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Robert Barron
The midterm report on the deliberations of the Synod on the Family has appeared and there is a fair amount of hysteria all around. John Thavis, a veteran Vatican reporter who should know better, has declared this statement “an earthquake, the big one that hit after months of smaller tremors.” Certain commentators on the right have been wringing their hands and bewailing a deep betrayal of the Church’s teaching. One even opined that this report is the “silliest document ever issued by the Catholic Church,” and some have said that the interim document flaunts the teaching of St. John Paul II. Meanwhile the New York Times confidently announced that the Church has moved from “condemnation of unconventional family situations and toward understanding, openness, and mercy.” I think everyone should take a deep breath.
What has just appeared is not even close to a definitive, formal teaching of the Catholic Church. It is a report on what has been discussed so far in a synod of some two hundred bishops from around the world. It conveys, to be sure, a certain consensus around major themes, trends that have been evident in the conversations, dominant emphases in the debates, etc., but it decidedly does not represent “the teaching” of the Pope or the bishops.
One of the great mysteries enshrined in the ecclesiology of the Catholic Church is that Christ speaks through the rather messy and unpredictable process of ecclesiastical argument. The Holy Spirit guides the process of course, but he doesn’t undermine or circumvent it. It is precisely in the long, laborious sifting of ideas across time and through disciplined conversation that the truth that God wants to communicate gradually emerges. If you want evidence of this, simply look at the accounts of the deliberations of the major councils of the Church, beginning with the so-called Council of Jerusalem in the first century right through to the Second Vatican Council of the twentieth century. In every such gathering, argument was front and center, and consensus evolved only after lengthy and often acrimonious debate among the interested parties. Read John Henry Newman’s colorful history of the Council of Nicaea in the fourth century, and you’ll find stories of riots in the streets and the mutually pulling of beards among the disputants. Or pick up Yves Congar’s very entertaining diary of his years at Vatican II, and you’ll learn of his own withering critiques of the interventions of prominent Cardinals and rival theologians. Or peruse John O’Malley’s history of the Council of Trent, and you’ll see that early draft statements on the key doctrines of original sin and justification were presented, debated, and dismissed—long before final versions were approved.
Until Vatican II, these preliminary arguments and conversations were known only to the participants themselves and to certain specialist historians who eventually sifted through the records. The great teachings of the Councils became widely known and celebrated, but the process that produced them was, happily enough, consigned to the shadows. If I might quote the great Newman, who had a rather unsatisfying experience of official ecclesial life in Rome: “those who love the barque of Peter ought to stay out of the engine room!” This is a somewhat more refined version of “those who enjoy sausage ought never to watch how it is made.” The interim report on the Synod represents a very early stage of the sausage-making process and, unsurprisingly, it isn’t pretty. Two more weeks of discussion will follow; then a full year during which the findings of the Synod will be further refined, argued about, and clarified; then the Ordinary Synod on the Family will take place (the one going on now is the Extraordinary Synod), and many more arguments and counter-arguments will be made; finally, some months, perhaps even a year or so, after that, the Pope will write a post-Synodal exhortation summing up the entire process and offering a definitive take on the matter. At that point, I would suggest, something resembling edible sausage will be available for our consumption; until then, we should all be patient and refrain from bloviating.
The historian and theologian Martin Marty commented that our debates today about sex and authority are analogous to the arguments in the early centuries of the Church’s life concerning Christology and to the disputes about anthropology and salvation around the time of the Reformation. Those two previous dust-ups took several centuries to resolve, and Marty suggests that we might be in the midst of another centuries long controversy. I’m glad that Pope Francis, at the outset of this Synod, urged the participating bishops to speak their minds clearly and fearlessly. He didn’t want a self-censorship that would unduly hamper the conversation and thereby prevent the truth from emerging. This does not imply for a moment that Pope Francis will agree with every point of view expressed, and indeed he can’t possibly, since many are mutually exclusive. But it does indeed mean that he has the confidence and the patience required to allow the Holy Spirit to work in his preferred fashion.
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- Ngwa Bertrand
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In a candid interview Monday, Cardinal Raymond Burke voiced the concerns of many of his brothers in the Synod hall and lay Catholic activists throughout the world that the public presentation of the Synod has been manipulated by the organizers in the General Secretariat.
