THE outcomes of the synod consultation process (CL 15/9/02) give little recognition to the fact that we live in a stratified society where economic, political, cultural and religious structures maintain and promote the dominance of the rich and powerful over the mass of ordinary people and peoples.
These structures operate through agencies and institutions that contribute to structural injustice through the kind of work they are doing. Some of the services provided by the Church are an integral part of the institutions of society – for instance of the educational, caring or medical systems of the country.
The synod must ask itself whether these kinds of services are an adequate embodiment of the Church’s commitment to justice in society. The choice is for the Church to disentangle itself from serving the interests of those at the ‘top’ of society and to begin instead to come into solidarity with those at or near the bottom.
Such solidarity means commitment to working and living within structures and agencies that promote the interests of the less favoured sectors of society.
Fr Kevin Ryan, some time back (CL 26/11/00), quoted Seventh Day Adventist, George Knight, commenting on the influence of the devil in our world. If he were the devil and planning most harm to the Church, he would make administration the centre of the Church’s work.
Is it just coincidence that the decline in participation in the Church is inversely related to the size of the Church bureaucracy? Perhaps the crippling political attention paid for government and media approval in order to preserve funding and image, results in loss of the freedom and spontaneity given by the Gospel of Jesus.
Br Andrew, co-founder of the Brothers of the Missionaries of Charity, observed that as you come close to Church bureaucracies ‘you feel an awful heaviness, a terrible lack of freedom, creativity and spontaneity. All the systems and structures are there, but the awful institutional heaviness is crushing. The power scene is too big and too heavy. There is no entry for the small, the poor and the weak’.
The synod must follow the example of Jesus who nonplussed the crowds with questions about core values.
DAVID M. LANGBRIDGE
Tarragindi, Qld
