The Church begins to dream
The Synod
The Synod on Synodality has laid a foundation stone for a deep reform of how the Catholic Church carries out its mission and how it contains disagreements that threaten its unity
The document released at the conclusion of the first of the two-part
climax to the Synod process points toward a profound shake-up of the
Church. Its proposals include an expanded role for women in ministry,
making lay involvement in decision-making mandatory, an overhaul of the
seminary system, and a revision of the Church’s Code of Canon Law. On
women deacons, the Synod agreed that this issue needs more discernment
and asked that the findings of previous papal commissions on the issue
be presented to the concluding assembly in October 2024.
It was
never expected that this October’s synod would hone in on the most
contested topics in the Church and make dramatic proposals. This was the
first round of a synod double-header, which began at the local level
two years ago. “Today, we do not see the full fruit of this process, but
with farsightedness, we look to the horizon opening up before us,” Pope
Francis said in his homily at the Mass in St Peter’s Basilica
concluding the assembly.
The breakthrough achieved by the Synod
was not to be found in the texts focusing on particular issues, but in
the widespread acceptance of the ways of discussing and discerning that
were adopted at this Synod for the first time. The radically different
approach encouraged attentive and prayerful listening among small groups
of cardinals, bishops, priests and lay people seated around tables. All
350 or so members of the Synod were able to speak, each of them being
allotted the same time. The process led to the unprecedented sight of
cardinals from the Roman Curia sitting at round tables with women from
Asia and Latin America. “It was a levelling of the participants,” one
delegate said.
The prophets of doom who had warned of a conspiracy to overturn church doctrine and had predicted a schism, or a descent into irreconcilable polarisation, were proved wrong. Each paragraph of the final “synthesis document” was voted on in turn, and all received the approval of at least a two-thirds majority. Several bishops who had voiced concerns or had been openly sceptical of the Synod were won over by the new process.
Every Christian denomination has been experiencing deep divisions in recent decades, particularly over the recognition of same-sex relationships. What is remarkable about the way this issue is being discussed in the Catholic Church is how – so far, at least – the synodal process has established a container that is both holding disagreements and – at the same time – building communion. There is considerable tension, but the container is succeeding in balancing a more inclusive conversation with the authority of the papacy.
“The real miracle is the overwhelming agreement that synodality is the way of proceeding in the Church,” the Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny told me as we walked together past the Swiss Guards and up to the side entrance of St Peter’s Basilica for the closing Mass last Sunday. The cardinal, a Jesuit, is the leader of the Holy See’s office for integral human development and has worked in Africa, Central America and North America. “Going into the Synod was like walking into a laboratory,” he said. “We were testing something, and it wasn’t clear if it was going to work. But the test results are encouraging. This can no longer be dismissed as a fashion or a fad. Synodality – a way, a style of walking together – is what the Lord expects of the Church in the third millennium.”
The inclusion of women – there were close to as many women present as
voting delegates as there were cardinals – was also groundbreaking. The
presence of lay people led to relentless questioning from critics of
the Synod – and sometimes from bishops speaking in the Paul VI Hall – of
the status and authority of the Synod, and whether it could still be
called a “Synod of Bishops”. According to the final report, some still
want to reserve membership of the Synod to bishops, and it was
acknowledged that the “criteria by which non-bishop members are called
to the assembly” should be clarified. Given the particular role bishops
have as teachers and successors to the Apostles, some proposed that the
“ecclesial assembly” of bishops and lay people should be followed by a
separate “episcopal assembly” to conclude the process of discernment.
The
Synod remains a consultative body, as it has been since Pope Paul VI
set it up during the final session of the Second Vatican Council. The
Pope has the final say. Bishops do not operate in isolation, and the
success of the assembly showed that their discernment is helped by the
presence of priests and lay people, as well as fellow bishops. The
process is a development from the structure established by Paul VI but,
as the Australian theologian Ormond Rush pointed out in a well-received
address, in which he quoted extensively from Joseph Ratzinger, tradition
is dynamic rather than static, legalistic and ahistorical.
