Rene Reid was also asked to give a report of the meeting
June 20
Jean-Pierre Schmitz opened the meeting with a reminder of the Council Fifty declaration https://www.globalcouncilnetwork.org/pdf/rome2015/council50declaration-nov2015_en.pdf. He spoke of the Second Vatican Council (1962-’65) and the Medellin Conference (1968) http://www.catholicethics.com/forum-submissions/50-years-of-medellin-a-crucial-event-for-the-whole-church-to-be-updated
June 21
Continental Clamor that challenges Christians
The panel included Nontendo Hadebe from South Africa, Paul Hwang from Korea, Mauro Castagnaro from Europe, and Rene Reid from the U.S.
Rene Reid’s presentation: Challenges of moving the church forward and steps CCRI is taking
The challenges are the near impossibility of changing the hierarchy and the difficulty of moving the Faithful to assume responsibility for our Church and to take action. Our primary focus is on re-founding the church in the image of the early Christians by encouraging people to join or begin small faith communities. Our secondary focus is turning to young people to encourage them to speak out (holding Zoom conferences with representatives from Kenya, Mumbai, Mexicali, and a few other parts of the world. See 1st attachment for the full text.
Paul Hwang’s presentation: Realities, Challenges and the Future of Asian Christianity
Paul gave examples of several clerical sex abuse cases including Cardinal Gracias who was accused of and investigated for covering up an abuse in 2015. The Indian Catholic Bishops Conference gave lip service to forming the Catholic Council of India which was supposed to reform the structure of the bishops conference so that lay people could participate in the decision-making of the Church but this has never really happened. Similarly in the Philippines, Cardinal Orlando Quevedo of Cotabato has said: “The Asian vision of church is built on basic ecclesial communities with a collaborative leadership style… that is shared, not just a dictate from above, but collaborative, consultative – what is called a participatory church – is being built in the basic ecclesial communities.: But a simple reality check will show this is not true. In light of the lack of lay involvement, the Asian Lay Leaders Forum has suggested that the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC) needs to recognize, support and empower the laity by having a dialogue with them at the diocesan, national and the continental level. See 2nd attachment for full report.
Nontendo reported on the state of affairs in Africa.
There is no consistency: in East Africa the LGBT movement was declared criminal where in South Africa, the LGBT community has equal rights including marriage. The Church in Africa is way behind African society in general. Women have few rights in Africa.
More to come when Nontendo sends her report.
Mauro reported on the Movements for Church Reform in Europe after six years of Pope Francis’s Pontificate
Fifty years after Vatican II, there is a sharp decline of sacramental practice and consecrated vocations. Key issues for reformers remain unchanged: ecumenism, prohibition of contraception, medically assisted procreation, homosexual marriages, obligatory celibacy for priests, inferior status of women, and divorced and remarried couples excluded from the sacraments. Despite this reality, 75% of the Faithful still practicing in Western Europe agree with the use of artificial birth control, divorced and remarried should have access to the Eucharist, and obligatory celibacy for priests should be abolished. 60% believe women should be permitted to be ordained to the priesthood. More and more young people are withdrawing from church involvement classified as “believers without ecclesial membership.”
The Pontificate of Francis with his emphasis on pastoral priorities is met with opposition from the most conservative sectors including a large number of bishops qne directors of Seminaries. Conversely, it is met with optimism by priests under 40, progressives, and the world at large outside of Catholicism. In these six years, the pontificate of Francis has reopened the spirit of Vatican II, encouraged free discussion and debates about such issues as the role of women, a more open pastoral approach to sexual minorities, and strengthened ecumenical relations. Reform organizations including We Are Church Int’l and European Network Church on the Move have entered into dialogue with local episcopal conferences, without producing concrete results.
June 22
Fr. Paulo Suess spoke on the Synod for the Amazon and the World
Amazon encompasses 2,700,000 square miles of which most is rainforest. This region includes territory belonging to nine nations. The majority of the forest is contained within northern Brazil followed by Peru with 13%, Colombia with 10%, and with minor amounts in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana.
The Synod for the Amazon, scheduled this coming October 2019, will have pastoral relevance for the relationship between the local church and the universal church. It recognizes that there are not two separate crises, one environmental and one social, but a unique and complex socio-environmental crisis. The main purpose of this Synod, defined by Pope Francis, will be the need to find “new paths for the Church and for an integral ecology.” These “new ways” include changes in pastoral practice. He expects the poor, indigenous and traditional peoples have much to teach us at this Synod. It is Francis’s hope that the church will be a partner to the people rather than a mediator between the institution and the people. This Synod will be an opportunity to encourage the project of inculturation of the Gospel in the concrete and integral life of each people. In other words, Francis wants to see indigenous peoples culturally shape the local Amazonian Churches. The reigns of John Paul II and Benedict XVI succeeded in hardening the institution, empower the clergy, and reduce the laity to helpers and patrons. From 2000 to 2010 there was population growth but Catholic population diminished. The Church born of Jesus was in itself a reforming movement of Jerusalem. Church leaders will be looking for solutions to the fact that, due to priest shortage, thousands of these communities are deprived of the Eucharist for long periods of time. It is expected that this Synod will address how to keep the Church universally united while at the same time locally ingrained. Fr. Suess predicts that this Synod will have significant impact on the rest of the Church globally.
