Catholic bishops back off

David O'Reilly has an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer about the Church:

An assembly of Roman Catholic bishops gathered to consider new ways their church might minister to families in the twenty-first century has backed away from the unprecedented message of welcome to homosexuals it had issued early last week.
In the final report, the 183 bishops gathered in Rome, Italy discarded a statement from an interim document that had declared that "homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community."
Similarly, a section in the document entitled Welcoming Homosexual Persons, was replaced in the final document with a title that read: The Pastoral Care of Persons With Homosexual Orientation.
The evident battle over wording could help shape the tone of a meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania next year, when the city hosts the church's World Meeting of Families.
Hopes had also been raised in some circles that the bishops meeting in Rome might propose ways in which divorced and remarried Catholics might receive Holy Communion, from which they are now barred. The document did not offer any new approach on that difficult issue.
The report by the bishops, officially known as the Extraordinary Synod on the Family, is not the final word, however. It will serve as the working document for a much larger General Synod on the Family scheduled for October of 2014 in Rome. Like this one, the report from next year's general synod will only be advisory to Pope Francis, who is expected to issue his own document on ministry to families early in 2016.
The Archdiocese of Philadelphia, which will host the international World Meeting of Families next September, declined to comment on how the report might shape the World Meeting, saying it wanted time to study it.
Francis has all but promised he will attend the five-day gathering in Philadelphia, which is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of visitors.
"Now the question is whether the World Meeting will have at least part of it devoted to the questions left open by the synod," said Thomas Reese, a scholar on Catholic hierarchy. In the past, World Meetings were "devotional and celebratory," said Reese, in Rome reporting on the synod for the National Catholic Reporter, a liberal weekly. "It was presumed the Catholic Church had all the answers, and people came to learn and study. So, will the people who come to Philadelphia be invited into the conversation Pope Francis has started, or will it follow the old model? That's for Archbishop Charles Chaput and the Vatican to decide."
The report, called a relatio, was issued only in Italian, with no comprehensive English-language translation available late in the day. Despite the report's revised wording, Michael Viola, president of Dignity Philadelphia, a group for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Catholics, said he saw signs of change flowing from the synod. "The interim report talked about being welcoming to LGBTs, and that they have gifts to bring to the church, and that their relationships can be meaningful and supportive," Viola said. "So it's nice to know we're welcome at the table. Once that's been put out there, it can never go back," he said.
The bishops who gathered in Rome voted 118-62 to approve the welcoming language toward gays, just short of the two-thirds vote required for its inclusion, The Associated Press reported.
The document had provoked much distress among more traditional, conservative Catholics, including many of the bishops at the synod, who said it did not reflect the consensus.
Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier of South Africa, who helped draft the revised final report, told Vatican Radio the final document showed a "common vision" that was lacking in the earlier draft. He said the key areas of concern for traditionalists were "presenting homosexual unions as if they were a very positive thing," along with the suggestion that divorced and remarried Catholics should be able to receive Communion without an annulment. He complained that the draft was presented as the opinion of the whole synod, when it was "one or two people. And that made people very angry," he said.
Reese said conservative pushback against the interim document "came from the third-world bishops, especially the Africans. To many of them, the report read like a First World report," he said. "It said nothing about poverty, refugees, forced marriages, polygamy, kidnappings, inter-religious marriages, and the impact of war that are of paramount concern to the church in these parts of the world."
The Italian version of the final document appears to address some of those issues, Reese said. "People have to realize that we're basically at the midpoint in conversations about some very important issues in the life of the church," said William Madges, professor of theology and religious studies at St. Joseph's University.
Unlike the previous Synod on the Family, convened thirty years ago by Pope John Paul II, Francis wanted a "lively dialog" and "diverse views" at this synod, as Madges put it.
Francis knew many bishops would defend traditional teachings, said Madges, "while others would be eager to adapt the discipline of the church to the fragility of relationships, which sometimes do fall apart." As the bishops and cardinals return from the synod to their home countries, Madges predicted, "they will be inviting lay and married people to reflect on it. They will be asking: 'Does this document address your understanding of reality? Does it deepen your faith life?' That kind of involvement and collaboration is what is really so remarkable about this process Francis has begun," Madges said. "All of us in the church are in this together."

Rico says no surprise there...