At the Synod: reintroduce Jesus back into our lives, and what we say in Rome will it be believed back home

Synod - Vatican Media

FEATURE: Cardinal Napier’s ‘Dream for the Synod’; ‘All of Us Are Challenged to Reintroduce Jesus Back in Our Lives & Walk With Him’

African Prelate Also Underscores That Synod Will Only Have Effects If Priests at Parishes Are Able to Be Convinced That What Was Said in Rome Matters; Otherwise, Will Just Be Another Synod

October 15, 2018 12:22Deborah Castellano LubovSynod18

Cardinal Napier, Archbishop of Durban, South Africa, has shared his dream for the Synod of Bishops on young people, the faith and vocational discernment, taking place in the Vatican, Oct. 3-28, 2018.

Speaking to press in the Holy See Press Office on Saturday, the Cardinal proposed: “All of us are challenged to reintroduce Jesus back into our lives.” His dream, the South African prelate explained, involves “we as the Church convincing as many young people as possible that we know Jesus and we know what it means to walk with Him.” If we can show we walk with Jesus and have experienced His love and His intervention in our lives, he suggested, this will have an effect.

During his remarks, Cardinal Napier had discussed aspects of the synod which have been particularly praiseworthy, including the young people’s participation in the small study groups, but also criticized three areas of the working document Instrumentum Laboris, which do not reflect or include important realities in Africa. He also commented when journalists were asking about clergy sex abuse, that it is important victims come forward so these issues can be properly dealt with. He also underscored the importance of creating or implementing properly the correct guidelines and practices for prevention of abuse and cover up in the future.

Recognizing the debate around Pope Francis at the moment, Cardinal Napier recalled when Pope Francis, after being elected Pope, went over to greet an older cardinal who had trouble walking, despite the tradition being that everyone makes their way over to greet the newly-elected Pope. “Since that moment,” the Cardinal said, “I have tried to take in everything significant that Pope Francis does.”

One significant memory Cardinal Napier said was during Francis’ first homily, when he took that day’s reading and expressed it in this way: “the true disciple of Jesus is one who walks with Jesus.”

“Of course, the image of Emmaus comes to mind immediately,” the Archbishop of Durban recalled, “He walks with Jesus. What does he do? He tries to reveal to Jesus as much as Jesus is going to reveal to him, explaining to them everything that was in the Scriptures spoken about him.”

“So what I really see being the challenge coming out of the ministry is that we as the Church, not just bishops and priests, but everyone in the Church, all of us are challenged to reintroduce Jesus back into our lives, by walking with him so that when we go and talk to young people about the faith, we are talking about an experience that we have had of walking with Jesus. That, I think, is what this Synod must do, if it’s not going to be a failure.”

“It must convince as many young people as possible that we as the Church, know Jesus, we are walking with Him, we may be faltering, but we are walking with him and this is what we would like to introduce into our lives, this walking with Jesus.”

The second point he made in that homily, Cardinal Napier recalled, was that “we must not just walk with Jesus as if we are selfish people trying to get ourselves into Heaven.” Rather, “We have to build up the Church by our faith and by our works.”

“Here we have a clear indication that we are responsible for each other’s development in the faith.”

The third aspect, he said, is that we must witness Jesus, witness Jesus too to those outside of those in the Church.

“I think this triple challenge is one young people would take up,” the African Cardinal stated, “if we convincingly show them that we are walking with Jesus, we are building up the Church by our example, especially by enabling them to walk with us and also reaching out to those outside, saying: ‘Come along,’ you can have this real life, if you walk with Jesus.”

“This is the outcome of this Synod, I would like to see,” Cardinal Napier said.

“This would be my dream for the Synod,” namely that “we come out knowing that we have convinced people that we know what it is to walk with Jesus and we want them to walk with us.” He added that “sometimes they may even walk ahead of us. But let’s walk together.”

Cardinal Napier also underscored that the Synod can be effective, but only if it is able to move from what happens in Rome to a local level. “If the priests in parishes do not think much about what happened in Rome, all will stay status quo.”