He strongly criticized yesterday’s Relatio post disceptationem, or “report after the debate,” which the Catholic lay group Voice of the Family had called a “betrayal,” saying it proposes views that "faithful shepherds ... cannot accept," and betrays an approach that is "not of the Church." He called on Pope Francis to issue a statement defending Catholic teaching.
“In my judgment, such a statement is long overdue,” he told Catholic World Report’s Carl Olsen. “The debate on these questions has been going forward now for almost nine months, especially in the secular media but also through the speeches and interviews of Cardinal Walter Kasper and others who support his position.”
“The faithful and their good shepherds are looking to the Vicar of Christ for the confirmation of the Catholic faith and practice regarding marriage which is the first cell of the life of the Church,” he added.
The relatio, he said, proposes views that many Synod fathers “cannot accept,” and that they “as faithful shepherds of the flock cannot accept.”
The document, among its most controversial propositions, asks whether “accepting and valuing [homosexuals’] sexual orientation” could align with Catholic doctrine; proposes allowing Communion for divorced-and-remarried Catholics on a “case-by-case basis”; and says pastors should emphasize the “positive aspects” of lifestyles the Church considers gravely sinful, including civil remarriage after divorce and premarital cohabitation.
“Clearly, the response to the document in the discussion which immediately followed its presentation manifested that a great number of the Synod Fathers found it objectionable,” Burke told Olsen.
“The document lacks a solid foundation in the Sacred Scriptures and the Magisterium. In a matter on which the Church has a very rich and clear teaching, it gives the impression of inventing a totally new, what one Synod Father called ‘revolutionary’, teaching on marriage and the family. It invokes repeatedly and in a confused manner principles which are not defined, for example, the law of graduality.”
Burke lamented that the bishops’ interventions are not published, while the General Secretariat chose to publish the controversial relatio, which was intended as a merely provisional summary of the first week that is under review by the fathers this week.
“All of the information regarding the Synod is controlled by the General Secretariat of the Synod which clearly has favored from the beginning the positions expressed in the Relatio post disceptationem of yesterday morning,” he said.
“While the individual interventions of the Synod Fathers are not published, yesterday’s Relatio, which is merely a discussion document, was published immediately and, I am told, even broadcast live. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to see the approach at work, which is certainly not of the Church.”
While critics of Burke's public interventions in the Synod debates have portrayed him as representing a fringe, he was elected by his brother bishops to moderate one of the three English-speaking small groups discussing the relatio this week.
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- Ngwa Bertrand
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Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai
The Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Mamfe in the South West Region of Cameroon Bishop Andrew Nkea has said that the words of Saint Francis of Assisi should be resounding in the hearts and heads of every Christian. In his homily delivered on the 4th of October 2014 during celebrations marking a new beginning for United OPSA USA, Bishop Andrew Nkea observed that the current crisis of OPSA in the United States should inspire every faithful follower of Christ to stand up for true Christian values which requires everyone to come out clearly and confess their sins before God. Reflecting on the OPSA USA crisis, the Bishop of Mamfe revealed that: "What has been painful about this crisis of OPSA in the United States is that each one is blaming the other and each one is seeing the fault of the others. No one is coming out clearly to confess their sins before God to say that this is my personal contribution to destroying the unity of OPSA in America; no one is owning up to say that I have sinned against God and against my sisters like the Prodigal Son. No one is saying that I shall arise and return to my Father".
The preaching Bishop hinted that defending the values of QRC Okoyoung, its rich history and dignity represents a great battle of life-time of every OPSAN, a battle OPSA must fight with the weapon of peace. He continued: "How can we then be true instruments of peace? I see this only in the backdrop of what we have just heard in the Gospel according to Luke; the hymn we commonly call the Magnificat. In this vein, I will like to say that instead of singing the praises of Mary, let us imitate her virtues, and so whether Protestant or Catholic, Muslim or Non Believer, we can all imitate the virtues of this great woman in the scriptures". His Lordship Bishop Andrew Nkea made a passionate appeal to all OPSANS in the USA to continue to cement the process of unity that started at the United OPSA Convention. The Bishop of Mamfe ended his stay with OPSANS in the US by making public a Diocesan Order stipulating that the Diocese of Mamfe shall recognize and deal only with the United OPSA USA.
