Will homosexuals have to wait as long as Galileo for papal approval?

Just about the most remarkable Vatican story your Rome correspondent ever covered came back in October 1992. It concerned a speech that Pope John Paul II made to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, in which, 350 years late, he publicly "pardoned" Galileo Galilei, the so-called father of modern science, condemned as a heretic by the Vatican in 1633.

Galileo and his telescope came to mind earlier this month as an intensely dramatic Vatican Synod on the Family concluded two weeks of often “lively” debate. One is tempted to ask: will gays and lesbians have to wait 350 years before the Holy See stops teaching that the homosexual tendency is “an objective disorder”?

In Galileo’s time, it was a “heresy” to suggest that it was the earth which revolves around the sun and not vice-versa. The Inquisition called on Galileo to “abjure, curse and detest” his views. It put his works on the Index of banned books and, of course, confined him to house arrest for the last eight years of his life.

Even allowing for all the political aspects of Galileo’s trial, it is probable that the inquisitor cardinals who condemned him believed they were doing the right thing. Doubtless they felt they were defending “non-negotiable values”, the “deposit of faith”, the “magisterium”, and so on. The problem for them was that John Paul II moved the goalposts, admittedly 350 years later.

The comparison with Galileo is probably a bit unfair, but it makes the point. At the end of a synod that appeared to take three steps forward and then two back, a number of intriguing questions ask themselves. Firstly, does the watered down, final Relatio represent a failure on the part of some synod fathers to "grasp the signs of the times", as urged by Pope Francis himself? Secondly, do the synod tensions indicate a serious divergence of opinion between Francis and a minority of conservative bishops?

Halfway point

Given that the synod process has arrived only at the halfway point, such questions may seem premature. Many commentators have, correctly, pointed out that the most important aspect of the synod was not the wording of the final

Relatio

but rather that the assembly had been marked by an unprecedentedly real and, to a certain extent, transparent debate. It was not so much the conclusions (or not) arrived at, but rather the fact that certain issues (homosexuality, communion for divorced) had been discussed at all.

When South African cardinal Wilfrid Napier admitted that the mid-synod Relatio – the one that apparently indicated a new openness to homosexuals – had taken him by surprise, he had a point. In most previous synods, this mid-synod Relatio was so boring and unenlightening that it was generally ignored, certainly by the media.

Nobody was ignoring it this time and, for that, Pope Francis can take the credit. As for grasping “the signs of the times”, we will have to wait until the Pope make his post-synodal apostolic exhortation after next October’s synod to understand just what “signs” he means.

Nonetheless, one is entitled to ask if, for the time being, all the cardinals and bishops are on the same page as Francis. The positions of conservative cardinals Müller, Pell and Burke in favour of current church teaching (in relation to communion for the divorced) have been well documented, but even on the very last day of the synod, another cardinal, the Guinean Robert Sarah, the prefect of the Cor Unum Pontifical Council, joined the protest, this time on homosexuality.

‘Grave deviations’

In an interview with the Catholic News Agency, he insisted that “homosexual behaviour and homosexual unions are grave deviations of sexuality” and argued that the push for homosexual unions represents part of “a new ideology of evil”. This is hardly a comment with the Francis who asks: “Who am I to judge?”

The tea-leaf-reading school of Vatican journalism has also read a lot into the fact that neither Cardinal Müller nor Cardinal Burke saluted the Pope after last Sunday’s synod-closing mass. That same school points out, too, that Burke will shortly be removed from his position as prefect of the Apostolic Signature, while Müller may be moved from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.

Furthermore, it has been reported, in the Italian media, that during the synod a number of concerned synod fathers dropped by to see Pope Emeritus Benedict, only to be told firmly that he was “Not The Pope”. Benedict allegedly sent a note to Francis immediately after this encounter, presumably to keep the record straight.

Time will tell what all this means, if anything. One suspects that between now and next October, the various debates will continue to rage, publicly and privately.