The Cardinal said that we in Rome will first have to try to convince our bishops’ conferences that what happened in Rome matters, then they need to convince their priests.

***

On ZENIT’s Web page:

Cardinal Napier Explains 3 Inadequacies in Instrumentum Laboris for Addressing Important African Realities: https://zenit.org/articles/cardinal-napier-explains-3-inadequacies-in-instrumentum-laboris-for-addressing-african-issues/

October 15, 2018 12:22Synod18

Optimism from the Synod from South African Cardinal Napier

Cardinal Napier: No more concerns about synod process, optimistic about outcome

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  Cardinal Wilfrid F. Napier of Durban, South Africa, greets media as he arrives for a session of the Synod of Bishops on the family at the Vatican Oct. 16. (CNS/Paul Haring)

Joshua J. McElwee  |  Oct. 20, 2015

Family Synod 2015

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Vatican City

One of the 13 cardinals said to have signed a letter to Pope Francis sharply criticizing the ongoing Synod of Bishops has said he no longer has concerns about the gathering and is even optimistic about its outcome.
South African Cardinal Wilfrid Napier told reporters at a briefing Tuesday that Francis' response to the letter -- addressing the entire bishops' gathering on its second day of work Oct. 6 -- "made a huge difference … in the scale of confidence and of trust" in the pope and the synod process.
After hearing the pontiff that day, Napier said he felt "that the concerns had registered, they were being taken care of and therefore, from there on, everyone was going to work at the synod with all they've got."
"I think that's what I've experienced and that has been why I feel that this synod takes up where that first week of the last one had left off, when we were all optimistic and looking forward to really looking together on the issues as a team," said the cardinal, referring to an earlier synod held in 2014.
Francis has called two synods -- worldwide meetings of Catholic bishops -- for 2014 and 2015 to address issues of family life. The 2015 event is being held Oct. 4-25.
Intrigue surrounding this year's gathering reached a high last week with publication of the letter from the cardinals to the pope, which had been delivered to the pontiff privately Oct. 5 but was made public by an Italian journalist Oct. 12.
One American cardinal, New York's Timothy Dolan, has confirmed signing the letter. Another, Galveston-Houston's Daniel DiNardo, is said to have signed the letter but has not offered comment on the matter.
Napier, who heads the South African archdiocese of Durban, said Tuesday that the document was a "private letter" that was "written in the spirit of what Pope Francis had said at the beginning of last year's synod, when he said please speak openly and honestly but listen with humility."
The cardinal also renewed his criticism of the 2014 synod, saying that there were "certain individual items that were of concern" to him about that gathering. He mentioned in particular the mid-term report that was released by the synod last year.
That document, he said, "was already saying things which I know were only said in the hall at the most by two or three people, but was presented as if they were the reflection of the synod."
"Now, that certainly gives you the impression that the synod is being pushed in a certain direction," said the cardinal, in reference to the 2014 gathering.
Napier, who served on the drafting committee for the final document from the 2014 synod, is now serving as one of four co-presidents of the 2015 gathering.
At Tuesday's briefing the South African cardinal also fielded a question from a reporter concerned that the Synod might decide to use new language when referring to gay people.
"I think that's a detail we couldn't give you an answer on right now because the official text is going to be in Italian, first of all, so I can't tell you what they're going to write there," Napier responded.
"I think when we look at the problems that we've been studying during these three weeks, there are two possibilities," said the cardinal.
"The one is to look at it from the pastoral point of view, where you're trying to reach out to people and minister to them," he continued. "The other one, which I would say has been deemphasized during this time, even at the synod last year, is the prophetic. Where, like John the Baptist, you say you've got to repent and these are the sins and you name them, as they are."
"This has certainly been a very much more pastoral synod, looking at how can the church be as servant and minister to those people in difficult situations," he said. "There's been a lot of emphasis on using language that doesn't offend."
The some 270 prelates at the synod were to meet in open session Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday is expected to see the release of the final round of public reports from 13 different small discussion groups at the gathering.
[Joshua J. McElwee is NCR Vatican correspondent. His email address is jmcelwee@ncronline.org. Follow him on Twitter: @joshjmac.]