VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE   
   YEAR XXII - # 183   
   DATE 20-10-2015   
      
   Summary:   
   - Listen to women, say auditors to Synod Fathers   
   - Audiences   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
    Listen to women, say auditors to Synod Fathers   
    Vatican City, October 2015 (VIS) - The role of the woman in the family, in   
   society and in the Church, cultural differences, concerns regarding ethics in   
   medicine, the situation of persecuted Christian families and the testimonies of   
   those engaged in family catechesis were main themes of the interventions by   
   auditors in the Synod Hall during the general congregations of Thursday 15 and   
   Friday 16 October, published today.   
    The national president of the Catholic Women Organisation in Nigeria, Agnes   
   Offiong Erogunaye, reminded the Synod Fathers that African women are known for   
   taking care of their families with or without the contributions of their   
   spouses, and the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria indicates the strength and   
   role of "a typical woman and mother determined to keep her family together in   
   the face of helplessness and calamity". She added, "From my experience with   
   women in this difficult moment, I can boldly say that although the man is the   
   head of the family, the woman is however the heart of the family, and when the   
   heart stops beating the family dies because the foundation is shaken and the   
   stability destroyed. In Nigeria, Catholic women are not just homebuilders. They   
   are a strong force to be reckoned with when it comes to spirituality and   
   economy, and growth in the Church".   
    Sister Maureen Kelleher from the United States of America quoted the paragraph   
   in the Instrumentum laboris that states, "The Church must instil in families a   
   sense of 'we' in which no member is forgotten. Everyone ought to be encouraged   
   to develop their skills and accomplish their personal plan of life in service   
   of   
   the Kingdom of God". She called upon the Church, "my family", to "live up to   
   the   
   challenge to instil in our family the Church a sense of 'we', to encourage each   
   person - male or female - to develop their skills to serve the Kingdom of God".   
   She added, "I ask our Church leaders to recognise how many women who feel   
   called   
   to be in service of the Kingdom of God but cannot find a place in our Church.   
   Gifted though some may be, they cannot bring their talents to the tables of   
   decision making and pastoral planning. They must go elsewhere to be of service   
   in building the Kingdom of God. In 1974, at the Synod on Evangelisation, one of   
   our sisters, Margaret Mary, was one of two nuns appointed from the Union of   
   Superiors General. Today, forty years later, we are three".   
    "The Church needs to listen to women ... as only in reciprocal listening does   
   true discernment function", emphasised Lucetta Scaraffia, professor of Modern   
   History at the University of Rome. "Women are great experts in the family:   
   leaving abstract theories behind, we can turn in particular to women to   
   understand what must be done, and how we can lay the foundations for a new   
   family open to respect for all its members, no longer based on the exploitation   
   on the capacity for sacrifice of the woman, but instead ensuring emotional   
   nourishment and solidarity for all. Instead, both in the text and in the   
   contributions very little is said about women, about us. As if mothers,   
   daughters, grandmothers, wives - the heart of families - were not a part of the   
   Church, of the Church who encompasses the world, who thinks, who decides. As if   
   it were possible to continue, even in relation to the family, pretending that   
   women do not exist. As if it were possible to continue to forget the new   
   outlook, the previously unheard-of and revolutionary relationship that Jesus   
   had   
   with women".   
    "Families throughout the world are very diverse, but in all of them the women   
   play the most important and decisive role in guaranteeing that their solidity   
   and duration. And when we speak about families, we should not speak always and   
   only about marriage. There is a growing number of families composed of a single   
   mother and her children. It is almost always women who stay by their children's   
   side, even when they are ill, disabled or afflicted by violence. These women   
   and   
   mothers have seldom followed courses in theology, and often they are not even   
   married, but they offer an admirable example of Christian behaviour. If you,   
   Synod Fathers, do not pay attention to them, if you do not listen to them, you   
   risk making them feel even more disgraced as their family is so different to   
   the   
   one you focus on. Indeed, you talk too readily of an abstract family, a perfect   
   family that does not exist, a family that has nothing to do with the real   
   families Jesus encountered or spoke about. Such a perfect family would almost   
   seem not to be in need of His mercy or His Word: 'I have not come to call the   
   righteous, but sinners to repentance'".   
    The issue of mixed marriages also attracted attention, as mentioned by Rev.   
   Fr.   
   Garas Boulos Garas Bishay, pastor of St. Mary of Peace in Sharm El Sheikh,   
   Egypt, who expressed his concern for a socio-cultural phenomenon widespread in   
   tourist areas such as that of his parish: "mixed marriages between Christian   
   girls and women from Russia and Europe, with Muslim boys and men (indeed,   
   Islamic Shariah only allows Muslim men to marry women of other religions and   
   never the contrary). Certainly this phenomenon, along with the mass demographic   
   shift and a growing number of refugees and migrants who tend to settle in   
   Europe, does not only affect countries with an Islamic majority or tourist   
   areas, but will inevitably also affect the West and is therefore worthy of   
   study   
   and serious consideration. These are families with mixed morals and a dual   
   cultural and religious affiliation. ... It should not be forgotten that Islamic   
   law permits polygamy and the Koran obliges the parents to the provide an   
   Islamic   
   education for the children. There is a profoundly different cultural and   
   religious anthropology that may easily give rise to serious crises within the   
   couple, even leading to irreparable fractures and grave consequences for the   
   children".   