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- Ngwa Bertrand
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Pope Francis on Sunday launches a major review of Catholic teaching on the family that could have far-reaching implications for the Church’s attitude to marriage, cohabitation and divorce. An extraordinary synod, or meeting, of nearly 200 bishops from around the world and a sprinkling of lay Catholics will, for the next two weeks, address the huge gulf between what the Church says on these issues and what tens of millions of believers actually do. Addressing tens of thousands of believers in St Peter’s square on the eve of the synod on Saturday night, Francis said the synod could open the door to a “renewal of the Church and society.” Since becoming pontiff just over 18 months ago, Francis has repeatedly highlighted the “wounds” caused by family breakdown in modern society, while suggesting the Church needs to adapt to this new reality. “The wounds have to be treated with mercy. The Church is a mother, not a customs office, coldly checking who is within the rules,” he has said, in an allusion to the many divorced people, cohabiting couples and single mothers within the ranks of the Church.Francis underlined where he stands last month by personally marrying 20 Roman couples, some of whom had been “living in sin” prior to their weddings. In his 18 months in the Vatican, the 77-year-old pope has already taken steps to overhaul the way the Vatican bank and administration are run and has sent out strong signals about the determination of the Church to deal with the issue of clerical sex abuse. But a reform agenda on social issues could prove much harder to implement because of deep divisions within the Church, Vatican experts say.Conservatives in the Church hierarchy have already made it clear they will fight any dilution of traditional doctrine. The Church’s view of marriage has come to be seen as increasingly outdated by many in a world where, in some developed countries, nearly one in two marriages ends in divorce and where the notion of the institution itself has been challenged by the global trend towards the legalisation of same-sex weddings.
The bishops gathered in Rome are certainly not about to embrace gay marriage and few Vatican observers expect much, if any, change on questions such as contraception, another area where Catholic teaching contrasts with the daily practice of millions. But with Francis on the side of reform, the feeling is that the synod process could lead to some highly symbolic changes when it finally reaches conclusions, which is not expected to happen before 2016 at the earliest. The most notable of these could be a change in the rules to make it possible for Catholics who divorce and then remarry to receive communion. That has been banned for centuries but critics say the Church’s stance is ludicrous given that individuals who have declared their repentance from more serious breaches of the Christian code, including murder or involvement in organised crime, can take communion. While the Church may not yet be ready to take a step that would amount to a de facto acceptance of divorce in certain circumstances, the discussions could result in steps to make it easier for failed marriages to be annulled. Another area in which the Church could send out a signal of compassion is by making it clear that priests should be ready to baptise the children of same sex couples, regardless of the doctrinal disapproval of their parents’ union. The synod will also discuss how priests and parishioners can practically help to shore up marriages within their community. Among questions to be addressed on that score is whether the easy availability of pornography in modern society is a factor in family breakdown.
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Agbaw-Ebai Maurice Ashley (AMDG)
A defining trait of human beings seem to be the desire to plan for the future, to want to secure or guarantee one’s life choices in the long run. Even social schemes such as pensions, njangis, “country meetings,” all have the element of security and planning for the future. Even children are seen as guarantees of the future: “Truly children are a gift from the Lord, a blessing, the fruit of the womb. Indeed the children of youth are like arrows in the hand of a warrior. O the happiness of the man who has filled his quiver with these arrows! He will have no cause for shame when he disputes with his foes in the gateway” (Ps 127:3-5). The beauty about all these social groupings and cultural and even biblical expressions is that they reflect the human conviction formulated in such African sayings: one hand cannot tie a bundle! Many hands do light work! And others.
However, it is also the case that human beings can allow this desire to secure the future to a point of a nervous breakdown. This desire can move to the level of fear. When not managed, this fear has led and continues to lead many to seek and inquire about what the future holds for them, in a practice which Catholic tradition calls divination. At other instances, people have taken to divination in order to forestall an apparent evil, perhaps after the death of a loved one, considered to have occurred under mysterious circumstances. Situating this practice of divination in its treatment of the first commandment, the Catechism of the Catholic Church has this exhortation to Catholics: “All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to ‘unveil’ the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honour, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone” (CCC, 2116). This text gives a succinct and profound explanation of what divination is all about. The context is also meaningful.
