Doctrinal Clarity, Not Change: Unpacking the Note on Marian Titles

Bishop Anthony Randazzo of Broken Bay, Australia –president of the Federation of Catholic Bishops’ Conferences of Oceania spoke at a press conference about his experiences with synodality in Oceania. He mentioned that synodality is a common experience for Oceania’s people, whom, he said, have practiced widespread consultative models of leadership for thousands of years, and he criticized that the “niche issues” of rich Western countries receive more attention than real issues, such as environmental problems in his region where rising sea levels threaten the very existence of many countries. Randazzo criticized the “obsession” of a minority of Catholics in the West with female ordination. “Those issues become all-consuming and focusing for people, to the point that they then become an imposition on people who sometimes struggle simply to feed their families, to survive the rising sea levels, or the dangerous journeys across wild oceans to resettle in new lands,” he said. He added that he believes that female ordination has become the primary issue when discussing the role of women in the Church, which has left other important topics about women in the Church off the table. “When we talk about women in the Church, that’s the hot-button issue, and as a consequence women in many parts of the world and the Church who are treated as second-class citizens are totally ignored,” Randazzo said. He said this was a “scandal against the Gospel (...) all because a small minority, with a large powerful western voice, are obsessed with pushing this issue.” Randazzo called this focus “a new form of colonialism” that oppresses the vulnerable and which is “certainly not the mind of the synodal Church in mission.”