The Church at a turning point
Transformation and renewa
After three years of listening and discernment, the Synod on Synodality has ended with a Final Document and the promise of processes and structures that will transform how the Church listens, discerns and decides.
As we neared the halfway mark of the assembly, at the start of Module Three, the sheer intensity of the first 10 days began to take its toll. Exhilaration was turning to exhaustion, and the exchange of gifts in this most global of gatherings also included viruses: people had begun getting colds, even Covid. There were some gaps at the 36 round tables – at which groups of 10, split by language, spread across the Paul VI audience hall – when Cardinal-elect Timothy Radcliffe OP stood to frame the discussion. We had been through the conversion of relationships; now we were on to processes, of discernment and decision-making.
Radcliffe dwelt on Jesus’ interaction in Matthew 15 with the Canaanite woman, who had challenged Jesus by saying that “even the dogs eat the crumbs from the master’s table”. The incident comes between two great feedings of thousands, he pointed out, yet Jesus tells the woman there is only enough bread for the children of the household. It is “a moment of profound transition”, in which Jesus’ silence creates space for a poor woman to be heard, and for the Father to open the minds and hearts of the disciples to fresh possibilities. “Our task in the Synod,” Radcliffe went on, “is to live with difficult questions,” just as past synods had, back in the days of Jerusalem, Nicea and Chalcedon. How can Gentiles be admitted to the Church? How can God be truly human, three yet one? Today we face other deep questions: how can men and women be equal yet different – be equal, yet with different roles and hierarchy?
These were the questions behind the overarching question that we were gathered to answer in this concluding assembly in Rome: how can we become a synodal Church in mission? Speaking next, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, the synod’s relator or chair, said this was a moment for the synod to get concrete, to “act on what we speak of”. Just when things were getting crucial you could feel the fatigue, the sense of disorientation. Many of those on the tables, members and facilitators, had grown deeply in communion; they were at one with each other; there was trust among them. But there was a lack of focus, a taking refuge in abstraction.
In spare moments that week – there weren’t many – I found myself thinking of an even deeper question, one that has never been explicit in this process: why, precisely, do we need to become synodal, to change in this way? That Friday, 11 October, I wandered over to a talk at the “synodality tent” organised by the Latin Americans, where Cardinal Michael Czerny (who heads the integral human development dicastery in Rome) and Sr Gloria Liliana Echeverri (who leads Latin America’s umbrella body of Religious) explained how the Amazon had flowed into the Tiber. The precursor of this Synod on Synodality was the Amazonia synod of October 2019, the first to operate according to Francis’ new synod regulations the year before. It had begun with what was then an unprecedented consultation of around 90,000 people in the region, and involved a large number of non-bishops, including women, whose testimony was invaluable. The synodal renewal of the Church was key to the salvation of the region: to the defence of integral ecology and the flourishing of its people, indigenous and otherwise.
Its main fruits? Five years on, the Church in the region has a unique new structure – the world’s first “ecclesial conference”, covering a vast territory which includes nine nations and bishops’ conferences – with a fully synodal modus operandi, geared to mission. Its governing body has a mix of bishops, clergy, Religious and lay people, and discernment and listening are built into decision-making.
There is a regional university in the offing, and an Amazon-specific liturgical rite. New forms of ministry, especially of women – who play a key role in running church communities there – are being tried and discerned along the new ministerial paths opened up by Pope Francis in his exhortation Querida Amazonia. There is a new commitment to the area: resources are being mobilised, and there is fresh hope and missionary energy, despite the appalling droughts and worsening ecological crisis. Five years on, you can see the renewal in Sr Liliana’s eyes and voice when she describes this new way of relating, of acting together.
What, you ask, has Amazonia got to do with the vast, poor dioceses of Africa, the teeming urbes of Asia – in the Philippines, Cardinal-elect Pablo Virgilio David told reporters, one diocese has gone from 1.4 to 4 million people in four years — or the ageing, empty churches of Europe? Everything, it turns out. Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the Archbishop of Vienna, told me that in Austria there are now more priests per person than in the 1950s, because of the demographic collapse (people aren’t having children, yet are hostile to migrants). For him, synodality is about facing the fact that Europe is in huge demographic decline and the Church is growing fast in the south – to the point where, by 2050, 75 per cent of the world’s Christians will be there. And there are already large parts of Europe, especially in rural areas, where church communities might see a priest only rarely, even if he doesn’t arrive on a canoe.
