Lighten up.
ROME — From the outset of his papacy, Pope Francis has encouraged a robust and open debate over the contentious social issues that have long sundered the Roman Catholic Church. Now, with a critical meeting on the theme of family about to begin at the Vatican, he is seemingly getting what he wanted: a charged atmosphere with cardinals jousting over how and whether the church should change.
Conservatives, in particular, are trying to stop any prospects for allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive the sacrament of holy communion. A group of powerful conservative cardinals has released a handful of books — timed to coincide with the opening of the Vatican meeting on Sunday — that are fashioned as rebuttals to such proposals but that some analysts see as thinly veiled swipes at Francis.
“The conservatives have already mobilized,” said Marco Politi, a longtime Vatican analyst and the author of a new book, “Francis Among the Wolves.” “Now it is up to the reformers to come out.”
For Francis, the two-week gathering is the beginning of a yearlong process that could determine what sort of changes he will, or will not, bring to the church’s approach to social issues such as divorce, gay civil unions or single parents. The meeting, known as an Extraordinary Synod, is an open forum at which 191 bishops, cardinals and other church leaders are expected to debate these and other issues, and to set the agenda for a final, decisive synod next October.
Having enjoyed a mostly charmed papacy, Francis is now plunging into contested terrain that requires confronting entrenched power blocs in the Vatican and beyond. He set the synod schedule early in his papacy, and while he has remained opaque about what specific changes he is seeking, he has spoken about a more merciful, inclusive approach. Some analysts believe he sent a pointed signal last month when he oversaw a wedding of 20 couples in St. Peter’s Basilica, including couples who had been living together and a person whose previous marriage had been annulled.
Recent history hangs over the proceedings. In 1980, Pope John Paul II convened a synod on the theme of family, but analysts say it served to stanch reformist dissent and further concentrate authority in the Vatican. Many synods since then have largely been vehicles to rubber-stamp policies handed down from the Vatican, many experts say.
By contrast, Francis has sought to let conflicting voices be heard, while also issuing a questionnaire to gather opinions from ordinary Catholics.
“The synod is dedicated to the family because the context of the family has changed from the way it was 33 years ago,” said Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri during a news conference at the Vatican on Friday. Cardinal Baldisseri, appointed by the pope to oversee the synod, added, “We need to be able to put the church’s reality in today’s reality.”
Cardinal Baldisseri said that Francis would attend the daily meetings, in which a range of people are expected to speak, but that he would mostly be an observer, other than offering a daily prayer and a speech to conclude the proceedings on Oct. 19.
He noted that although the Western news media and many Western Catholic leaders have fixated on certain social issues, the talks would be wide-ranging, given the church’s global scope, to include issues like poverty, migration and polygamy.
Yet for many, the bellwether topic will be whether church leaders will ease the process for allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive communion. The church already uses annulments to declare that a marriage was never actually valid, clearing the way for Catholics who have divorced and remarried to receive communion. But annulments are usually a cumbersome, time-consuming process. Recently, Francis appointed a commission to simplify procedures.
In February, Francis chose Walter Kasper, an emeritus cardinal from Germany, to give the opening address that month at a consistory of cardinals considered the first step in the synod process. Cardinal Kasper, regarded as a liberal on social issues, has proposed a mechanism whereby some divorced or remarried Catholics could serve a period of penance and then be allowed to receive communion.
Some cardinals have spoken out against the proposal as a violation of Catholic doctrine, a stance he recently rejected. “Catholic doctrine is not a closed system, but a living tradition that develops,” Cardinal Kasper was quoted as saying recently by Il Mattino, an Italian daily newspaper. “They want to crystallize the truth in certain formulas,” he said, “the formulas of tradition.”
Cardinal Kasper, noting that the pope had endorsed his February speech, questioned the motives of some critics. “I am not the target; the target is another,” he said, suggesting the target was Francis.
The opposition is led by a group of conservative cardinals who this week published a book, “Remaining in the Truth of Christ,” that included essays intended to rebut Cardinal Kasper. In a conference call with journalists this week, one of the authors, Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, said the church could not change teachings on marriage and bluntly criticized Cardinal Kasper.
“He was urging a direction which in the whole history of the church has never been taken,” said Cardinal Burke, prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura and a former archbishop of St. Louis. He added that church teaching “is handed down to us from the apostles.”
“The synod is not meeting to create some new teaching in the church, or to break with that tradition,” Cardinal Burke said.
(He also criticized Cardinal Kasper’s comment that people were criticizing him to attack the pope. “I find it amazing that the cardinal claims to speak for the pope,” Cardinal Burke said, adding: “The pope is not mute. He can speak for himself, and if this is what he wants, he will say so.”)
Some Catholic scholars note that the church has demonstrated considerable flexibility over the centuries when facing changing societal problems. Stephen J. Pope, a professor of theological ethics at Boston College, said the new discussions over social issues are unsettling to some bishops, who ascended by toeing an ideological line but are now being encouraged to speak their personal views, even as Francis seems to want to bring change.
“It’s clear that Pope Francis is signaling that, but he wants that result from dialogue within the church,” Mr. Pope said. “He wants it to emerge organically from discussions, rather than impose it.”
Mr. Politi, the Vatican analyst, said the emerging political fault lines were actually a boon to Francis, who organized the synod over two meetings — divided by a year — in order to stir the sort of deep conversation needed to bring a mandate for change.
“You can only have big changes to the Catholic Church if all the bishops and cardinals are involved,” Mr. Politi said. “For Pope Francis, it is important that people speak out, even if they speak out against him.”
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