Can we hope this to be the beginning of a dialogue?
Delhi Eparch Responds
I have taken due note of your write-up.The bishops assembled in Synod did discuss the topic of the upcoming Family Synod.
Just to say that something is being done, though not in terms of your proposal.God bless you
SOS to Kerala Bishops to Repair
CCV's duty is to give wings to those discussions. We are doing that by instantly publishing it in Church Citizens Voice to help your message reach all the four corners of the world. Please visit: www.almayasabdam.com to see it. james kottoor, editor, CCV
A response from Rite Issue
Zacharias Nedunkanal
None of us are asking you bishops to conduct a survey according to any plan we put forward but to go by the Pope's instructions. And he meant that the issues facing Christian families should be found out from local situations and they should be publicly discussed and solutions sought after. That affirmatively means full participation of the laity. Any group of bishops or an ad hoc committee preparing a paper privately among themselves is against the will of the Pope. Any such report submitted at the Synod in Rome would bring nothing. It would surely be taken for a farce.
We would humbly request you to send us a copy of a questionnaire, if any, that you used for the study. If you don't have any such questionnaire, it is better that you make no claims of having done a study at all. Come on, let's face it.
Zacharias Nedunkanal, asso. editor, CCV
This is an opportunity to make an extraordinary difference in the Catholic Church. The Bishop’s have every authority to request each parish priest to appoint a panel of team from each parish to discuss and present a paper to the Bishop. If the bishop did not do this they lost an extraordinary opportunity to make a difference in the Catholic Church.
The issues daunting the families cannot be put under the carpet and pretend that it is not the churches issues. Take this on boldly, talk about it, address it, and resolve it. There are many scandals in our catholic church and all of them must be taken up and be analyzed and prioritized for our catholic church to sustain. If the church cannot provide to be the moral conscience for people then it needs better leaders who have such abilities. If the church leaders do not address the issues affecting the families it will eventually consume the entire church and will become a laughing subject for all. So my hope is that the bishops do what Pope Francis requested and that is “discuss challenges and threats to families publicly with the faithful and not just among the bishops themselves privately”.