To place divination as a sin against the first commandment invites the Catholic to examine the quality of his or her internal orientation to the claim made by God in revealing himself as the Lord! In revelation, God reveals that he is the source of all that is, not in some general abstract sense, but in that he knows me, wills me, and wants my good. I am not some accidental product of evolution. I am known and loved. My life is a creative gift from God, and how I live that life is a gift I make to God. Christian revelation tells me that the gift of my life does not end here. That after this earthly life is over, I will live with God forever. Christian revelation tells me also that it takes a certain kind of way of living this life in order to be able to live with God forever. Precisely because of this larger picture, I am invited to life a different kind of life in this world, in preparation for the next. Time is short, eternity long. What does this different kind of life, this utter submission mean, and how does this relate and challenge the practice of divination? Why is divination theologically incompatible with what it means to be a Catholic? The answer could be simple and direct: because it goes against the invitation of faith, which is the human response to God: “No one can please God without faith” (Hebrews 11:6). Faith calls me to place my life in the hands of God. Faith is total. Faith is ongoing and persevering.
In living out the invitation of faith, the Christian can experience a darkness of faith. In Thomistic terms, the Christian can be attracted away from the Creator to the creature, from the gift of faith in God to the absoluteness of persons and things in this world. The Christian can even go away from the trust and the hope that faith proposes. The Christian, out of fear, can think and feel that God is too weak to protect him or her, especially when faced with the crushing mystery of death and evil. Could this feeling of God’s weakness and powerlessness help explain why many African Catholics go to diviners for information and protection when faced with tragic circumstances? The darkness of faith, it must be emphasized, is nothing new in Christendom. Even when a Catholic lapses into divination and other forms of sorcery, the response is not despair and exclusion. The Christian is called to rediscover that not even the death of a loved one has the final say in what it means to be Christian. When faced with the darkness of divination and sorcery, the sure, steady and healthy path is to once againre-propose the beauty of the faith in its whole range: a rediscovery of the beauty and life-giving message of the gospel of Jesus Christ; a rediscovery of the presence of Jesus in the gift of the Eucharist; a rediscovery of the closeness, support and presence of the Blessed Virgin Mary in forms such as the Rosary and other Marian Novenas; a rediscovery of fasting and mortification; a rediscovery of the supportive presence of our Christian brothers and sisters, that I am not believing alone, but I am with others, the I and the WE of the faith; the ancient practice of retreats and recollections, and other spiritual experiences that foster spiritual rebirth.
At the root of the option for sorcery and divination is therefore a crisis of faith, and the profound and meaningful response is a re-proposal and recommitment to faith, a re-proposal of the beauty and life of Jesus Christ. In the final analysis, the most important invitation after a relapse into divination and sorcery is the example of the Prodigal Son: “Yes, I shall arise, and return to my Father” (Luke 15:18) – Christian conversion is the anti-dote to the fear that leads to the recourse to divination and sorcery. It is an invitation that invites me to the better life of placing my life and all its challenges in the hands of God, trusting that everything will finally work out for the good of those who love God. It is about rediscovering that healing love of God as the decisive path of my new life in Christ Jesus, a life whose present and future is all in God’s wonderful plan. Hence, I need not allow the gift of my life to be destroyed by a fear of the future. God knows me. God loves me. God wants my good. My future is in God’s hands.
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- Ngwa Bertrand
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Dr. Oscar Labang
In this thoughtfully conceived and carefully written book, Eric Tangumonkem presents himself as a Pauline character who is not born into the faith but is converted into Christianity at some point in life. The journey therefore becomes an apostolic mission in which he must go from place to place – from Bamumbu to Mbengwi, to Buea, to Yaounde, and then to Texas – testifying to the goodness of the Lord under very difficult and stressful circumstances. If you want to learn how to live a faith-centered life; to interpret events in your life in the line of biblical teaching, then this is the right book for you.
