Synod working paper skips host of concerns
Asian bishops voiced
By GARY MacEOIN and THOMAS C.
FOX
The following is the last of a series of
articles published in preparation for the Synod on Asia. In the March 27
issue, NCR looked at the strikingly blunt responses of the Japanese
bishops to the Vaticans lineamenta, or synod preparatory document.
Last week NCR looked at responses of the East and Southeast Asian
bishops conferences. This week NCR looks at the instrumentum
laboris, the working document for the synod.
Clear differences have surfaced between many Asian bishops and the
Vatican in the preparatory documents for the Synod for Asia. If the final
working document for the gathering is any barometer, however, few of those
differences will surface publicly at the synod in Rome beginning April 19.
The instrumentum laboris, the working document
prepared by the Vatican after receiving the responses to the lineamenta
from the Asian bishops conferences, makes only faint references to
critical concerns raised by Asian bishops on matters of church mission,
theology, interfaith dialogue, inculturation and missionary activities.
The 24,000-word working paper does not lay out an agenda for the
synod. Instead, it meanders from narration to exhortation and to dogmatic
assertion. There are several excursions into apologetics and catechetics, as
well as frequent bursts of triumphalism.
Various episcopal responses to the lineamenta had
criticized its defensive tone. That tone still pervades the working paper.
Meanwhile, urgent episcopal conference calls lose their thunder in the
homogenized language of the document, becoming vague generalities.
Calls for urgent upgrading of the role of the laity in
evangelization, for example, are softened to: Many responses mention that
the laity seek to become more actively involved. Insistent criticisms of
the lay/clerical gap become a call for greater cooperation among the
various states in the church.
What ultimately emerges from a comparison of the working document
and the responses to the lineamenta of the Asian bishops is two
radically different ecclesiologies.
The Asian bishops appear to work out of the theologies of Vatican
II, especially of its vision of the role of the church contained in the
Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. That view, as articulated by
many of the Asian conferences, sees the church committed to liberation from
both individual sin and from whatever hinders full growth as human beings. The
working document reflects a different view, concentrating on preaching Jesus as
Savior of the world.
The final working document ignores altogether Asian bishops
concern that the Vatican has withdrawn from Vatican IIs vision of the
churchs mission and purpose, as well as their calls for greater shared
decision-making.
Requests sidestepped
Nowhere does the document refer to the demand of the Japanese
bishops conference that the synod format be changed to allow the Asian
bishops to take control of the synods agenda and proceedings.
Nor is there any reference to a request by the Indonesian
bishops conference to explore possibilities for establishing an East
Asian patriarchate, to relativize the primacy of the Western
church and enhance authentic inculturation of Christian faith.
A patriarchate is an autonomous, self-governing federation of
dioceses. The five ancient patriarchates of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria,
Antioch and Jerusalem were determined in 451 by Byzantine Emperor Justinian I.
In the six Eastern Catholic churches with a patriarchal structure (Armenian,
Chaldean, Coptic, Maronite, Melkite and West Syrian), the patriarch is
subordinate to the pope.
The Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for Asia is to run
April 19 through May 14. It was called by Pope John Paul II in his November
1994 Apostolic Letter, Tertio millennio adveniente. In preparation for
the synod, the Vatican in 1996 sent its initial preparatory document to the
bishops of Asia. Responses were returned to Rome last year.
At a meeting held at the Vatican Sept. 30 to Oct. 2, 1997, the
synods general secretariat considered the bishops responses and
completed the instrumentum laboris. The document was translated into the
synods official languages, French and English, and distributed to the
bishops of Asia late last year.
Bishops conferences represented at the synod will include
those from the Middle East, the Persian Gulf countries, South Asian countries,
the Central Asian countries, the Southeast Asian countries, Asian Siberia and
the countries of the Far East. The area represented covers some 50 nations and
nearly two-thirds of the worlds population.
The working paper, ignoring requests in several responses for
major changes, roughly follows the outline of the original lineamenta,
consisting of an introduction, seven chapters and conclusion. It develops the
synod theme, chosen by Pope John Paul, of Jesus Christ the Savior and his
mission of love and service in Asia, that they may have life and have it
abundantly.
The working document stresses the important preaching function of
the church, particularly the call to Jesus Christ, Savior, as well as the
unique role played by the church in Gods salvation process.
The central aspect
Chapter IV, Jesus Christ: The Good News of Salvation,
is described in the document as dealing with the central aspect of the
churchs message of evangelization and her mission, i.e., the person of
Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior and Son of Man.
