FutureChurch director emerita, Deborah Rose, joins us to share an overview and analysis of the Instrumentum Laboris – or Working Document – that will guide conversation and discernment at the October 2024 Assembly of the Synod on Communion, Participation, and Mission. Deb’s presentation provides an overview of how the document was created and a review of its contents with a particular focus on where and how the issue of women’s leadership and ministry appears in text.
Synod Delegate, Dr. Cynthia Bailey Manns, joins FutureChurch to host a listening session in preparation for the October 2024 Assembly of the Synod on Communion, Participation, and Mission.
Dr. Bailey Manns joins in conversation with a number of listening session participants regarding details of the newly released working document that will guide the October 2024 Assembly. Of note, participants discuss the development that discussion of women deacons has now been “entrusted” to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith.
We apologize that, because of technical issues, the recording begins a few minutes into the conversation as Deborah Rose is sharing her thoughts about the news that discussion of women deacons was being taken up by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of faith.
Dr. Cynthia Bailey Manns is one of four lay people from the United States who were appointed by Pope Francis as the first lay women and men voting delegates to participate at the first general assembly of the Synod of Bishops on Synodality this past October and again in October 2024. She is also one of the six St. Paul & Minneapolis Archdiocesan representatives in the Continental phase of the pre-Synod preparations and at Archbishop Hebda’s request, ably represented the Archdiocese on the team that worked with the World Council of Churches and the Dicastery for the Promotion of Christian Unity to draft the international materials for the 2023 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
Dr. Bailey Manns is the Director of Adult Learning at Saint Joan of Arc Catholic Community in Minneapolis—a community whose vision is to be a visible, progressive Catholic Community, compassionate and welcoming to all. She holds a Doctor of Ministry in Spiritual Direction from the Graduate Theological Foundation in Florida and currently serves as Adjunct Faculty at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. She is an experienced soul companion/spiritual director, supervisor, and retreat leader with emphasis on human development, spirituality, spiritual formation, soul care for lay and ordained leaders, and sacred activism. She lives with her family in Bloomington, Minnesota.
Synod Delegate, Dr. Cynthia Bailey Manns, joins FutureChurch to host a listening session in preparation for the October 2024 Assembly of the Synod on Communion, Participation, and Mission. The listening session begins with Dr. Bailey Manns’s review of the Synod so far including developments since the October 2023 assembly and steps toward the October 2024 assembly. Dr. Bailey Manns then receives input and takes questions from those gathered.
Dr. Cynthia Bailey Manns is one of four lay people from the United States who were appointed by Pope Francis as the first lay women and men voting delegates to participate at the first general assembly of the Synod of Bishops on Synodality this past October and again in October 2024. She is also one of the six St. Paul & Minneapolis Archdiocesan representatives in the Continental phase of the pre-Synod preparations and at Archbishop Hebda’s request, ably represented the Archdiocese on the team that worked with the World Council of Churches and the Dicastery for the Promotion of Christian Unity to draft the international materials for the 2023 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
Dr. Bailey Manns is the Director of Adult Learning at Saint Joan of Arc Catholic Community in Minneapolis—a community whose vision is to be a visible, progressive Catholic Community, compassionate and welcoming to all. She holds a Doctor of Ministry in Spiritual Direction from the Graduate Theological Foundation in Florida and currently serves as Adjunct Faculty at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. She is an experienced soul companion/spiritual director, supervisor, and retreat leader with emphasis on human development, spirituality, spiritual formation, soul care for lay and ordained leaders, and sacred activism. She lives with her family in Bloomington, Minnesota.
During Lent of 2024, FutureChurch organized three listening sessions for the interim stage of the Synod on Communion, Participation, and Mission (Synod on Synodality). More than 100 individuals responded to our invitation to engage in Conversations in the Spirit based on the questions offered by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and to discern the movement of the Spirit in our midst. An additional 88 responses were collected through our online questionnaire, which posed the same questions.
A small writing team which included FutureChurch staff and board members undertook the task of synthesizing our listening sessions and questionnaire responses as a sacred responsibility and privilege, and we proudly share the fruits of our conversations with the larger Church.
FutureChurch submitted the report below to the United States Synod team as well as the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops in Rome. In addition, we have been shared the report with a number of US-based delegates, experts, and consultants to the Synod.
To very briefly summarize: Our conversations revealed a sense that the Church best lives into its call to be a community of love and mercy when all the baptized are involved as co-equals in the life and mission of the Church. We fail to live into that call when we rigidly cling to dogmas and practices that deny or diminish human dignity, and the Spirit that dwells within, thereby preventing dialogue and encounter. We sensed that the Spirit is calling us to move forward as a synodal Church rooted in the teachings and spirit of the Second Vatican Council – free of clericalism – with an empowered laity, an open and reformed priesthood, and a commitment to engaging and living Catholic Social Teaching in the world.
