she has brought gifts to each one, for my experience is that she is attentive to our needs and very generous with her help. At this stage I just want to share some of my own life journey with Brigid. I first encountered her in 1969 when I came from France to Ireland as a child on holidays to learn English. I went to a small Irish town called Tullow. As it happens it was in Tullow that on the first of February 1807 the order of nuns of St Brigid which had been dissolved at the Reformation, had been refounded by a far-sighted bishop. Symbolically an oak sapling had been brought from Kildare Town, from the church of the oak, to Tullow and planted in the grounds of the Brigidine convent where I took English classes. It was by then a majestic oak tree. It still stands to this day. Coincidentally and somewhat ironically, 1969 was also the year that Pope Paul the 6th removed St Brigid, along with 193 other saints, from the Universal Roman Calendar of saints. The reason being that there wasn’t enough evidence for her existence! That despite the fact she was the most mentioned Irish person in the writings of several centuries after her death... What was true was that her flame had been somehow extinguished, and her importance diminished in a deeply clericalised and patriarchal church as Ireland was at the time. She was in the shadow of St Patrick and very much the secondary patron Saint, reflecting the secondary position of women in general. But change was slowly happening. Having discovered in myself a vocation to the priesthood I eventually co- founded a group for women’s ordination and launched a petition to open all ministries to women in February 1993. At the very same time, which I consider providential, the flame of St Brigid was rekindled by the Brigidine sisters in Kildare Town. Women were stirring after a very long wintertime in the church and in society and becoming more fiery. Brigid with her torch was blazing a way for equality. It is then, and only then, that I came across the story of her ordination as a bishop and I remember my astonishment for I had never read anything like that before, or since, for that matter. Of course, while this fact was mentioned in many of the lives of Brigid going back to the first millennium it had been quietly left out of the pious descriptions of her life which were fed to the people. The way the story is recounted makes it clear that her ordination was considered to be very much the doing of the Holy Spirit. Objections about her gender were voiced but powerless to negate what God had done. It reminds me very much of the passage in the Acts of the Apostles when St Peter is amazed to discover that the Holy Spirit has descended on Cornelius, a gentile, and which leads him to conclude that “God has no favourites”. Brigid’s episcopal ordination at the hands of a bishop overcome by the Spirit is also a powerful affirmation that when it comes to ordination God has no favourite gender. Her ordination’s divine origin shows that Brigid was a bishop because God ordained it, and her. A very subversive truth our Church has yet to learn... As we campaigned for women’s ordination we made sure that this episode from Brigid’s life was brought into the open, again and again, despite clerical efforts to dismiss this dangerous historical memory as pure legend and keep it buried. Interestingly when the Anglican Church of Ireland, (Episcopalian) ordained their first woman bishop in 2013 it was to the diocese of Meath and Kildare! A very symbolic act. I have often gone to St Brigid’s Well in Kildare, a little oasis of peace, to spend some time with Brigid and re-source myself by the gently flowing water. After the First Women’s Ordination Worldwide Dublin international Conference in 2001 I went there again on the anniversary of my baptism and I hung my purple stole on a tree overlooking the well. I had worn that stole for many years as a sign of waiting. From now on I would wear stoles of other colours. And a few years ago, I found myself back in Tullow, as a guest speaker at the invitation of the Brigidine sisters for an international celebration. It was very moving to be able to speak of my calling to priesthood in the place where the order of St Brigid had been revived and where I had first come as a child half a century beforehand! That day I sensed very much the presence of Brigid the bishop and I was filled with joy and gratitude. In some ways we can say St Brigid has risen up and is leading the way for women to rise up. Although a woman in what was very much a man’s world and a man’s church, Brigid exudes a remarkable confidence in her being, in her words and in her actions. No doubt that confidence was rooted in a deeply contemplative life nurtured by prayer. “From the moment I first knew God, I have never let him out of my mind, and I never shall”. She embodies the authority which stems from being filled by the Spirit and a leadership at the service of peace, justice, hospitality to the strangers, charity to the poor and marginalised, reconciliation, healing and harmony with creation and care of the earth. The two Scripture readings we have just heard are very fitting for she was renowned for her practical care and generosity to those in need or suffering. Like Christ, she went around doing good. I must not be the only one who saw and heard in Episcopalian bishop Mariann Budde’s recent words the spirit of St Brigid as she used her God- given authority to plead for mercy for the people in vulnerable situations in the face of unbounded cruelty. Brigid is a bold, dynamic presence. She is said to be a woman of the threshold, of liminal places, and she is a sure guide for our times when we also are in transition on the threshold of a new church and a new world too. She calls to us to step boldly forward with our torches burning brightly, bringing the light and warmth of God’s Love to a world gone cold in the grip of darkness and despair. Her life reminds us that with “God nothing is impossible” and to expect miracles. I shall end on a light- hearted note: I went on pilgrimage to St Brigid’s Well and Solas Bhride in Kildare last Tuesday to prepare for this retreat. On the way back from the well and driving through the wide expanse of the Curragh where thousands of sheep graze freely I started seeing a multitude of rainbows. It reminded me of one of the many whimsical stories about Brigid: Caught in a rainstorm, she hangs her mantle on a sunbeam to dry. Dripping from its edges, colourful rainbows form in the water droplets, and her mantle is ‘bright’ with colour. Lady, from winter’s dark, Star of Imbolc, rise! Dance across our threshold: Scattering warm laughter Seeds of hospitality, Tolerance, forgiveness! Return again to the folk: You the Spring we yearn for! (Tom Hamill)
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