    Maria Harries, Chair of Catholic Social Services in Australia, also spoke   
   about   
   cultural diversity, providing the example of the very marginalised Aboriginal   
   people, which comprise many language groups and family traditions. "For most of   
   them, the idea of the family as it is represented by our Church teaching is   
   alien. For some, the matrilineal system means that they have many mothers. The   
   child is reared in a kinship group, not by a mother and father. Women play a   
   dynamic role in their kinship world and they expect them to be visible. In the   
   words of one of the aboriginal leaders, 'By not having women visible on the   
   Altar and in the life of the Church, we are concealing our mothers, our sisters   
   and our daughters from view'. In welcoming the Gospel, they ask not to be   
   recolonised by our Church as they have been by our nation's forebears. The   
   challenge for our Church is to formally and institutionally incorporate   
   cross-cultural dialogue and adopt systems with indigenous Australians that   
   honour and do not violate their culture".   
    Harries, who has worked for forty years with people who have experienced   
   sexual   
   abuse in the family and for the last twenty with those who have been abused by   
   members of the clergy, affirmed that "all sexual abuse is connected to the   
   abuse   
   of power. ... The horrific evidence of abuse of children in families and   
   institutions and our failure to respond adequately to this has left the Church   
   in Australia and of course elsewhere in very deep pain. ... In the words of   
   Pope   
   Francis, as we all pray for and 'receive the grace of shame', we need local and   
   collective ways of meeting all these victims and their families and each other   
   in our garden of agony and to listen deeply, very deeply. From our failings and   
   the accompanying pain, we have the opportunity to learn collectively and   
   perhaps   
   even doctrinally, and to re-engage with and accompany the thousands of families   
   whom we have lost".   
    Brenda Kim Nayoug spoke of what is referred to in South Korea as the "Sampo   
   generation", or rather, the generation that chooses to forego courtship,   
   marriage and childbirth. "Many of the young generation have given up these   
   three   
   things because of their social pressures and economic problems. There are so   
   many young people who are suffering due to unemployment, they unfortunately   
   postpone their marriage, and forget that marriage is a calling given by God.   
   Dear Fathers", she exclaimed, "married life is a long journey. There might be   
   lots of possibilities to get lost or to be wounded on their journey of life,   
   therefore the Church should open up and truly accompany us at the various   
   stages   
   of our married life, so that we do not give up but instead find for ourselves   
   the beauty of the Christian family".   
    A recurrent theme in the interventions was that of married sexuality and   
   ethics   
   in medicine. The Peruvian paediatrican Edgar Humberto Tejada Zeballos remarked   
   that "there are couples who believe that having a child is a right, without   
   considering that children are a gift from God, and resort to measures that   
   aside   
   from violating morality, cost innocent lives, such as in vitro fertilisation,   
   in   
   which many embryos are eliminated, burned, frozen or sold. They also consider   
   practices such as surrogacy and other means that ... denying morality, cause   
   the   
   sacrifice of a great number of embryos without mercy or use them in   
   experiments.   
   Holy Father, I believe that in the working document, in paragraphs 140 and 141   
   these threats to life and to the family could be mentioned clearly, to transmit   
   this knowledge to many Christians who commit these immoral acts out of   
   ignorance".   
    Massimo and Patrizia Paloni, a married couple from Rome and members of the   
   Neocatechumenal Way, are the parents of twelve children and are currently in   
   mission in Holland to announce the Gospel to the "existential peripheries of   
   Europe". They expressed their gratitude to Paul VI for the encyclical Humanae   
   Vitae, which helped them understand that "responsible parenthood is not about   
   deciding the number of children, but rather about being aware of the greatness   
   of the vocation to collaborate with God in the creation of sons and daughters   
   for eternity", adding that "every day around us we see suffering, separations,   
   abortions, and lonely people without hope. The world is awaiting the witness of   
   the Christian family, and we are convinced that the salvation of humanity is   
   through the Christian family. ... The Christian community saves the family, and   
   the family saves the Church".   
    Sister Berta Maria Porras Fallas of Costa Rica insisted on the need for   
   formation for "vocational realisation", and proposed three priorities in youth   
   pastoral ministry. "First, love in discernment, with the themes of formation   
   for   
   discernment and discerning the mission. Secondly, loving as a couple, man and   
   woman, with the analysis of current issues. And finally, loving as sexual   
   giving, with the theme of human sexuality as a gift, conjugal love and daring   
   to   
   love".   
    Finally, the Marqus-Odeesho couple, on behalf of families in Iraq, told how   
   the   
   Christians of Nineveh have found themselves having to leave their homes, jobs,   
   memories, possessions and schools overnight. "The new experience was very   
   harsh", they said. "Only the words of our Lord Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew -   
   'Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is   
   the kingdom of heaven' - condole us and relieve our wounds; thus we started to   
   hear testimonies of some displaced families giving their experience, saying   
   that   
   despite the suffering and harshness of displacement, getting closer to the   
   Church helped them lot and they started to feel that their faith was   
   strengthening and maturing, and they began sharing in spiritual activities. ...   
   Today the challenges continue through events such as kidnapping, bombing,   
   robbery and terror. But in spite of this situation there are still many   
   families   
   who are committed to their land and their Church, giving testimony to their   
   faith without realising that this persecution will bring a lot of good to the   
   Church of Christ, as it did for the early Church, in spreading the good news".   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
    Audiences   
    Vatican City, 20 October 2015 (VIS) - Today, the Holy Father received in   
   separate audiences:   
    - Cardinal Baselios Cleemis Thottunkal, major archbishop of Trivandrum of the   
   Syro-Malabars, India.   
    - His Beatitude Ibrahim Isaac Sedrak, Patriarch of Alexandria of the Copts,   
   Egypt.   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
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