Pope Francis, the Synod for a narration shift?

In the jargon of the United Nations’, we speak of third- (or fourth)-generation human rights, not born from common accord but crafted as tools for imposing a vision of the world. The Holy See constantly notes in every international gathering that these rights and their terminology do not have a universal consensus.

In the case of the penitential rite that is planned at the opening of the Synod, perhaps we should speak of second-generation sins.

The penitential rite includes a request for forgiveness for “the sin of the doctrine used as stones to be thrown against” and even “the sin against synodality,” which is characterized as “the lack of listening, communion, and participation of all.”

How should these sins be defined? And are these sins typical of a certain humanity? And, above all, why introduce these sins?

The Catholic Church is not new to great rites of penance and reconciliation. The Day of Forgiveness on March 12, 2000, represents a significant precedent. John Paul II wanted, in fact, a tremendous penitential rite with which the Church would ask forgiveness for the sins of the past.

Even in that case, the choice was widely debated and criticized. After all, the Church does not sin. It is men who do it. And sin often arises within a particular context. Pope Francis has repeatedly warned not to look at sin with today’s glasses.

The Day of Forgiveness was given a robust theological apparatus to overcome the debate. A document was drawn up, “Memory and Reconciliation: the Church and the Sins of the Past,” and there was a press conference in which Cardinal Etchegaray emphasized that we were faced with a “Diptych: a theological study and a liturgical celebration.”

“Our solidarity with the Church of yesterday thus makes us discover better our responsibility for the Church of tomorrow,” Cardinal Etchegaray emphasized, explaining the request for forgiveness. And Archbishop Piero Marini, then Master of Pontifical Celebrations, affirmed that “confessing our sins and those of those who preceded us is an appropriate act of the Church that has always been able to discern the infidelities of its children, has been able to tell and do the truth about the sins committed.” Still, he emphasized that “this confession does not mean judgment on those who preceded us,” because “judgment belongs to God.”

Seven types of sins were confessed, all linked to papal documents or speeches:

• General sins.
• Sins committed in the service of truth (intolerance and violence against dissidents, religious war, violence and abuse in the Crusades, coercive methods in the Inquisition).
• Sins that compromised the unity of the Body of Christ.
• Sins committed in the context of relations with the people of the First Alliance, Israel.
• Sins against love, peace, the rights of peoples, respect for cultures, and other religions in conjunction with evangelization.
• Sins against human dignity and the unity of the human race.
• Sins in the field of fundamental human rights and against social justice (the last, the poor, the unborn, economic and social injustices, marginalization).

The list is official, and the language used denotes the desire not to erase the past and not to blame the Church. The sins are recognized, the contexts are identified (such as the effort of evangelization, which was once managed differently), and it is highlighted with the language that those sins are not systemic. They are episodes. Sins, precisely, or errors.

Above all, forgiveness is asked for the sins of the past. It is an act of purification of memory. There is no presumption of putting everyone in penance so that they recognize sins even where they cannot see them.

The penitential rite of the Synod includes listening to three testimonies of people who have suffered the sin of abuse, war, and indifference in the face of the drama present in the growing phenomenon of all migrations. These are sins of today, and the risk is that of a significant emotional and personal narrative, which, however, gives the idea of a systemic problem that often does not exist. Because, after all, most priests do not abuse and have never abused, there is hardly anyone who favors war, and because a general indifference towards migrations is to be proven, considering the great work of welcome that Christians do throughout the world.

Sin against peace will be confessed; the sin against creation, against Indigenous populations, against migrants; the sin of abuse; the sin against women, the family, and the young; the sin of the doctrine used as stones to be thrown at; the sin against poverty; the sin against synodality/lack of listening, communion, and participation of all.

Here, too, the language is that of official communications, and one can notice a shift in language towards more sociological terms. It is not a forgiveness that requires understanding; it concerns concrete facts and concrete things. It is like a great public confession and the creation of a sense of guilt that has no reason to exist.

In the end, the Pope will address the request for forgiveness to God and to the sisters and brothers of all humanity on behalf of all the faithful. In practice, all the faithful are called to ask for forgiveness because sin is no longer treated as an individual problem but a collective one.