When I first read Eric Tangumonkem’s titleComing to America, my mind immediately went to the Eddy Muffie romantic comedy movie about the rich Prince Akeem of Zamunda who takes a journey to America and encounters new realities which include the freedom to do things that a prince of his stature is not allowed to do. But the difference between the two journeys is that one is a journey of adventure and the other a journey of faith. The journey of adventure is determined by the individual and propelled by his desire to accomplish a self-defined task and the individual is very often of heroic personage. On its part, the journey of faith is predestined and the individual is simple a tool used by the Supreme to achieve a mission, and the individual is usually of humble and meek background. Interestingly, the individuals in both journeys are Princes (one from Zamunda and the other from Bamunbu) but their visions of life are set towards vastly different trajectories. One is a wealthy, wastrel and mundane Prince looking for love; the other is a poor, helpless Prince who takes every step in life at the dictate of God or in firm hope that it is inspired by Him.
If you have not been to the heart of despair and desperation, then, Tangumonkem’s journey will sound to you like a fictional tale. However, I can assure you that it is not. When I started reading Eric’s journey through life and studies, I could relate that of a thousand others I know and my own story. I remember myself seating in an Amour Mezam buss on my way to the dominantly French wilderness called Yaounde (Capital city of Cameroon) and the jungle called the University of Yaounde 1. I knew nobody in Yaounde; I knew no French; I knew nothing about the place other than that I was the Capital; I didn’t have a dime over my registration fee and transport back to Ndop. But I had two things: my small bag with three shirts and two pants, and a big heart full of FAITH. When I sat in the buss, I was tensed but never scared because I had just finished reading the journey of Abraham’s servant to the house of Laban in search of a wife for Isaac (Genesis 24). I knew that the God who was faithful to Abraham will be faithful to my widow mother, and He will bring me back to her safely. I rest of my journey to Yaounde till now is a mystery that I have never understood. Thank you Eric for writing OUR stories. God is FAITHFUL.
Eric Tangumonkem chronicles the journey of a young boy who offers his mind, spirit and soul to a God he does not know but has an unshakeable conviction that this God can provide a bedrock for his existence and success. This is not a book about going to America. So it should not be read as a Bushfalling tale. Rather, it is a book about how a boy take a bold leap into a void believing that God has set His Angels to watch over him. It is a book about faith small as the mustard seed planted in the heart of a boy in the calderas of Bamunbu, and how this faith will grow into a giant tree where birds can build their nests or take their rest. It is a book about how a life of poverty and dire need does not deter a young university graduates vision and ambition because it is anchored on a solid rock – that rock is Jesus. It is a book, a testimony about the faithfulness of God in a civilization in which people continually interrogate the rule of God in human life. It is a book that you read not to feed the desire for having read a book; but to get inspired to read other books of similar nature – for to be wise you must keep the company of the wise. That is why every reader should look forward to the two sequels Married; A Journey of Faith by Elizabeth Tangumonkem, and Living in America: A journey of Faith by Eric and Elizabth I am sure.
Even though assured of God’s guidance and protection, Tangumonkem’s journey is typical of most faith journeys characterized by fear and doubt but never yielding completely to any of these thoughts. This is what makes the Tangumonkem’s journey of faith an epic journey like that of John Bunyam characters in Pilgrim’s Progress. The difference however, is that Bunyam’s is a Christian allegory and can easily be dismissed as Literature. Tangumonkem’s is a real life experience that is still in the making – encountering good and evil every day and overcoming evil with good each time. God remains the center of his existence as he goes through the tribulations of undergraduate education. Taking the leap to travel to the United States without the necessary funds, is testament of Tangumonkem’s dependence on Divine mercy and providence, which off course never fails.
This book is artistically articulate, historically genuine and, above all, biblically rich. Tangumonkem, who happens to be a poet too, carefully weaves the narrative of his life and struggles as a poor undergraduate student in Cameroon (Africa) and graduate student in Texas, into rich biblical texts that shows the faithfulness of God at all times. To tell one’s story is a simple act, but to tell one’s story in the context of biblical teaching requires a proper understanding of both texts – the story and the bible. If you read this books in the spirit in which it is written, at the end of it you will affirm with Tangumonkem and John Sammis that when you walk with the Lord, in the light of His word, He sheds His glory on your way. Therefore, one of the central things that the reader takes away after reading the book is the fact which Tangumonkem states in the Epilogue “…the circumstances surrounding me cannot limit what God can do in my life” (127).
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- Ngwa Bertrand
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