Synodality and the bishops
Does the bishops’ report indicate that synodality is simply not happening here? That would be a reasonable reading, but it’s not true, says Austen Ivereigh.
HOW IS IT coming on, the Church’s synodal conversion? There was a chance to answer that question in mid-May, when bishops’ conferences around the world sent their reflections on the conclusions of last October’s synod assembly to Rome. The homework was set last December: local Churches across the world were asked to spend the months between last year’s assembly and the concluding one this October digging into the “missionary option” of Evangelii Gaudium no.27. And to do so by answering two questions specifically. First: How can we enhance the co-responsibility in mission of the People of God? Second: What structures and processes of decision-making and consultation can be renewed or introduced to help to enable that corresponsibility?
These concrete questions were set out in the synod secretariat’s “Towards October 2024” document, which noted how since October 2021 the Church has been on a journey of opening up to the Spirit in mutual encounters that have generated a “desire to share this gift, involving ever more people in this dynamism”. This three-year historic synod on synodality, in all its different phases – diocesan, national, regional, universal – has been about learning to exercise an atrophied muscle. It is a culture, a praxis, a way of operating, that belonged to the early Church and is being given new life by Pope Francis in ways appropriate for our times. Rome has asked what we are doing and what we have learned, so that the final assembly can draw lessons in how to deepen the synodal journey. The bishops’ conference reports from across the world will be fed into the working document for the October assembly. England and Wales has made public its report, but so discreetly it would be odd if you were aware it existed.
IN HIS COVERING letter Cardinal Vincent Nichols writes that the challenge set for us by synodality is to make the Church more missionary, a task that “can only be achieved through a profound communion of life with Christ and by a release of the gifts and talents given by the Lord to all the baptised for this purpose”. Which is terrific, but nowhere in the six-page submission are details of where or how this release might be happening. Almost every sentence of the report is rich in passive-tense we-shouldisms and theological abstraction. Thus: “Lay men and women are called to take a share in the ministerial charism especially through the lay ministries which have gained a new significance through the pontificate of Pope Francis,” it notes, without saying if this is happening, or ever will.
“Ways need to be found in which the gifts of all can be used for the good of Christ’s mission”, is another declaration, yet the report does not reveal if, two and a half years into the process, anyone in England and Wales has actually found such ways. The closest we come to specifics is the news that some dioceses “are seeking ways to enhance their structures” such as deanery and parish pastoral councils. But no examples are given of how or where; no experiences or lessons are shared. Nowhere does it say: “In X diocese they’ve tried this, and learned that, and decided to do this.”
DOES THE BISHOPS’ report indicate that synodality is simply not happening here? That would be a reasonable reading, but it’s not true. Go truffling on the websites of the dioceses of Hexham and Newcastle, Clifton, Cardiff, Liverpool or Northampton, and you’ll learn of listening exercises using conversations in the Spirit (CiS) to develop pastoral visions and greater collaboration. In two cases you’ll even find copies of the dioceses’ reports sent to the bishops’ conference. Clifton has a pro-ramme of training parish councils to use CiS and has hosted lay-clergy listening sessions across the diocese, one fruit of which has been to see the need for a theology of the priesthood that allows both the ordained and lay vocations to embrace each other’s gifts. Liverpool tells of its new Archdiocesan Synodal Council, which met for the first time last autumn, at which its 110 members were invited to hold the diocese to account for how well (or badly) it has developed its synodally-agreed pastoral plan. Liverpool also tells how its new Deanery Synodal Councils work, with both lay and clergy leaders holding listening sessions to identify missionary and pastoral priorities. Why is none of this in the report?
Rome’s December directive also asked dioceses to send to their local bishops’ conferences two-page summaries of “any good practice that it considers significant for the growth of a missionary synodal dynamism”. These case studies would be collected from across the world and made available at the October assembly to inspire the whole Church: a synodality how-to catalogue. So: the number of diocesan projects in England and Wales sent to Rome by the bishops’ conference? Zero. “There didn’t seem much appetite for that request,” they tell me at the conference HQ.
BY CONTRAST, the Irish bishops’ report – which gives a very clear lights-and-shadows snapshot of synodality in Ireland – is followed by a weighty 56 pages of testimonies and best practices. Each diocese records significant shifts in their way of operating as a result of synodality, with deeper prayerful listening and corresponsibility releasing new missionary energy. It’s not all gushing, but the reports are alive with concrete experiences which remind me of the 72 disciples returning to Christ breathless with stories. The Church in Ireland is undergoing a synodal renewal.
In contrast, the report from England and Wales sounds begrudging,
reluctant, keeping it all at arms’ length, just like its conference
statement last November. Responding to the previous month’s assembly in
Rome the bishops urged Adoration to prepare for the final assembly and
suggested some vague questions to ponder “as an intermediate step
towards taking an active part in the synodal renewal”. But synodality is
not something we
need to prepare for. It’s what we should be doing.
Austen Ivereigh is a biographer of Pope Francis. His latest book, First Belong to God: On Retreat with Pope Francis, was published by Loyola Press in February. He is taking part in the October synod as a theological expert.
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