It’s a variegated picture, but one truth emerges: as Madre Maria Ignazia, the synod’s spiritual mother, put it, this assembly is “embedded in an epochal turning point in history and in the Church, the contours of which we confusingly sense but do not see clearly”. There’s new wine here: a call to a deeper way of relating to each other, and to Christ, in ways that release the baptismal gifts and agency of ordinary people. And there’s a search for new – or at least, dusted-off – wineskins to contain all this complex multipolarity: processes and structures that allow us to assemble in order “to dialogue, discern and decide”, as the Final Document puts it. And while this can seem self-referential, because the horizon of our discernment is the Church itself, its purpose is mission.
In a secularised society, the Church really only has three possibilities: to close off in resignation and resentment, seeking refuge in citadels of the pure (the traditionalist temptation); to accept the role that liberal secularity casts for the Church, as a provider of charitable services and harmless community activities; or it can move into a new missionary mode, evolving to share responsibilities and ministries, and discerning, allowing ourselves to be summoned by the Lord “out of the small places in which we have taken refuge and in which we have imprisoned others”, as Radcliffe put it so well. The Final Document captures this conversion beautifully when it describes synodality as “a path of spiritual renewal and structural reform that enables the Church to be more participatory and missionary, so that it can walk with every man and woman, radiating the light of Christ” (28).
How do we convert? By entering into “patient, imaginative, intelligent, open-hearted listening” – Radcliffe’s words – to each other, and to the Spirit that speaks in the sensus fidelium. Then we need to grasp that, as the synod secretary general Cardinal Mario Grech put it, the Church is not the product of our actions and reforms – it is not a corporation – but “a living organism that lives by grace”.
In the pre-assembly retreat Radcliffe told us there were “urgent questions which will not let us go on living in the same way”, but these had to be more than just questions about whether something should be allowed or refused for that, he said, would be to stay the same sort of Church. Some have framed this gathering as a synod to address the question of whether to accept women as deacons. The Final Document’s paragraph 60, which deals with the question of woman deacons, was the only one that attracted a high “No” vote – 97, just under a third – probably because it declared that the question remained open. It is ironic how some of those who in the John Paul II years lamented his remote authoritarianism now want Francis to act as a Bourbon monarch, imposing enlightened reforms on a backward society.
But nor was it true that the assembly was a passive body, meekly directed from high. There was a huge variety of views and perspectives in the hall but it was beautiful to see, this year especially, how they were fruitfully contained by bonds of trust and communion. James Martin SJ, the New York-based writer known for his outreach to LBGTQ people, was struck by how those who had been aggressive towards him last year told him this year how he had made them think. Conversations about LGBTQ Catholics were “much friendlier, much more relaxed and much more open this year”, he says. He himself dropped the use of the term, which was not used in the final report last year, but was happy that the Final Document spoke of reaching out to people who felt “the pain of feeling excluded and judged because of their marital situation, identity or sexuality”.
My own favourite line in the Final Document is a rather complex one in paragraph 17, on how synodal processes offer us a taste of what it means to be the People of God. The People of God, it says, “is never the simple sum of the baptised but the communitarian and historical subject of synodality and mission, still on pilgrimage through time, and already in communion with the Church in heaven”. Synodality forms the People into what Ignatian spirituality calls the subiecto, or subject, that is, a body sufficiently mature and spiritually developed to be capable of discernment. It’s a journey: last year, the assembly showed many signs of not being a subiecto: many people came wanting to get things, to persuade, to complain – or to fight their corner.
But this year, it felt they had become a body made up of many parts yet capable of acting as a subiecto. You saw it around the table, in the relaxed laughter. And you saw it on the afternoon the assembly felt disrespected. This was the only real crisis of the month, and it centred on the handling of women’s ministries. Right at the start of the assembly, there were presentations from the 10 study groups that had been set up to noodle over topics arising from the synod that were too big or divisive for the assembly to tackle this month. The issues were: Eastern-Latin Catholic relations; the cry of the poor; mission in the digital environment; seminary reform; questions relating to ministries, especially of women; relations between bishops and religious orders and movements; criteria for selecting bishops; the role of nuncios; methods for discerning controversial doctrinal and ethical issues; certain ecumenical questions. The study groups were asked to work in a synodal (collaborative, transparent, multidisciplinary) way, and to report to the Pope next summer with proposals that could help shape the implementation phase of the synod.
