Synthesising the synodal process through listening to the laity and the Holy Spirit
“Chief scribe ” Austen Ivereigh gives an insight from within the synodal process in England and Wales.
At the centre of the great listening exercise, the universal Church is engaged in a highly charged new ministry: the faithful capture of the voice of the People of God as they respond to the Holy Spirit
The People of God of England and Wales have spoken: at least, those –
perhaps 30,000 – who have taken part in the “synod on synodality”. But
what, exactly, have they said? And, more deeply, what has the Holy
Spirit prompted in them?
It was to answer those questions that
nine members of the National Synod Synthesis Team met at the end of
April for an overnight session in an Anglican retreat house in London.
By the time we had had Mass, Adoration, eaten and spent time getting to
know one another, there was little time to reflect on some 900 pages of
synod reports from the 22 dioceses of the Catholic Church in England and
Wales that we had spent the previous fortnight reading. (I envy the
French team, who disappeared for a week to a chateau to write their
collecte des synthèses synodales.) But it was enough to agree a general
methodology and a thematic structure, divide up the workload, and agree a
schedule to prepare the first draft for feedback from the bishops and
synod leads on 1 June.
The bishops appointed us but were not involved in the drafting. Nor did we have any direction from them. The team was convened and coordinated with a light touch by Fr Chris Thomas, the bishops’ conference general secretary. We were “free”, and felt the weight of it: our responsibility was to be faithful to what we had read, yet creative enough to order it all “in a way that is understandable even to those who did not participate, indicating how the Holy Spirit’s call to the Church has been understood in the local context”, as the guidance of the synod office in Rome put it.
Although we felt inadequate to the task, we all brought gifts to the table. Three of the team (Sarah Adams, Mark Nash and Dominic Belli) had been synod leads in their own dioceses, with experience synthesising reports from parishes and schools. Kate Wilkinson, a school chaplain involved in Young Christian Workers, had been active in Liverpool Archdiocese’s groundbreaking Synod 2020. We had a communications expert in Sr Elaine Penrice, a Daughter of St Paul and director for the National Office for Vocation. Mary McCaughey from St Mary’s, Oscott, was steeped in the theology of synodality, while Fr Jan Nowotnik had just written a PhD on the ecclesiology of synodality in the different Christian traditions. My own contribution was as chief scribe: creating a text from disparate drafts against an impossible deadline was not outside my experience.
Rome suggested our synthesis be divided into three: a short section “rereading the synodal journey”, a main section containing a “discernment of the collected contributions” relating to the key question of this synod and the themes discussed, and a final short section indicating “the steps to be taken in response to that which was recognised as the call (or the calls) of the Holy Spirit”. We followed this scheme, but further subdivided, so that the synthesis has an opening two sections reflecting on the impact of the pandemic on the Church as well as an overview of the experience of the synod process, while the main body has long two sections under the titles: “A wounded Church called to conversion” and “Truth, mercy and welcome”. The final part is called: “Towards a synodal Church in England and Wales”.
How to do it? Conscious that this is a global process with many
cultural variants, the synod secretariat gave fairly general guidance.
But within the group we had our own experiences, and I had notes from
presentations by experienced synthesisers at the opening of the synod
in Rome. “We have sought to capture common notes struck across the
reports as well as minority or marginal views that occur often enough to
be worthy of mention,” we noted in the synthesis introduction, adding
that we had paid attention to “surprising or striking elements in the
reports, often where views are especially heartfelt; and where possible
have used attributed quotes from the reports to capture the ‘jewels’
that the Spirit may be offering our Church through the voice of God’s
faithful in these islands.”