One
source close to the proceedings put it this way: “The progressives got
the process, and the conservatives got the content.” The final document
did not use the term “LGBTQ Catholics” (as the working document had),
despite the shift in pastoral approach the Pope has modelled over the
past decade. “I would suspect that most LGBTQ Catholics will be
disappointed that they are not even mentioned in the final synthesis,”
Fr James Martin SJ, the Jesuit priest who has a high profile ministry to
gay Catholics, said afterwards. “The document, as it turns out, does
not reflect the fact that the topic of LGBTQ people came up repeatedly
in both many table discussions and the plenary sessions, and provoked
widely diverging views.” Nevertheless, he said that the Synod was a
“great grace” and that it “hasn’t finished yet”.
While gay and
lesbian Catholics were not expressly mentioned, the synthesis document
acknowledged that the Church’s “anthropological categories” when it
comes to sexuality and identity had not adequately taken into account
human experience and the sciences. That is a significant admission, and
it opens the door to what could be a wide-ranging reimagining of
Catholic teaching on sexuality.
How the LGBTQ question was
handled reflected a Church that is no longer dominated by Europe and the
west, but one which is multi-polar and where the global south is
growing in influence. We also saw this in the agreement that bishops in
Africa should promote a “theological and pastoral discernment” on the
question of polygamy, including how to accompany those in polygamous
unions.
Discussions of the Church’s ministry to Catholics in
same-sex relationships were at times tense. At one point, the delegates
heard the powerful story of a young woman from Poland who took her own
life because she was bisexual and did not feel welcomed into the Church.
Sources also told me that one high-ranking Eastern Catholic prelate
refused to sit at the same table as Fr Martin.
Although the
synthesis document steers away from topics where agreement wasn’t
possible, it includes potentially significant proposals. One is that the
system for the training of priests in seminaries should undergo a
“thorough review” in light of the Church’s “missionary and synodal
dimensions”. It calls for programmes where lay and ordained are formed
together and a greater integration of women in the seminary system. It
suggested candidates for ordained ministry need to experience living in a
Christian community before entering a seminary and that formation
houses should not create an “artificial environment, separate from the
ordinary life of the faithful”.
On the question of
accountability, it suggests that bishops undergo performance reviews to
assess how they exercise authority and manage finances and that “priests
and deacons” undergo a “regular audit” of how they are carrying out
their role. There is also a proposal to consider the “re-insertion of
priests who have left the ministry in pastoral services” on a
case-by-case basis, and to give “further consideration” to the
ordination of married men.
What a more synodal church looks like regarding church law and
structures still needs to be studied. The Synod proposed that an
“intercontinental special commission of theological and canonical
experts” be established to work on proposals ahead of next year’s
assembly. The final document also called for pastoral councils, bodies
including the non-ordained and the clergy, to be made obligatory at the
parish and diocesan levels.
While the Synod was a transformative
experience for the several hundred bishops, priests and lay people
involved, the real test of its success will be the extent to which
synodality is taken up at parish, diocese and national level. While
several local churches have followed the synodal initiative, plenty more
have simply ignored it. The most “no” votes came for the paragraphs on
female deacons, while the section calling for “further consideration” of
mandatory celibacy for priests also received a substantial number of
“no’s”.
The Synod took place against the backdrop of the
unfolding war between Israel and Hamas and Russia’s continuing war in
Ukraine. Later this month, world leaders will gather in Dubai for the
latest COP gathering to address the climate crisis (Francis is tipped to
join them). It is within this context of war, conflict and fragility
that the Church has to carry out its mission. As the Synod concluded,
Francis said the Church must put God and service before personal
agendas. “This is the Church we are called to ‘dream’: a Church that is
the servant of all, the servant of the least of our brothers and
sisters,” he said. “A Church that never demands an attestation of ‘good
behaviour’, but welcomes, serves, loves, forgives; a Church with open
doors that is a haven of mercy.”
The second and concluding
session of the Synod on Synodality will be held in the Vatican in 11
months’ time. It will be vital for the realisation of Francis’ “dream”
that the work continues and the momentum created by the first session is
sustained. But the synodal and missionary Church is already emerging.
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