Tony Flannery

I have been somewhat amused by the apparent discovery by some members of the Synod of Bishops of the notion of the ‘internal forum’, or ‘conscience’. It is a measure of how damaging the last thirty or so years have been to our Church. When I was studying theology in the late sixties and early seventies we were directed by the writings of Bernard Haring, which always encouraged the notion of people being able to make their own conscientious decisions, taking account of the particular circumstances of their lives.

Now that the Synod has ended there is great debate among the commentators as to who were the victors and who the losers, — while the official line is that type of talk is all wrong, that it is suited to the world of politics, not of meetings of Church leaders. I’m afraid it would take a lot of convincing to get some of us to believe that there is no politics among Church leaders.

The Synod in Rome is well in to its final week. I am disappointed with the very limited coverage being given to the event by the Irish media in general. For ‘anoraks’ like myself there are numerous websites which give a blow by blow of everything that is happening. But for the average Irish person, I suspect there is very little awareness that anything at all is going on.
And that is a pity.