The idea was to summarise without
making theological judgements, while filtering out enough content to
allow a focus on what fell within the core synod theme of synodality
itself, expressed in participation, communion and mission. The art of
synthesising – a vital new ministry in the Church – is, on the one hand,
to receive faithfully: never to impose your own view, but to facilitate
the expression of what is being articulated; not “redigesting” the
material, but keeping it raw, so that people can be heard directly. On
the other, it is to be creative and bold in identifying “the new
horizons we see the Spirit opening for our Church”, as we put it. This
might come from a truth nailed, an original insight that opens a door,
or perhaps a glimpse of the future that brings hope and peace. Anyone
who has had experience of spiritual conversation will recognise that
these pin-drop moments are common in group discernment processes. Our
task was to truffle them out from the diocesan reports.
Those
reports differed wildly, ranging from the deeply suspicious to the
joyfully enthusiastic. Most provided wonderful raw material, while
others were far less useful, above all those that relied on
questionnaires and individual online surveys, despite Pope Francis and
the secretariat stressing that the synod is not a survey of individuals
but a structured meeting of people. In some cases dioceses used the
pandemic as an excuse for outsourcing to companies offering
data-crunching services. The undigested results (51 per cent thought the
Church unwelcoming) were all but pointless for our purpose.
Most
dioceses, however, recognised that the Church’s future is synodal and
put people and resources into enabling it to happen, training leaders in
the art of spiritual conversation, holding talks and workshops to get
people behind the idea and giving guidance on how to lead small-group
gatherings and harvest their fruit. The most engaged dioceses reported
80-90 per cent participation by parishes (as opposed to 10-20 per cent
in the reluctant ones) and their reports were a goldmine. They capture
both the experience of the synod, its paradoxes and revelations, the
shift in consciousness that resulted from it, as well as a discerned
synthesis of the views and insights the Spirit had prompted.
The
contrast between these two sets of reports – of course, many fell in
between the two – showed the power of the synodal method itself. A
synodal assembly is not an exchange of opinions, a place to vent, a
political venue to advance agendas, but a prayerful exercise in humble
listening, where – just like the synodal gatherings described in the
Acts of the Apostles – all get to speak, experience matters more than
opinion, and people feel safe to speak honestly and directly.
The
reports showed how liberating and transforming is the experience of
that listening and being heard in an attentive atmosphere of prayer. As
our synthesis report puts it: “The process and practice of synodality
have already opened the Church to the graces of the conversion that
through the synod the faithful have called for.” A shift is happening.
People want to be heard, and it is no longer possible to expect them to
remain silent. But they also want to listen to each other, having
discovered that the Spirit can speak even through – especially through –
the least and unlikeliest of people. The command-and-control model the
modern Church came to rely on must give way to a synodal model that
allows ordinary faithful to take part in decision-making and
discernment. Hence the call in the reports for parish pastoral councils,
diocesan councils that regularly consult, and regular assemblies at
every level to hear the cries and anguish of the community, and how the
Spirit urges us to respond.
This became the main theme of our
synthesis: synodal experiences allowed people to imagine “the way of
being Church”, as one person put it, one that belongs to the faith
tradition itself. People saw this not just in terms of a change in the
modus operandi et vivendi of the Church, one that depends more on grace
than power, but also in a changed understanding of their relationship to
the Church: no longer the institution out there, but the body I belong
to, whose mission I share. An LGBT member of Farm Street parish in
London in a long-term stable same-sex relationship told me that she knew
God loved her but assumed the Church didn’t. In telling her story and
being heard and recognised, she realised that wasn’t true – that she
really was part of the Church. Her joy on relaying this (on a short
video for a symposium on synodality) was palpable; as this process has
proved, synodality gives birth to missionary disciples.
All of
this showed how vital it is to enter into synods in humility, open to
hearing surprises and to having our categories upended. Of course, not
everyone had that spirit. Within the reports but mostly outside the
synod there was no shortage of the opposite spirit of sufficiency, in
groups of Catholics who disdained the process either as a stitch-up by
the hierarchy to forestall precooked menus of reform or as a liberal
conspiracy to modernise church teaching by surrendering to the
Zeitgeist. Some scepticism was natural, especially as the process is
new; but the cynicism and scorn from both right and left were as
surprising in their intensity as in their distorted picture of this
process.
