Synod: "Overwhelming Majority Are Against Communion for the Remarried Divorced"

(Rome) Matteo Matzuzzi, the Vatican expert of the daily newspaper Il Foglio wrote to 14:52 on Twitter: "++ Overwhelming majority against Communion for remarried divorcees, according to sources in the Synod ++"

Just a few minutes earlier Sebastien Maillard, the Vatican expert of the daily newspaper La Croix, had tweeted the French Bishops' Conference:

"Overwhelming majority against the Communion for remarried divorcees, according to observers in the Synod Hall"

In another Tweet Matzuzzi wrote at 3 o'clock: "In the end everything is a matter of numbers. One begins to  count  ... "

Voters during the Synod as they also took place in the past year,  were not provided  for by Pope Francis for this Synod. That was a point which the thirteen Synodal Cardinals criticized  in their complaint letter to the Pope. The intermediate votes before the final vote on the Relatio finalis at the end of the Synod serve an orientation of the Synod, to which direction to go to see the positions on an issue.

Should the vote be confirmed, this would mean that the Synod Fathers were able to free themselves from the Synod Director. Today's vote was all just an orientation that, however, anticipates the final vote on  the topic. The final vote is scheduled for next Saturday, 24 October.

It has long been  unclear how the final vote will be held. The Cardinals complaining expressed concern that the Pope let the Synod vote only in the block, and not on the individual sections. The Synod General, Cardinal Baldisseri assured Cardinal Pell last week, that the paragraph will be voted on by paragraph. Still, there is no certainty as of yet. 

Overall, there is a lack of clarity in the air, as to whether the Synod will end at all. It was the closest confidants of the Pope,  Cardinals Baldisseri and Tagle, who wished for ambiguity. Will the Relatio finalis be published? Will there be a Post-Synodal Letter? The speech of Pope Francis last Saturday at the ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the introduction of the Synod of Bishops, and an interview published yesterday of Cardinal Walter Kasper certainly provides for new uncertainty.

Cardinal Kasper indicated that a Post-synodal letter may be long in coming, but it should announce the admission of remarried divorcees to Communion in a statement by the Pope. Since Kasper  is one of the closest confidants of the pope in the matter, his statement could be less of an invitation to the pope, and rather more of  an announcement of what the pope has intended all along. At least this option can not be ruled out  in view of the recent course of the Synod.

The same applies to the Pope's appeal of wanting to decentralize the Church. Roberto de Mattei drew attention to the fact that decentralization could serve as a "way out" of the impasse in which the progressive camp sits when the Synod majority pronouncess itself against "new Mercy." Then, instead of the synodality being stressed,  decentralization would be entered into. In other words, Africa could then retain the Catholic teaching on marriage, while the western episcopal conferences practice a liberal openness?

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Bild: Twitter/Matteo Matzuzzi