Many problems are inherent in this language and this choice of penitential rite.

The idea of the “doctrine used as stones to be thrown” would need to be deciphered. It is a theme that recurs in some recent statements from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith when it speaks of the sense of guilt of the faithful in the face of pastors who embarrass them with doctrine (see, the letter about the single mothers “abstain from communion out of fear of the rigorism of the clergy and community leaders”). And indeed, there are cases of this kind.

However, they are limited cases, particular situations that cannot be generalized. Ultimately, doctrine is there as an aid, a compass, a help for Christians to understand the will of God. However, it is also true that personal and denigrating judgment based on doctrine is not encouraged. Indeed, the request is always to listen to the faithful.

The sin against synodality needs some real unpacking.

Leaving aside the fact that “synodality” is a term whose whole meaning has never been clarified, what does this sin consist of? Does it mean that a bishop does not apply the synodal method if a priest makes decisions without listening to the faithful or if a parish priest acts as a parish priest as he knows how this sin will stain him?

These are all questions that make us think, leading to different interpretations.

The first part of the Synod, on Communion, Mission, and Participation, has shown that most bishops are tied to doctrine and what they believe in. Above all, they defend the Church. There is indeed talk of the drama of abuse. However, it is not said that the drama of abuse should be considered systemic, and this is clarified. In the final document of the Synod, the term “LGBT” that was in the first draft is also removed. The vision is the traditional one, as well as the role of women in the Church and various pastoral issues.

Pope Francis has established ten study groups on the most controversial issues. These groups will continue to work after the Synod, and their issues will not be part of the debate at the Synod.

Yet, some in the Synod saw the meeting as a political platform. After last October’s work, it was said that some answers had to be given because otherwise, the people of God would be disappointed.

In the end, this penitential rite bypasses the problem. Forgiveness is asked for abuse by overcoming the vision of those in the Church who show that the issue of abuse cannot be considered systemic and that instead, the perception of this system comes from the formation of a “social panic” towards the Church itself.

Doctrine is defined in negative terms, as was already the case in the letter with which Pope Francis accompanied the appointment of Cardinal Fernandez as prefect of the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith. In this way, the idea of those who have shown and emphasized the importance of clear doctrine is overturned, and in doing so, they have also blocked some programs of so-called “innovation.” Pope Francis would call them “the backsliders,” but—also using political language—they have often spoken of “resistance.”

Above all, this rite forces us to think of synodality according to a modality defined by the Synod itself, in effect trying to close a debate on what true synodality is and also on how synodality is interpreted in the Eastern Churches, where it concerns only the bishops.

Here, we come to the second motivation: It defines a narrative.

It is well known that the Church is no longer a substantial majority and that the peripheries of the world suffer from marginalized Catholicism is a logical consequence. However, until now, we have tried not to give in to the narrative of an evil Church because it is in power.

Benedict XVI praised “de-worldliness-ization” (It. demondanizzazione, a neologism and a term of art almost impossible to render in English) because it allowed a purer Church to be detached from its structures. However, today’s result is a structure that defines itself as pure and that, in reality, agrees to cut with the past without even considering it. She does so because she has decided to accept the narrative imposed on her from the outside.

It is not a request for forgiveness to purify memory. It is a request for forgiveness that risks reconstructing a memory. Returning to the truth of the facts will be very difficult when all this happens.

Finally, the third reason is that the request for forgiveness, with its sociological rather than theological language, also shows a Church that, deep down, has lost the notion of sacrament. The role of the priest becomes that of a social actor called to remedy the errors of the past, perhaps to cut with the past. Confession becomes collective because everyone must become aware of their own sins and of some particular sins.

In the end, there is a Pope who asks for forgiveness and a Church around him that agrees to ask for forgiveness even when there is nothing to apologize for. Will this be a great prophetic act, and will it be the last cry of a Church prone to the world?

In fact, the Synod seems like a great operation of cutting with the past, in which we focus on details and lose sight of “the big picture.” If we use UN jargon, this creates space for new sins, sins 2.0, sins of the third and fourth generation.