Many traditionalists, for example, see in synodality a
conspiracy to overturn everything they are attached to, while some
former Anglicans are convinced that synodal conversion will lead to the
Church of England’s parliamentary model of governance, with its lobbies
and parties and differences that deepen even when “settled” by
democratic votes. When I asked him what he thought of the first draft of
our synthesis, a leading member of the Ordinariate told me it had
realised their “worst fears” because it was “all about gays and women”
and that progressive lobbies would “force the Pope” to make changes.
When I explained that the Catholic tradition of synodality allows for
total freedom in discussion but entrusts apostolic authority (bishops,
and finally the Pope) with the responsibility and freedom of discerning
what is of the Spirit – even in the face of majority votes – he seemed
unconvinced: the idea of a process that submits to the discerning
authority of the Church was foreign to him.
Among some
progressives, the disdain is reversed. It is precisely because the
process is ultimately subject to church authority that they do not trust
it. At the culmination of the Root & Branch “lay-led inclusive
synodal journey” in Bristol last September, Mary McAleese said that
“pointless does not even get close” to describing the synod, because
discussion of contentious issues would be suppressed or filtered out and
the process controlled at every step by bishops. On an RTÉ show later
this month, McAleese says that Francis has tried to make the synod “all
about evangelisation”, despite the Pope insisting repeatedly that a
synodal Church demands structural reform to enable participation in
decision-making and discernment. At the opening of the synod last year,
for example, he said “we need content, means and structures that can
facilitate dialogue and interaction within the People of God, especially
between priests and laity” and made clear “this will require changing
certain overly vertical, distorted and partial visions of the Church,
the priestly ministry, the role of the laity, ecclesial
responsibilities, roles of governance and so forth.” Those are precisely
the changes that the People of God in England and Wales called for in
our syntheses, and they are matched in others I have read so far, from
Spain, France and Belgium.
For McAleese, the German “Synodal
Path” provides the parliamentary-type model she holds up as ideal (“a
model of free speech, co-responsibility and discussion”) and which
former Anglicans so fear. But unlike the Australian plenary council or
the Liverpool diocesan process, the Synodaler Weg is not, canonically, a
synod (nor claims to be). It is sui generis: a self-appointed
deliberative assembly of 230 delegates selected by bishops and lay
leaders to wrestle with a pre-determined agenda of issues raised by an
academic report into the causes of abuse. It debates, produces papers
and votes; it does not involve the ordinary faithful, or spiritual
conversation and discernment; and it passes resolutions it claims are
binding, with an air of fait accompli. But as a recent Holy See
communiqué (unsigned, but issued by the Secretariat of State at the
Pope’s behest) has reminded them, “Germany does not have the power to
compel bishops and the faithful to assume new modes of governance and
new approaches to doctrine and morals” without “an agreed understanding
at the level of the universal Church”. The Church is Catholic, not
Congregationalist.
Exercises such as the Germans’ lack the openness and humility that
authentic synodality requires. The issues they are discussing are
important, and the proposals they make worthwhile, but the process is
not “indifferent” in the Ignatian sense: there is no point in seeking
God’s will if we already know what is to be done. It becomes a talking
shop, much like the Vatican-controlled synods of yore, with “the usual
people saying the usual things, without great depth or spiritual insight
… far removed from the reality of the holy People of God and the
concrete life of communities around the world”, as Francis put it at the
opening of the synod when he listed “intellectualism” as one of the
temptations against authentic synodality
A true synod that begins
with ordinary faithful in parishes and schools speaking honestly and
humbly listening, looks and feels very different from the German,
progressive-reform model. To be clear, there is no shortage of criticism
in the national synthesis: the people are highly critical when the
Church is distant, aloof and clerical. They are passionate about what
they believe the Church is called to be, and frustrated when it falls
well short. They feel strongly that the gifts and ministry of women are
not valued, and call for formation as missionary disciples and
involvement in decision-making. But they are cautious in offering
prescriptions. They suggest that women should be able to preach, for
example, but focus far more on training and formation for ministry than
call for ordination. Rather than demand church teaching on sexuality to
be overhauled, they call for LGBT people to be listened to and valued.