Nancy Cardosa spoke as a representative of the Methodist Church in Sao Paulo
She stressed the imperativeness of ecumenism as we move the Church forward. We are all the Church of the Poor.
June 23
Plans for the next 2nd Global Forum.
Discussion was held regarding the next gathering of the 2nd Global Forum. It was agreed that there is a process. A progression is needed to build up to our holding another Global Forum that would lead to potential reforms throughout the universal Church. Australia is leading the way with their plans to host a National Plenary Council in 2020 with collaboration effectively shared between the laity and the clergy.
With this in mind, the following Resolution was proposed and will continue to be discussed and developed:
Resolve that participants in this gathering in Sao Paulo will return home committed to call on the People of God each in our own country along with numerous other countries throughout the world to host a national Plenary Council, with its own National Conference of Bishops consulted and invited to join, and with young people at the core. The overriding purpose would be to re-found our Church based on Gospel values and in the spirit originally intended by Jesus Christ. The topics would be determined according to the particular needs of each region but generally would include the most pressing issues of our time: the laity having a deliberative voice in church governance, women’s equality, the inclusion of sexual minorities, a path for the divorced and remarried to return to the Sacraments, tribunals to oversee the sexual abuse crisis with lay leadership at the helm, and a concerted effort toward ecumenical movements.
These national Plenary Councils would then be the lead up to the 2nd Global Forum of the People of God, having broad representation from numerous organizations and regions of the world. This build up has the potential to give the Forum far greater creditability and influence. Imagine what might come of this: perhaps, after Francis having called several Synods of Bishops, the Spirit guided him to finally be inspired to call a Synod of the People. And this, in turn, could lead to calling the 3rd Ecumenical Council picking up where Vatican II left off.
Jean-Pierre’s organization in France, Federation Network of Paris, representing about 40 organizations in France, will meet in November to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their founding. Some want to stay in the Church and reform it from within. Others have left and gone outside the Church. The common bond is their fidelity to the Gospel message. There will be about 120 elderly people in attendance. He feels the lack of youth in this gathering. Jean-Pierre suggested that this meeting could be in the format of a national Peoples Synod representing France as was agreed upon on Sao Paolo.
Netherlands is also preparing a national meeting. There will probably be a national lay organized meeting in Spain and possibly in Italy as was reported at the European Network. Other European countries may be considering holding a lay organized gathering as well. He also reported that Nontando Hadebe will be a good person to work with in promoting a lay-led meeting in Africa. We learned from her that South Africa is far more progressive than East Africa (when Kenya is) and might be more suitable a location for a Plenary Council in their country. Once a number of these national meetings have occurred, then GCN will consider holding the Second Global Forum of the People of God.
Jean-Pierre will send his report of the Peoples Forum in Sao Paulo to the coordinating team and to those who were in attendance from other continents. It is hoped that Lula will translate the English report into Portuguese. He would like CCRI to help establish communication and links from various lay organized meetings from countries around the world. Jean-Pierre will reach out to Edson and Lula to work with them to establish a Google Group with the Sao Paulo attendees. Clyde raised the question whether it would be helpful for all of us to have a Google email address. Rene suggested that perhaps Valerie would have an answer to this and would be willing to help with setting this up. Edson has all the email addresses and Valerie has the experience and knows how to set up a Google Group. This will help in establishing good communication with all of us. With this set up, the attendees in Sao Paulo can then fine-tune the proposed draft resolution. Rene added that Colm had indicated that he would be working to establish a Plenary Council/Peoples Synod in Ireland and he thought something could likely be done in Austria led by Martha Heizer and in Germany led by Christian Weisner. Christina is currently trying to set up a organizing committee in New Zealand and the Australians have been working for several years toward their Plenary Council to be held in 2020. And the American Catholic Council will be hosting a pre-synod gathering this September with plans to hold a larger gathering in 2020. Rene said it is critical that there be communication links with all those countries and, with good networking, the lay Faithful should be able to make a serous impact on moving the Church forward. Rene suggested that If GCN sets up a Google Group with all the attendees in Sao Paulo, then perhaps the European Network could be tied into this GCN Google Group and little by little other countries would be interested in joining. Translation will still be a problem. To resolve this, we could ask Valerie to post all the Google conversations onto one of our websites. Then the Google translator could automatically be used to click on the appropriate flag and translate the conversation. We can discuss this further with Valerie to confirm the best way to handle translation.