The presentations on 2 October were brief, and rushed, and the Assembly members wanted time to hear from them in more detail and to dialogue with them. There was a particular strength of feeling around Group Five, looking at women’s ministries, which did not disclose its membership or plans and was perceived to be operating in secrecy. The synod secretariat arranged meetings for 18 October, which mostly went down very well. But when Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández failed to show for the Group Five meeting, sending two junior staffers instead, there was real indignation, freely expressed, which ended up in the media.
But Fernández responded, offering to meet us on 24 October, for what turned out to be a freewheeling 90-minute dialogue. There he gave a detailed account of why the DDF was handling this – because the Pope had asked him to, before the study groups were created – and the remit he had been given: to look at the question of ministries and what in governance is proper to the sacra potestas of ordination. He gave a detailed account of who was involved (a large number of members and consultors), how they operated, and the way they collected evidence and testimony.
As a priest and bishop he has long been aware of the feelings of women: that they are sidelined and not listened to, or not taken seriously because they are not part of the clergy. In his experience, most such women were not asking to be ordained; indeed, the clerical status would be an encumbrance. Instead what they sought was the ability to carry out their work and mission, and to have the authority and resources to do so. He saw it as vital to investigate the lived experience and praxis of women already exercising authority and ministries, “because there are many things we find not in European books but in experience”.
The locus theologicus, in other words, was the reality of women already exercising jurisdictions and ministries; this showed what the Spirit was already doing in the Church that needed to be recognised and given authority. He saw a major obstacle to this in clericalism, which needed to be dismantled to allow these gifts to be expressed. Part of that task of desclericalizar was to challenge inadequate stereotypes in the Church about a “female nature” associated with qualities such as tenderness and closeness in contrast to perceptions of a “male nature” associated with strength and decisiveness.
Fernández (or the Pope: they are so close in their thinking it is hard to tell the difference) saw the female diaconate as a distraction from this much larger question. His view as a private theologian, not as DDF prefect, was that the fundamentals of the reasoning against the female diaconate were sound but insufficient, while the case in favour was reasonable but has not yet adequately responded to the objections against. His reading of the two commissions into the early-Church diaconate was that there was a clear division of interpretation over whether theirs was an ordination or a blessing, and it was vital to bring these two divergent interpretations into dialogue. He said the commission under Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi investigating the female diaconate would continue, and – in another important advance from earlier in the month – promised that the two commission reports would be published, complete with the vote tallies.
But while that work would go on, the more important and urgent task was to empower women in the Church: not only was this was the important and urgent need – unlike the diaconate, which involves small numbers, this was about women’s place generally in the Church. “There is no reason or impediment that prevent women from carrying out leadership roles in the Church: what comes from the Holy Spirit cannot be stopped,” he had earlier said in a statement – the exact phrase that appears in paragraph 60 of the Final Document.
There was a lighter mood following that meeting. Cardinal Fernández had made himself accountable. He was in dialogue with the synod. He had responded to it. Maybe he had been on his own conversion journey. “Even the Roman Curia, step by step, is learning synodality,” Sr Nathalie Becquart, synod secretary, told journalists a few days earlier, adding: “Synodality is in action.”
The Final Document lacks some of the prophetic elements of previous synod documents. But it breathes consensus, and has the calm, consoling quality of a discernment that has ended in joy, and will open vital new spaces in the Church. Change will come: quietly, over time, slipping past the shrugs of indifference and the eye rolls, the desperate bids to keep the status quo.
There is a story to be told of how the Assembly moved out of its doldrums into the firm sense of purpose of the final stretch. The final few days – when the tables produced more than 900 amendments to the draft document, and the drafters were up all night – is yet another story. There was considerable input from the Casa Santa Marta via the Pope’s key intermediaries. The drafting commission, elected by the assembly, played a key role, as did the small team of drafters and translators. But ultimately it was a collective task, a miracle of collaboration that is further proof that a subiecto has been formed.
