What the Rota is Missing
What is Wrong with this Picture?
The Pope addresses attendees at a course given by the Roman Rota.
Here is what is wrong with this picture, and all of the ones with articles on the Pope and this speech. There are no women in the picture! That is disgraceful but common at events like this. The cases before the Roman Rota deal overwhelmingly with marriage law. And this picture depicts men, almost all clerics, (except for a few lay men) many in skirts, a/k/a cassocks.
The greeting of the Holy Father at this gathering seems to have had two points important to him. The first was that it gave him the opportunity to use the word “synodal”. In some places in our Church, that is treated like a dirty word. Pope Francis lets it slip off of his tongue here in a normal and accepting way. Pope Francis exclaimed:
“The synodal spirit must be lived in every aspect of your juridical duties. Journeying together in reciprocal listening while invoking the Holy Spirit is an indispensable condition for being just.”
We’ll find out if that helps when we get closer to the Synod.
The second point was to speak about marriage annulments in the Church as being in need of pastoral care. Pope Francis has made changes to marriage annulments which have been welcomed, for example, the introduction of the new “Briefer Process”. He also gave encouragement to Tribunals to not charge parties fees for an annulment process. (That one has often been ignored by many Tribunals.) On marriage law he says:
“The requirements of truth, accessibility, and prudent swiftness must always guide your work, while we must not overlook the duty to do everything possible to reconcile couples or convalidate their union.”
Taken as a hole, Pope Francis’ words are beautiful, inspirational. My confusion comes with the Chruch’s failure to optimize the Rota with a diverse Court of people serving as Judges/auditors. I just find it hard to grasp that clerics, who have never made a mortgage or car payment, or dealt with a sick child, are the only people best suited to deal with marriage issues in our Church.
At the crux of this is the denial of women priests. The most important roles, like Rotal Judge, require ordination. Really? Refuse to give us women clerics, but why should that be a requirement for the Rota? That is really not a particularly high bar here. Thank you for the beautiful words about canon law and evangelization, Holy Father. Now please, use all of the best people in our Church to affect them.
https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2023/02/18/230218c.html