I am trying to follow the Synod of Catholic Bishops taking place this month in Rome. I think "chaotic" is the most appropriate appellation describing the newspaper accounts of the various and varied goings on.

In the minds of those in attendance, who have given vent to their frustration, there is a sense that the survival of Roman Catholicism as it has been known over two millenniums is at risk. Why is it that any suggestion of change or development in our understanding of gender or marriage is perceived as a threat to the very existence of the Church and the human race? A rather cursory view of history provides ample evidence that both have not only survived, but even thrived, following previous periods marked by similar cataclysmic threats. I am inclined to interpret these contemporary reports of impending doom as one too many cries of wolf by a frightened little boy or a little boy's desperate plea for attention. Gender and marriage are phenomena shared between theology, sociology, and political organization. The great diversity of the human experience over the last 200,000 years and within contemporary societies provide ample evidence of the creative potential in gender role and pair bonding strategies. This creativity can extend to a community's ability to craft the theosophical underpinnings in support of their choice. If the Synod would be discussing transubstantiation, the divinity of Christ, or the afterlife of the individual, then I would agree that Roman Catholicism, as we know it, may be at risk to a terminal overhaul.

There are also mysterious bits in the reports coming out of the Synod or in the comments of those in attendance. Today an Australian archbishop speaks of finding a third way in between things staying the same and things changing.  I sense there is something in that comment that defies the logic of language; things either change or they don't change. Is there a third alternative where things both stay the same and change? Or where things neither stay the same nor change? Language as symbol may be simply incapable of expressing the fullness of reality. The inherent contradiction exists in human language and not in reality. Those Synod participants, who decry changes in language as suggestive of the lack of any and all objective truth, may well be onto something. Truth may well exist in some objective fashion; it is just that human language--any attempt to expound on that truth through the use of the symbols of speech--is not absolute. It is not the be all and end all of any or all communication that one might have with another or with his/her internal self.