Vatican City, Oct 2, 2005 / 22:00 pm
Cardinal Angelo Scola, official relator or key moderator of the Synod, that started today its sessions, presented today to ‘Relatio ante disceptationem’, the report that gatheres indications given by the prelates in the working document of the Assembly, the ‘Instrumentum Laboris.’ The theme of the Synod is “ the Eucharist, source and summit of the life and mission of the Church.’ 256 prelates of 118 countries are gathered, of which only 241 participated in the first reunion.
He opened the sessions by remarks on the Eucharistic wonder, and the evidence of a link between Eucharist and evangelization.” “the Eucharistic celebration is the act called to manifest in the most eminent way the unique paschal event. The Eucharist makes the Church.”
Gathering on each Sunday, in any place in the World to participate to the same Body and Blood of Christ, imposes the duty to fight tenaciously against any kind of exclusion and economical injustice, social and political, to which many are submitted to, children and women mostly.
The relator for the Synod of Bishops, Cardinal Patriarch of Venice, Angelo Scola affirmed, that the Catholic Church doesn’t need to ordain married men, it would be insufficient, and he maintained the value of celibacy. The Venice Patriarch said that in the meeting, presided by Benedict XVI, the question of dominical assemblies without priests and the ‘viri probati’, the possibility to ordain married men will be treated. He underlined that the Church over centuries, has maintained the value of celibacy, and that it doesn’t wish to foresee the case of married priests.
“If priesthood is a gift and the Church a corporation, when can we interpret that there is a lack of priests or not?
Who can fix the amount of priest we need? The Church has to confide in the Providence,” declared Scola, who added that another question would the distribution of priests in the universal Church. He talked about the Christian cult, which is a total offering of ones life to Christ, of the Eucharistic act, which nature isn’t something strange but rather an act that Christ realizes, gathering the faithful that are part of the people, in the anthropological dimension, cosmological and Social of the Eucharist.
Scola doesn’t discard that the theme of remarried divorced Catholics might be tackled. The Church up until today, forbids them to access to communion
Scola referred to the separation between Christians and said that the Eucharist is not an automatic instrument to reach the unity the Church.” Of course it increases it, but if there isn’t a unique profession of faith, we run the risk of a major division’ the cardinal specified. “We have to remark the substantial communion of faith between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church on the theme of the Eucharist and priesthood” he added.
The novelty of the synod will be that each day, at the end of each sessions, the priests participating will take part in an hour long of free debate. The assembly will last until October 23, day in which Pope Benedict will officially mark the end of the Year of the Eucharist.