It was enough for the Pope, after the votes, to declare that he approved it and it should be published, which is the formula by which it becomes part of the papal magisterium. “I do not intend to publish an apostolic exhortation,” he said. “It is enough that we have approved it.” The document had many concrete indications that can be implemented straight away: “That’s why I place it at the disposal of all, this is why I have said it should be published.” In this historic act, Francis has modelled how the Petrine ministry should exercise its authority: calling assemblies, listening, discerning, deciding, evaluating – and endorsing what the Spirit has said to the Church. Learning how to do this, he said, was a “process of conversion”. Now the beautiful words needed to be followed by facts, he said, adding: “This is the way.”
Austen Ivereigh is fellow in contemporary church history at Campion Hall, Oxford, and a biographer of Pope Francis.
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THE FINAL DOCUMENT: SUMMARY ‘On the boat, together’ The 52-page Final Document concluding the Second Session of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops is entitled “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, Mission”, and is divided into five sections. The first explains the call to a synodal conversion; the following three are about conversions: of relationships, processes, and bonds; the fifth is on formation for missionary discipleship. A brief Introduction describes the three-year synodal journey since October 2021, noting how one of its fruits has been the creation of 10 Study Groups to examine “key themes of great importance for the life of the Church”, plus two commissions: on reforms to church law, and another, Africa-specific, considering pastoral accompaniment of people in polygamous marriages. The creation of these study groups and commissions, which report next year, marks the “beginning of the implementation phase” of the Synod, and will assist the Pope in a range of pastoral and governance decisions (8). Part I, “The Heart of Synodality”, starts from the mutual interdependence and reciprocity of the People of God, which possesses the sensus fidei (the instinct of faith) by virtue of Baptism. The sensus fidei is exercised in discernment processes aimed at reaching consensus (consensus fidei) that involve “gathering together to dialogue, discern and decide”. Synodality “involves gathering at all levels of the Church for mutual listening, dialogue and community discernment”. Simply put, “synodality is a path of spiritual renewal and structural reform that enables the Church to be more participatory and missionary, so that it can walk with every man and woman, radiating the light of Christ” (28). It is “primarily a spiritual disposition” requiring humility, patience, a willingness to forgive and be forgiven, and needs formation and accompaniment (43). Part II, “On the Boat, Together” calls in paragraph 50 for “a Church with a greater capacity to nurture relationships”, that does not exclude people because of their “marital situation, identity or sexuality”. Jesus’ “practices” in the Gospel — stopping to listen, listening to the needs and faith of those he meets, revealing to them the face of the Father — is the model for the Church: “when we listen to our brothers and sisters, we are participants in the way that God in Jesus Christ comes to meet each of us” (51). Noting that all the baptised are given gifts for the flourishing of the life of the Christian community and to respond to missionary needs (58), the Assembly calls for “more forms of lay ministries”, both instituted and non-instituted (66). Women “continue to encounter obstacles in obtaining a fuller recognition of their charisms, vocation and roles in all the various areas of the Church’s life. This is to the detriment of serving the Church’s shared mission.” To counter these obstacles, the document calls for the “full implementation of all the opportunities already provided for in Canon Law with regard to the role of women”, adding that “there is no reason or impediment that should prevent women from carrying out leadership roles in the Church. What comes from the Holy Spirit cannot be stopped.” Paragraph 60 goes on to say that “the question of women’s access to diaconal ministry remains open. This discernment needs to continue.” Part II further calls for the People of God to have a greater voice in choosing bishops, and says the ordination of a bishop should take place in “in the diocese to which he is destined as pastor, and not in his home diocese” (70). Noting that priests suffer isolation and loneliness, the Assembly calls for “co-responsibility in the exercise of ministry” and “a more courageous discernment of what properly belongs to the ordained and what can and must be delegated to others”, as well as for broad participation in decision-making to overcome clericalism and abuse (74). Consideration should be given to “extending and stabilizing” lay ministries (76) and to lay people taking part in “all phases of decision-making processes” (77). The Assembly discusses a proposal to establish a “ministry of listening and accompaniment” aimed especially at those alienated from the Church (78). Part III, “Cast the Net”, calls for discernment and decision-making processes in the Church in a climate of transparency and accountability. “Decision-makers need to be able to trust and