Late yesterday, the Vatican Press Office issued the following statement:
The announced mission to Syria of representatives of the Holy See and of the Synod of the Bishops is still being studied and prepared, in order to carry it out as soon as possible and effectively respond to the identified goals in terms of solidarity, peace and reconciliation, in spite of the severe acts which recently took place in the region.
Vatican mission to Syria postponed
by Andrea Tornielli
Oct. 23, 2012
It was only a week ago that the Vatican Secretary of State announced a Vatican mission to Syria at the Synod of Bishops in Rome. He explained that a delegation of Synod Fathers and the Vatican foreign minister, Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, were to go on a mission to Syria to show the Church’s closeness to the country’s suffering population, especially Christians.
The idea was meant to be put into practice quickly. But the reality and the complications involved in visiting the war-torn country are greater than expected. So today, following Fr. Federico Lombardi’s announcement that the visit was being postponed, Cardinal Bertone explained the reasons for the delay to the Synod Fathers.
"The initiative raised wide interest and received a positive welcome, not only in Rome and Syria, but also at the international level,” the Vatican Secretary of State said. “First of all, I wish to tell you that we have continued to study the issue and to prepare the visit, despite the tragic episodes that have taken place in the region in recent days. As is well known, there is a strong desire to express the closeness of the Holy See and the universal Church by means of
a delegation, which will travel to Damascus at the time and in the manner which will be announced after they have been defined in the light of the contacts and preparations currently under way. Given the gravity of the situation, the visit will be postponed, probably until after the conclusion of the Synod, and the composition of the delegation will be modified, also due to other commitments on the part of its members,” Bertone concluded.
The public announcement reported by media across the world, was obviously made before important details were examined and operational difficulties were properly analysed.
The Vatican “prime minister” said the Synodal mission will probably take place at the end of the Synod, not this week. And the delegation will not be made up of the individuals announced eight days ago by Bertone himself (Mamberti, Cardinals Laurent Mosengwo Pasinya, Archbishop of Kinshasa; Jean-Louis Tauran, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue; Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York; Fabio Suescun Mutis, Military Ordinary of Colombia and Joseph Nguyen Nang, Bishop of Phat Diem), since some of these members will return to their dioceses which they have been absent from for a few weeks now.
It is true that the recent car bombing in Beirut have complicated the issue, but even Catholic assessments on the country’s domestic situation are varied and often contradictory. Opinions on the Assad regime and the nature of the revolt are also not unanimous.
But it is also true that from a diplomatic point of view,
it would perhaps have been preferable for the announcement to have been made shortly before the mission actually had a schedule to leave for Damascus.
At the time of the announcement, I had been rather uneasy, but limited myself to noting this:
Neither the AP nor the CdS story say exactly who the delegation will be meeting with. As they would have to get visas to Syria, it would seem inevitable that they must meet with a representative(s) of the Assad government, with whom obviously they cannot express 'solidarity', but bring the message of the Church asking for an end to the now 19-month-long civil conflict, in which Assad's forces have been trying to repress internal opposition to the regime and in the process, have indiscriminately killed as many as 30,000 Syrians, many of them innocent civilians.
The stranger omission from the original announcement was that a date was not given, although it was implied it would be sooner rather than later, perhaps as early as the week following the announcement. It was rather rash to assume all of that, if no prior arrangements - or at the very least, feelers with some positive response - had been made with the Syrian government. The announcement today seems to show that Cardinal Bertone spoke too soon - was he perhaps misled by his people on the ground in Syria? In any case, it now seems to have been a grandtsnad play that missed, but worse, 's a needless embarrassment for the Pope, in the name of whom he spoke.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 24/10/2012 01:21]