Please Note: These sessions have now concluded
and our Interim Stage Synthesis was submitted to the US Synod Team
and to the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops in Rome
on April 8, 2024.
Join FutureChurch as we engage together in “Conversations in the Spirit” to deepen our engagement with one another and continue our journey toward the October 2024 Assembly of the Synod on Communion, Participation, and Mission.
FutureChurch will host three stand-alone sessions at different times to allow for as much participation as possible. Each session will last approximately 2 hours. Pick the session that works best for you and your schedule:
Saturday, March 9 at 9 -11am ET
Monday, March 11 at 7-9pm ET
Saturday, March 16 at 12N – 2pm ET
Please note: Small breakout groups engaging in conversations with others will be integral to these sessions. If you are unwilling or unable to participate in a breakout group, these aren’t the sessions for you. Instead, we invite you to fill out our questionnaire. Your input, regardless of whether or not you attend a listening session, will be incorporated into our report, which we will send to the USCCB Synod Committee and post to our website.
In this interim phase, the USCCB Synod Committee has posed two questions which will guide our conversations and subsequent synthesis report:
Where have I seen or experienced successes—and distresses—within the Church’s structure(s)/organization/leadership/life that encourage or hinder the mission?
How can the structures and organization of the Church help all the baptized to respond to the call to proclaim the Gospel and to live as a community of love and mercy in Christ?
Resources for Preparation: To prepare for these Conversations in the Spirit we encourage you to spend some time reviewing the following resources:
We have developed a questionnaire based on the questions posed by the USCCB Synod Committee. Your responses to the questionnaire will serve two functions 1. Preparing you to make your contributions to your small group if you are joining one of our listening sessions and 2. Providing data to us as we develop our written report, which we will send to the USCCB committee.
The 2021-2024 Synod on Communion, Participation, and Mission has introduced Catholics to a way of discerning together called “Conversations in the Spirit.” This is the method was used by delegates at the October 2023 Assembly and is a method that the entire Church is being invited into, particularly during the interim phase of the Synod leading to the October 2024 Assembly. More than exchange of ideas, it is a spiritual journey to help discover and name convergences and overcome divergences and to uncover steps the Holy Spirit is revealing. The method is meant to draw participants closer to one another as they listen to one another and together for what The Spirit is calling forth from the Church.
Below are the steps in having a Conversation in the Spirit.
Step One: Personal Preparation
Each person begins on their own by entering into prayer to meditate on the question(s) being asked and to consider their own future contributions to the larger group.
Step Two: Taking the Word and Listening
The communal discernment begins with a silence, prayer, and listening to the Word of God. Then each participant takes turns speaking from his or her own experience and prayer while also listening attentively to the others. This initial exchange is followed by a time of prayerful silence.
Step Three: Making Space for Others and The Other
Then after having listened to what others have said and prayed with it, each individual shares what has resonated most with him or her or what has aroused the most resistance in him or her, allowing himself or herself to be guided by the Holy Spirit: “When, listening,
did my heart burn within me?” After each has shared there is another moment of prayerful silence.
Step Four: Building Together
Together we dialogue on the basis of what emerged earlier in order to discern and gather the fruit of the conversation in the Spirit: to recognize intuitions and convergences; to identify discordances, obstacles and new questions; to allow prophetic voices to emerge. It is important that everyone can feel represented by the outcome of the work. “To what steps is the Holy Spirit calling us together?”
Step Five: Final Prayer or Song of Thanksgiving to God
Additional Resources
Fr. David McCallum, SJ, Executive Director of Discerning Leadership and facilitator at the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod leads a webinar on Conversations in the Spirit
Many Catholics are interested in what will be happening with the Synod on Synodality as we go forward this year and into the next meeting in Rome in October 2024. We will keep you informed with current articles and gatherings that may be of interest to you. This is a big process and we’ll need to work together to bring synodality to life in our church.
Reach out to bishops/participants on Women in Ministry, Lectionary and Language Upgrades, LGBTQ+ inclusion UPCOMING RESOURCE! (The USCCB will have synodality on the agenda at their Nov meeting)
The Synodal process is a new way of being church and the final synthesis document offered both newfound hope and some painful disappointments. Still, there is no doubt, this is an extraordinary moment in our Church and a major turning point as 54 women discerned and voted as full co-equal members at the Synod meeting alongside prelates. FutureChurch co-director, Deborah Rose, offers commentary and analysis on the October 2023 Synod Assembly and the resulting final Synthesis.
