Aldo Maria Valli has a new futuristic satire on the much-ballyhooed Pan-Amazonic synodal assembly...
Chronicles from the 3019 synod
Translated from
June 10, 2018
The Pan-amazonian synod dedicated by the Church to the peoples who inhabit planet Amazonicus B31, the true green lung of the universe, promises to bring many novelties.
In the Preparatory Document to the Special Assembly of the Bishops’ Synod, presented by the Vatican in an intergalactic conference call to the prelates of the entire galaxy¸ we are made to understand that there will be steps forward on the longstanding question of viri probati as priests and of women priests.
The document refers to the ‘cry’, so it is called, coming from Amazonicus B31 and its millions of communities deprived for light years now of the light of Communion, because of the lack of priests. Thus the need, the document says, to ‘plan new ways’ so that Holy Communion may be brought to everyone and with more frequency.
To this end, the document underscores the priority of ‘proposing new ministries and services for different pastoral agents to respond to their tasks and responsibilities in the community and to ‘identify what kind of official ministry could be conferred on women’.
In other words, since there are very few priests and the planet is vast, in order to enable celebration of the Mass with a frequency that is at least acceptable, it would be necessary to admit to the priesthood married men of proven faith – the viri probati – and gradually place alongside them female deacons who can function as trailblazers for female priesthood.
Since the intergalactic Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had once again said No to female priests even in recent times, one may assume that the 3019 Pan-Amazon Synod will be the occasion to open a breach in this direction. In the same way, well-informed sources say, institutionalizing viri probati will open the way to the introduction of married priests in the whole universe.
These sources say that the two new figures will be introduced ad experimentum, but it has become clear that the die is cast, and that in the near future, all the ecclesial institutions throughout the galaxies will soon be following this itinerary.
Authoritative Church historians maintain that a first example in this sense was provided a millennium ago by the Church in Germany (a part of Europe, which in its turn is a part of planet Earth) where a cardinal at the time (Marz or Marx) maintained that to make up for the shortage of priests, that was particularly tragic in that country, women priests and married priests would be necessary. The same opinion was held by another Earth cardinal (Um or Hummes) who was a strong advocate of viri probati.
Presenting the new document, the intergalactic Secretary of the Bishops’ Synod explained that “although the subject refers to a specific territory, namely planet Amazonicus B31, all reflections on the subject transcend its planetary limits, since it concerns the Church in all the galaxies and her future in the universe”.
The ‘noble effort’ to evangelize Amazonicus B31, with all its “territorial and social peculiarities”, is repeatedly expressed in the document, which speaks of the pressing need to build a Church “with an Amazonic face”. But some observers are asking: Is the evangelization of Amazonicus not perhaps just an excuse to ‘amazonize’ the entire Church?
According to another school of thought, expressed by some cardinals, the functions of the viri probati and deaconesses could be carried out with equal efficiency but at far less cost, by the latest version of Servus, the do-everything robot, recently produced by Blue Star, an intergalactic company in which the Church is a minority stockholder.
Servus Plus 1A, during its test tryouts, demonstrated its capability to evangelize with great mastery. Appropriately programmed, thanks to some guaranteed algorithms that have been tested on the peoples of nearby planets, Servus Plus 1A has given homilies full of pathos, has celebrated marriages and funerals, has worthily animated liturgies (even with song and dance), has administered parishes with perspicacity (far better than so many human parish priests), can wear either cassock or ‘clergyman’, and can give communion in four ways: in the hands, on the tongue, with persons who are standing or with persons who are kneeling (although the special variant of a kneeling person receiving the host on the tongue requires a slightly more complicated maneuver which Blue Star says it cannot fully guarantee at the moment).
Nothing has been leaked about the capability of Servus Plus 1A to hear confessions, give confessees spiritual and moral advice, encourage, exhort, be merciful, and absolve them (and on request, to impose adequate penance). But it seems that the do-everything robot has demonstrated a quality that would qualify it to be a confessor. Those who have done its trials are particularly impressed by its ability to discern. Of course, all this depends on the quality of the algorithms built into it.
There could be a problem about spare parts and maintenance costs, especially considering the long intergalactic trips required to provide what is necessary on site. But we are assured that studies are progressing on highly innovative procedures that will confer on Servus Plus 1A missionary specialties that will enable it to overcome every obstacle.
A secret Vatican report, whose principal contents we are able to reveal, says that the do-everything robot – thanks to special supercharged lithium battieries – can function for centuries and moreover, can be programmed eventually to produce clones. Therefore, once the robot’s original missionary charge runs out, the community will immediately have a replacement without additional costs.
Some specialists, in the face of the robot’s versatility, are asking whether it is still necessary at this point to discuss viri probati and the end to priestly celibacy, and women priests. But such questions obviously do not take into account ‘Church time’ which is notoriously far longer than that of human society in general.
As for the coming synod, everything depends on the reaction of the Amazons, whose character as a people has grey areas into which appropriate investigation has not been done because of the planet's great distance from Earth. Especially interesting would be the reaction of the most recent tribe discovered on that vast planet – the Neo-Neolithic tribe Alpha, which is characterized by their intensive use of laser-guided telemessaging using obsolete technology but which is nonetheless capable of destroying an orbiting space station with the right message.
It seems that the Church has carried out private surveys and sent the mysterious tribe radio messages in their language (deciphered by appropriate algorithms). In the messages, following a necessary preamble about the desire to consider Amazonicus B21 “not only as a deposit of primary resources to exploit”, the Church indicated the eventuality of sending them viri probati and deaconesses. But the response, in a barrage of laser-guided telemessages, has been interpreted by analysts, using the appropriate algorithms, as not particularly friendly. At least, not for now.
But that the organizers of the synodal assembly, quite confident, are fully aware of the problem is that the synodal path consists of three stages summarized by the following verbs: to see, to observe/discern, to act.