Instead of rejecting Catholic teaching on divorce, they say a pastoral
approach is needed to bring the experience of divorce into dialogue with
that teaching.
The diocesan synod reports highlight areas for
the Church to wrestle with and focus on – sometimes urgently, often
emphatically – but there is a humility in the voices and a confidence in
the Church that says: “We don’t have the answers to this yet, but we
trust you to come up with them.” I personally found this faith in the
Church – critical of the failing human institution, but confident in the
Spirit to lead the body into the truth – deeply moving, and for once
understood what Pope Francis says of the People of God in Evangelii
Gaudium, that they are “infallible in their believing”, endowed with an
“instinct of faith … that helps them to discern what is truly of God”.
The synod secretariat asks that national syntheses go back to the
dioceses for approval and suggestions for improvement. The dioceses sent
delegations (generally bishops, auxiliaries and synod leads) as did
organisations such as the National Board of Catholic Women to the
meeting in Southwark Cathedral’s Amigo Hall on 1 June. The “National
Synod Day” was facilitated by Sr Bernadette Reis FSP, an American
Religious who works in the Vatican’s communications dicastery. Delegates
signed off on our first draft as generally reflective of the synod
reports while giving helpful feedback that modified the final document
considerably.
The delegations were divided into tables of about
eight people – mixing laypeople, bishops, clergy and Religious – and
each table proposed changes that were then voted on. A lot of the
discussion, inevitably, was about relative weight: some felt we had
given too much space to traditionalists’ objections, for example, and
were wrong to include them as a marginalised minority; others thought we
had not given enough of a platform space to those happy with the Church
as it is, who see no need for change.
We took the proposals,
reviewed them, and chose to incorporate them or not in discussions over
Zoom, making cheerful compromises and concessions in the process, in
order to produce a final draft of – sorry, synod secretariat – a bit
more than 10 pages. At no point were we under any pressure to take out
anything vital that the diocesan reports had articulated, or to suppress
anything in them. We had freedom, as true synods must have, to be
faithful to what the people said.
And now our synthesis report,
with the bishops’ reflections on it – they’ve shown they’ve listened,
but their response contains no commitments, as you’d expect at this
stage – are with the synod secretariat in Rome. In September, a
24-strong “working group” drawn from all continents (mostly laypeople,
but also bishops, clergy and Religious) will meet for 10 days in a
retreat centre outside Rome, to reflect on the syntheses from 115
bishops’ conferences and other networks: religious congregations, Roman
dicasteries etc. The working group will draw up what is being called the
“Document for the Continental Stage”. Each of the seven continents will
then reflect on that document in their regional “ecclesial assembly”
made up of laypeople, clergy, Religious and bishops: Europe’s is planned
for February in Prague. The continental reports will then be
synthesised for the final synod assembly in Rome in October, where the
bishops will gather with and under the Pope, to make decisions in the
light of what has seemed “to the Spirit and to us”.
After seeing
this historic process of ecclesial discernment – the biggest in
Christian history – from the inside, I’d say: watch this space in hope.
Both the synod synthesis for England and Wales and the bishops’ reflection document can be downloaded at https://www.cbcew.org.uk/national-synthesis/
These are Austen Ivereigh’s personal reflections and should not be ascribed to the National Synthesis Team.
Austen Ivereigh is a fellow in contemporary church history at Campion Hall, University of Oxford. He is the author of Wounded Shepherd: Pope Francis and his Struggle to Convert the Catholic Church (Henry Holt) and, with Pope Francis, Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future (Simon & Schuster).
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