The document repeatedly exhorts the bishops to the New
Evangelization, a theme Pope John Paul has stressed in recent years as
the means of taking Christianity into the new millennium.
The document says that the success of the New Evangelization in
Asia will depend on how people come to recognize Jesus so as to respond
to the perennial invitation to experience fullness of life in him through
participation in the communion of the church, his body.
The document goes on to say it finds widespread support among the
Asian bishops responses to the lineamenta for stressing the unique
salvation path centered upon Jesus Christ, as Savior.
The instrumentum laboris at one point puts it as follows:
Responses to the lineamenta indicate that the overriding title for
Christ among his disciples, associated with his mission to all humanity, is
that of Savior and redeemer, who in freeing a people from sin and
all its effects -- particularly death -- has established a church, or
worshiping community, called to give praise to God in Christ and through the
Holy Spirit.
The document continues: Acknowledging Jesus as Savior
involves not simply confession of sin but a change of heart, that is, accepting
Jesus Christ as lord of ones life in an ongoing process of
conversion.
The overwhelming support claimed by the Vatican in the synod
working paper to stress the New Evangelization with its preaching focus on
Jesus Christ as Savior is not borne out by a reading of responses from more
than a dozen bishops conferences to the lineamenta.
To the contrary, many Asian bishops conferences view
evangelization as a subtle matter requiring dialogue with other religions and
the avoidance of undue focus on Jesus as Savior.
The Indonesian bishops conference, for example, in their
response to the Vaticans lineamenta, said that with regard
to Christological concern expressed in the lineamenta the
Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences makes attempts at an
integral and holistic approach to the mystery of Jesus Christ by using
inclusive language, so that Christology truly becomes
Catholic, i.e., embracing all humans of whatever religious
conviction.
Solidarity with people
The conference said that Jesus Christ is best preached as the
Savior by a church that is in solidarity with people whose lives are
marked by poverty, oppression, discrimination and all kinds of
injustice.
The bishops cautioned that in pluri-religious societies it
is often difficult to directly and explicitly proclaim the central role of
Jesus Christ in the economy of salvation.
The Japanese bishops had similar concerns but were more blunt,
writing, If we stress too much that Jesus Christ is the one and
only Savior, we can have no dialogue, common living or solidarity with
other religions. The church, learning from the kenosis [emptying,
self-abasement] of Jesus Christ, should be humble and open its heart to other
religions to deepen its understanding of the mystery of Christ.
The Philippine bishops conference wrote that it preferred a
witnessing approach to the preaching of Jesus as Savior.
Witnessing is primary, they wrote.
The Indian bishops conference spoke of the deficiency
of our present Christology in that it sometimes uses exclusive
language, which deals with only one part of the great mystery of
Christ.
In union with the Father and the Spirit, Christ is indeed
the source and cause of salvation for all peoples, they wrote, adding
but this fact does not exclude the possibility of God mysteriously
employing other cooperating channels.
They then cautioned the Vatican that the lineamenta
expression that Jesus Christ is the one and only Savior of the whole of
humankind should be understood in the Indian context in a way that takes
seriously into account the multicultural and multireligious situations of our
country.
In the light of the universal salvific will and design of
God, so emphatically affirmed in the New Testament witness, the Indian
Christological approach seeks to avoid negative and exclusivistic expressions.
... We cannot, then, deny, a priori, a salvific role for these non-Christian
religions, they wrote.
The Indian bishops asked if it is really necessary to choose one
approach or another. There is more than one theology evident in the New
Testament, they wrote. This pluriformity of theology is catered to
different churches of varied cultures and life-situations. Christology is never
a finished product but always in process ...
So today the churches around the world and here in Asia need
to create contextualized theologies of our one faith incarnated into many
cultures. ... The agents of such contextualized faith expressions are the local
churches themselves under the guidance of a magisterium which is
predominantly pastoral in character.
Issues glossed over
While focusing on salvation and the role of Jesus as Savior, the
Vaticans working document glosses over other issues raised by a number of
Asian bishops conferences. Several conferences, for example, identified
the churchs association with its colonial past as a continuing
handicap.
The Philippine bishops stated that they are conscious of our
baggage from the past and its culturally imperialistic mission
approach. They called for a self-emptying, the
unloading of our culturally imperialist baggage and an openness to
discern the footprints of the Lord among Asian peoples -- in their stories,
traditions, cultures and religions.
