October 4: Questions of Emphasis

An overemphasis on “niche” issues such as church governance and women’s ordination can have unintended negative effects on the church and the world, Mons. Anthony Randazzo said at a briefing regarding the 16th General Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on Friday.

Randazzo, who currently serves as bishop ordinary of the Diocese of Broken Bay in Australia and president of the Federation of Catholic Bishops Conferences of Oceania, said that these issues often emerge from Western nations “with great wealth [and] access to technology and resources.”

Though he acknowledged these issues are “important” to the synodal conversation, “they are not so important that they become so all-consuming to the point that others cannot live or exist on the face of this planet.”

Randazzo reflected on the ecology and culture of Oceania, which he described as “a very fragile environment.”

He reminded others that modern Western nations such as Australia and New Zealand are only two of the conferences of churches in the region, which also includes Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and the Pacific Nations.

The fragility of Oceania “is largely ecological,” he said. He explained how outsiders come to the region and embrace logging, fishing, and deep-sea mining, thus “depleting the oceans and the seas of so many of the resources.”

He linked this concern to Friday’s Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, “who reminds us to look at creation.”

While protection of the planet is essential, “sometimes we do it at the expense of the human beings who live on the planet,” he said, adding, “I worry that we forget that on the seventh day god created man and woman in his own image, the crown of all creation.”

In his travels throughout the region, Randazzo said that he has heard people speak not only of the dangers of fishing and logging, but about their faith. “We desire to speak the gospel of Jesus Christ in the world in which we live,” he said.

He also underscored how “the concept of synodality is not some foreign introduction” in Oceania, but “it is something they have been doing for thousands of years.”

“It is natural for communities to sit together and to listen to one another respectfully,” he said.

Randazzo said that the people of Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea expressed “deep, profound joy” during Pope Francis’s visit last month. That Francis took the time to “go across the world to one of the most fragile areas” demonstrated to the local people that they were not forgotten, he explained.

In addition to environmental issues, Randazzo also drew attention to the plight of migrants who are forced to leave their homes because of rising seas and sinking islands. Wealthy countries end up being destinations of people to resettle, he said.

Randazzo said that a Western hyper-focus on “niche issues” detracts from pressing concerns such as migration and environmental threats in other parts of the world. He referred to this as “a new form of colonialism, and the most vulnerable people are often oppressed by that.”

Members of the North American and European churches can become “too comfortable” and forget their neighbors in Africa, Asia, South America, and “the most vulnerable on the planet,” Oceania, he said.

Randazzo said that the issue of church governance and restructuring curial offices “is necessary as part of a synodal community of the church,” but that he bristles at terms drawn from “business language” such as “networking.”

Business language is “niche” and “will be the death of us as a community,” he said.

He continued, “We are trying to become so sophisticated in our administration, that we are becoming so narrow [and] in fact excluding people from participatory models of a synodal church in mission.”

As for the issue of women in the church, and the question of the women’s diaconate in particular, Randazzo pointed to the study group that has been formed to “take it aside from the [Synod] floor for a moment.” This is not to remove it from the conversation, he said, but “to go more deeply into it to actually see what’s there.”

As a consequence of the emphasis on women’s ordination as “the hot-button issue” throughout the Synod, “women who in many parts of the church and world who are treated as second-class citizens are totally ignored,” he said.

“This is scandalous, in the church and in the world, all because a small minority with a large, powerful Western voice are obsessed with pushing this issue,” he continued. He added that “I have no problems with this issue being talked about and studied,” but not “at the cost of the dignity and women in the church and in the world.”

“Can we stop talking about women and listen to and speak with women?” he asked. “Let the other issue [of ordination] be studied, but for heaven’s sake, in the name of Jesus, can we look after and include our women?”

Randazzo offered the example of Jesus as a model for how the church should open itself to the diverse voices of women, especially those who marginalized by poverty and violence.

“He walks with them, he talks with them, he eats with them, he listens to them, he includes them in the life of the gospel,” he said. “Are we not called do to the same?” ♦

Michael Centore
Editor, Today’s American Catholic

Banner image: Mons. Anthony Randazzo speaks at the Synod briefing on Friday, October 4. Vatican News / Vatican Media

2 replies
  1. Sarita Melkon Maldjian
    Sarita Melkon Maldjian says:

    Thank you for this report, Michael,
    I found the words of Mons. Anthony Randazzo deeply distressing as ordaining more God fearing servants of the Catholic church would obviously have a positive effect on the universal church and world, not an “unintended negative” one. He should instead believe that this “small minority” of women would actually use their “large powerful Western voices”, their privilege and with Gods grace someday, their clerical power (if only their patriarchy would soften their hardened hearts) to actually go to the ends of the earth and minister to the marginalized women, “listen to and speak with” them themselves.

    Reply
  2. Nicole d'Entremont
    Nicole d'Entremont says:

    In my experience, women in Christian churches in the United States are often the back-bone and worker-bees in over-all community outreach, education, health, religious instruction, and hands-on fund raising efforts. This has been true for years in the Catholic Church. I don’t think the “diaconate” is a niche issue. It’s an issue re sharing power and the direction of the Church in ecclesiastical and social issues. Women all over the world are invested in political, environmental and social change. The Roman Catholic Church is dragging its feet by quibbling about giving women(all over the world and not just in the West) a forceful shared leadership voice in all those crucial directions.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.