listen to the People of God. The latter, in turn, need to trust those in authority” (80). Paragraphs 81 to 94 gives guidance on the principles and processes of ecclesial discernment for mission. The Assembly calls for “formation opportunities that spread and nourish a culture of ecclesial discernment”, especially among those in leadership, and encourages the formation of facilitators who play a key role in these processes (86). The document details the obligations on authority in this respect, noting that the deliberative element is undertaken “with the help of all”. There is a call to revise canon law to clarify the distinction between consultation and deliberation. “Without concrete changes in the short term” to enable synodal decision-making processes, the document notes, “the vision of a synodal Church will not be credible” (94). Part III then sets out processes to enable transparency and accountability, as well as “structures and methods for regularly evaluating” the way ministries are exercised and to monitor broad access to decision-making processes (95 to 101). The document notes that the many kinds of synodal and participatory bodies at every level of the Church provided for in canon law “represent one of the most promising areas in which to act for rapid implementation of the synodal guidelines, bringing about perceptible changes speedily” (103). Because “a synodal Church is based upon the existence, efficiency and effective vitality of these participatory bodies” the Assembly adds: “We insist that they be made mandatory, as was requested at all stages of the synod process” (104). In addition to these standing bodies – diocesan synods, parish pastoral councils, presbyteral councils – the Assembly encourages also regular assemblies at all levels, “as the place for listening, prayer and discernment, particularly when it comes to choices pertaining to the life and the mission of a local Church” (108). Part IV, “An Abundant Catch”, deals with the “conversion of bonds” in the Church, between local Churches, and in its relation to the spaces and networks it inhabits. Conscious of far-reaching social changes that are “transforming the understanding of place”, the document notes the implications for the Church of urbanisation and isolation, as well as the “existential peripheries” of rural areas and places of marginalisation and exclusion (111). It notes especially the impact of mass migration and the rise of digital culture among the young. It sees the digital environment as a “prophetic space for mission and proclamation” and asks local Churches to “encourage, sustain and accompany” those who engaged in mission there (113). The document also reflects on the Church not as a closed space to be defended but a home of hospitality, welcome and inclusion in the new contexts of mobility and interconnectedness (115). The Assembly urges us to “reconsider how parishes are configured” so that they focus more on mission and outreach, placing particular emphasis on Christian initiation, accompaniment and formation (118). Part IV also considers bolstering ecclesial bodies such as bishops’ conferences as well as regular ecclesial assemblies at a regional, national and continental level (124-8). In order to carry out the “sound decentralization” Pope Francis called for in Evangelii Gaudium, the Assembly has a number of proposals. One is the periodic celebration of provincial and plenary councils, whose conclusions should get a swift recognitio from Rome (129). It also calls for a Council “around the Pope” of Patriarchs and Archbishops of the Eastern Catholic Churches (133). Urging a clarification of what matters can be left to bishops and what are reserved to Rome (134), the Assembly also asks that, prior to publishing “important normative documents”, the dicasteries of the Roman Curia consult episcopal conferences (135). In respect of the Synod of Bishops, the document notes that it has seen and will continue in the future to have the participation of non-bishops as well as fraternal delegates (137-8). Part V, “So I Send You”, is concerned with formation for missionary discipleship, for which it sees formation in synodality as vital. A call for “integral and continuing” formation provided by the Christian community has been one of the strongest themes of the synod process (143), along with a call for formation to be “common and shared”, that is, involving men and woman, lay and ordained, participating together (143). Catechesis is key to “drawing people outwards in mission” while catechists are a key resource for accompaniment and formation (145). There is a consistent call for a synodal overhaul of seminary formation, to include more women as formators and formation in ecclesial discernment (148). And it re-commits the Church to promoting abuse prevention and safeguarding, asking “to strengthen this commitment by offering specific and ongoing formation and training for those working with minors and vulnerable adults” (150). A brief Conclusion sees a synodal Church as a sign to the nations, the announcement of a communion intended for all peoples, including the poorest and the least. In this way Church synodality becomes a “a social prophecy, inspiring new paths in the political and economic spheres” (153). “By going forth to meet everyone in order to bring the joy of the Gospel we can live the communion that saves” (154). |
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