Only faint echoes of such sentiments found their way in the
working document, although it describes itself as composed on the basis
of the responses. It mentions colonialism only twice and without any of
the condemnatory tone evident in the bishops responses. Similarly, while
Asian bishops responses to the lineamenta spoke of the Catholic
church as being seen, in some instances, as foreign in Asia, the working
document prefers to replace foreign with not totally Asian.
Several Asian bishops conferences told Rome that it is not
the Asian style to challenge other religions but rather to enter into dialogue
with them, to search for points of agreement and downplay differences. The
Japanese bishops told the Vatican that its thinking had come out of the
traditional Western scholastic tradition with emphasis on distinctions and
differences. The Japanese said they preferred seeking creative
harmony.
The working document admits that history and circumstance require
dialogue, but insists, in the final analysis, on the obligation to proclaim
Jesus as Savior. In this spirit, the working document states,
the church in Asia, engaged in the synod process, wishes to look to Jesus
Christ, the Savior of all, in order to come to a proper understanding of the
life she shares in him, to strengthen her union with him and to renew her
dedication to her mission to all peoples of Asia.
The issue of proclamation versus dialogue is at times subtle, but
the distinction becomes clear by repeated emphases.
Wording may insult
The issue surfaced in Quezon City, Philippines, last month when 55
delegates at a forum organized by the Geneva-based International Catholic
Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs-Pax Romana, came together to
study the instrumentum laboris.
Most Muslims would be insulted by the wording of the working
document, Professor Arif Mayed of the International Institute of Islamic
Thought of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, told the gathering. The document makes it
sound as if the church is out to convert rather than to dialogue with people of
other religions, he said, according to a UCA News report.
The document is critically damaged, Mayed said, by its
conservative strategic attitude and eventually by its arrogance in saying that
the church is the sole source of abundant and authentic living.
According to the professors view, the church of the Second
Vatican Council was open to and ready for an authentic dialogue of life, while
the vision of the church seen in the synod working document is closed and
conservative.
The major mistakes of the document, he said, center on
its Christology, which he claimed makes everything else from education to
social and charity work part of a strategic evangelization.
An attempt to speak with Muslims to learn their
symbols, actions and religious terminology and then to use this to try to
convert Muslims is offensive to all Muslims, the Islamic scholar added.
He proposed a discussion on the Holy Spirit or even on the Father
as an alternative starting point for dialogue, but not Jesus as the Son of God.
The document makes it sound as if the church is out to convert rather
than to dialogue with people of other religions.
The shift from an openness apparent at Vatican II to a more closed
and conservative church attitude today was also alluded to by the Indonesian
bishops in their response to the lineamenta. They spoke of developments
as alarming. Conversion, they wrote, occurs not only as fruit
of proclamation. It is the spirit of God who alone works conversion to
God in Jesus Christ through proclamation as well as through
inter-religious dialogue.
The work for social justice as an integral part of the Christian
mission is stressed repeatedly in the Asian responses to the lineamenta,
but this emphasis is largely absent from the synods working paper.
A greater voice
The document ignores the recommendation made by several Asian
bishops conferences to adopt the see/judge/act method in analyzing Asian
reality. This method has been associated with liberation theology.
There is no mention of liberation theology in the working
document. The word liberation appears five times in the document,
three of these in quotations from statements written by the Federation of Asian
Bishops Conferences. In their responses to the lineamenta, many
Asian bishops conferences had objected to the way the Vatican had
overlooked the federations work. The working document gives the
federation a greater voice.
Sources close to the preparations also said the Vatican had made
some concessions in the final document on theological concerns of the Asian
bishops about the Second Person of the Trinity. But the sources said that
nothing in the document had changed regarding the First and Third Persons of
the Trinity, areas where some Asians feel they have the best chance of dialogue
with other world religions.
The document also is reluctant to accord the title of
liberator to Christ. It even states that some (Asian bishops)
responses caution that the term liberator in reference to Christ
should be avoided.
This is strange, because none of 13 Asian bishops responses
available to NCR expressed such a caution, while three of them
specifically recommended use of the title.
The church is called to give concrete shape to the mission
of Christ as liberator, the Indonesian bishops said.
Jesus Christ is presented as redeemer and liberator who
fought injustice and oppression, the bishops of the Philippines wrote.
The Sri Lankans made a similar statement.
Thomas C. Fox was formerly editor of NCR and is
currently its publisher. Gary MacEoin of San Antonio is the author of 30 books
and a frequent contributor to NCR.
National Catholic Reporter, April 17,
1998
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