Family, it’s time to listen

Among participants in the Third Special Assembly of the Bishops’ Synod on the theme: “Pastoral challenges on the family in the context of evangelization”, to be held in Rome October 5-9, figure 38 people from world countries invited in their various capacities: married couples, experts, “professionals” in the field of Family Pastoral Care of the dioceses, representing movements and associations. One of them is Ute Eberl, theologian and mother. She is in charge of marriage and family pastoral care at the diocese of Berlin and is a coordinator of an association of the Catholic Church in Germany that deals with formation and family pastoral care. (Arbeitsgemeinschaft für katholische Familienbildung). You have been invited by Pope Francis at the Synod: how did you react to this invitation and what are your expectations? “It came as a total surprise. My name was chosen among a list of names sent to Rome. I don’t know how it came about but I’m extremely happy for this experience in the heart of the universal Church, and I’m also very excited. My task will be to ‘listen’, which means I shall not intervene unless, as the Secretary General of the Synod Cardinal Balisseri wrote me, a specific occasion for intervention should come up. My hope is that the bishops may experience a veritable “inventory” on families’ daily experience. I say it in the plural form because I don’t think there is just one family but that it takes different shapes: there are families made of mother-father-children, mothers and fathers that raise their children as single parents, patchwork families and so on, and they all belong to the Church. I consider this the greatest challenge: to see the situation for what it is, not how it should be. The Church wishes to be among the people and she cannot ignore reality”. This Synod carries with it some innovations: the questionnaire, the fact that it will carried out in two stages… what will this bring? “I think that the great innovation has already taken place, and it consists in the fact that the Pope has launched the initiative of the questionnaire ahead of the Synod. They were largely diffused in Germany and respondents – Catholics, faithful – clearly shared information on their lives, and that many things that the Church demands don’t find a space in their lives. For example, the question on whether people live together already before marriage: this is a reality in Germany. The challenge lies in the relationship between doctrine and pastoral care: they are not two separate things; and if the doctrine is distant from people’s lives it will not reach out to them. It will be interesting to see how the bishop will address this challenge”. What are the causes of the difficulties experienced by the family in Europe? “In Europe men and women, couples, can decide how to live. This freedom is precious. At the same time there is no longer social support. Marriage has become extremely fragile. The lack of “frames of reference”, of support, is a result of changes at social level. It is the other side of freedom: if couples decide to get married today they must face the major challenge of being a successful married couples and live on equal grounds, notable in organizing time with their children. Marriage and family role are no longer clearly defined, and need to be discussed by the couple at length. Many couples wish to share responsibilities, in addition to those regarding their offspring and their profession. These are difficult decisions. But it’s a one-way road: it implies positive challenges. The churches put forward a wide range of proposals to support families in this process, so that couples may learn to discuss and confront each other on how to live their married life on equal grounds”. An aspect of the debate in Europe has focused on theme of communion of remarried divorcees. However, it does not appear to be a pastoral priority in many Countries of our continent, and it certainly isn’t in other world countries. Could you make a list of pastoral priorities to be addressed from a global perspective? “First of all I think that the Church is not a moral institution; our Church has an ethical code. And this is true all over the world. If we address the question of marriage and the family from a moral perspective we cannot transmit our priorities. Our doctrine is the Gospel. Second – an element that is present in the Instrumentum laboris – the reality of married couples in world Countries’ economic and political situation is very diversified. Each Country has its own grace, its charisma, and each Country has its cross and its difficulties. But in the whole world we proclaim the Gospel of Jesus, in concreteness, not in a purely “philosophical” space. Perhaps Pope Francis will tell bishops that the situations in which families live are not so different, that it is also necessary to seek different answers. In ‘Evangelii gaudium’ the Pope wrote: ‘Reality is more important than ideas'”.