Word: synods
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...Synod of Bishops, created by Pope Paul VI in 1965, is potentially an important vehicle for sharing Vatican power with bishops whose people live under vastly different conditions all over the globe. Though the synod is only an advisory body and the Pope sets the agenda, bishops have an opportunity to come to the Vatican every few years to present their ideas on church problems. The synod of 1969, a year after Paul's hotly disputed reaffirmation of the ban on artificial birth control, brought a demand from the bishops that they be consulted next time before the Pope...
...first synod, however, Pope John Paul deliberately picked the treacherous topics his predecessor avoided: the whole range of family issues, including contraception, abortion, sexual morality and the thorny question of divorced Catholics involved in second marriages. The bishops talked for a month, and when the synod closed last week it was evident that on birth control, the assembly had buttressed tradition rather than questioned it. The end result was a reaffirmation of Paul's teaching by the 216 delegates, which not only strengthens official policy but also makes it appear less the view of one man in Rome...
...synod began, there was a flurry of excitement. Led by Archbishop John R. Quinn, president of the U.S. hierarchy, a number of prelates from Western Europe, Canada and the U.S. baldly pointed out that large numbers of good Catholics simply do not understand the ban on birth control and are unwilling to obey it. But no one at the synod questioned Paul VI's teaching on birth control. And it soon became clear that many bishops in non-Western parts of the world take a dim view of contraception. Social-action liberal bishops from Brazil and other Third World...
...synod's final "propositions" for papal consideration, codified by West Germany's Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, have been kept secret. But most apparently endorsed tolerance: the birth control doctrine, as one Cardinal put it, "is not a discipline to be imposed in full rigor but should be gradually brought to the conscience of married couples as they mature." All sides agreed that the teaching must somehow be made more convincing...
Mental adultery with one's own wife? The remark caused no visible reaction among his listeners. But the apparently paradoxical idea of married adultery roused the Italian press and public considerably. Soon the "lust" affair all but overshadowed news from the international Synod of Bishops at the Vatican, which, by coincidence, this month was discussing family and marital problems...