Disappointment with Sinod in Portugal
Pope Francis has placed the Church in Synod. In other words: together to listen to as many members as possible and welcome their collaborators for the reform of the Church. As with any walk, some go faster, others go slower. In these, some are passing the procession, others will try to stop the reform intended by the Pope.
In Portugal there are examples of everything. There are even those who pretend to be with the Pope but who hope he doesn’t succeed and everything goes back to the way it was, as Jorge Wemans denounced in a text published in the digital daily “Sete Margens”. He is astonished that 1 publication of the resulting series from Lisbon passed without any national media outlet making any reference. Except for the Catholic Ecclesia Agency.
It is not surprising that such has any, it includes Jorge Wemans since the “document in question contains novelty”. The title of his text: “Irrelevance, clericalism and inability to listen”.
In this as in other texts published in “Sete Margens”, there is a certain disillusionment with the way in which the synodal process is being lived in Portugal. In fact, only those who are deluded can be disillusioned. However, it is just as likely that someone will feel satisfied with what he or she does not find the low point that is coming from listening to the people of God and those who live with them.
Fortunately, some countries and groups, even in Portugal, are reflecting on the Pope’s challenges to their faith and questioning the Church to which they belong. In due course, as happened with Vatican II, this reflection will infect broad sectors of the Church and provoke its conversion and reform as if to pretend the Pope. God hear you.
*Priest