Photo by Sheila Pires

With the stated goal of restructuring the way discernment and decision making is taken up in the Church, the Synod on Synodality advanced a new model.  The Final Synthesis also offers signs of authentic progress for women in the Church but failed miserably to capture the growing consensus among Catholics in the lead up to the October meeting regarding justice and inclusion for LGBTQ+ Catholics.

The Current Potential and Limits of the Synodal Structure on Display

Synodality has tremendous transforming potential for the Church. As a continuation of the Second Vatican Council, it holds promise for renewing the structures, ministries, teachings, liturgy, and practices of the church to better serve the demands of the Gospel for our time.  This is all the more true as synodality leads us to a healthier focus on meeting the needs of the local church. 

And while it holds promise, signs of its current limitations were on full display at the October meeting.  While the local, diocesan, national, and continental listening phases reflected promising expressions of the sensus fidelium and the best of what it means to be Catholic, the outsized presence of bishops at the synod had a tragic cooling effect what the Holy Spirit seemed to be saying through the experience, faith, and love of God’s people.

The Abysmal Failure of the synthesis document on LGBTQ+ inclusion and justice

In terms of LGBTQ+ justice and inclusion, the document was a crushing blow to a church that desperately needs to be more pastoral and welcoming to our LGBTQ+ family.  The document’s vague and non-committal language was particularly devastating given the Pope’s pre-synod remarks on blessing gay relationships; the shattering stories of LGBTQ+ youth who committed suicide that were told in the Synod hall; his public meetings with Sr. Jeannine Gramick of New Ways Ministry and Marianne Duddy Burke of DignityUSA; not to mention, the appointment of James Martin SJ, an advocate for LGBTQ+ Catholics who is also leading the church toward a new era of justice, inclusion, and compassion.

The Urgent Call for Women in Governance and Ministry

First and foremost, the fact that 54 women were co-equal voting members of the Synod was not only historic, their presence brought life-giving energy for lifting up women and other excluded populations in the Church and in the world.  Sadly, the compassion, hunger for justice, and resilient faith of the women of the synod was not fully reflected in the document.  And while the synthesis contained indicators of progress, the intense energy and hunger for women’s leadership, authority, and ministry that was on display in earlier consensus documents was muted.

Still, there were many proposals in the synthesis that will advance women’s roles and ministry in the Church as they are developed over the next year.

Part II, Section 9 of the synthesis describes the need for inclusive language that more fully lifts up women’s faith and includes a richer set of images, words, and narratives that recalls their apostleship, discipleship, and early ministries as they innovated and shaped the Tradition. As many Catholics are already aware, the current Lectionary omits or distorts many of the stories of our foremothers in faith from both the First and Second Testaments. Exposing Catholics to this lopsided set of narratives reinforces patriarchal authority muting the synodal Spirit found throughout much of our history.  Because of the damage it has caused, FutureChurch will continue its work recovering the stories of our ‘hidden sisters” through our Catholic Women Preach platform and FutureChurch advocacy and resources.

Another proposal in Section 9 uses the word “urgent” to describe the need to open more doors to women’s ministry and authority in decision making bodies. The proposal for studying ordination for women to the diaconate is a continuation of the rather striking progress made on this issue since it was first mentioned at a synod by a single prelate, Archbishop Paul-Andre Durocher, at the 2015 Synod on the Family.  In 2019, the notion was further advanced when a great number of women and prelates, especially from the Amazon region, argued convincingly that ordination for women should be conferred since women were already acting as deacons in those remote regions.

Part II, Section 8 speaks of expanding lay preaching as part of the Ministry of the Word.  The language is somewhat convoluted, and it is not entirely clear if this preaching would take place in the Liturgy or outside of it.  None the less, lay preaching is up for discussion and study and we will continue our grassroots effort to make this a reality.

The synthesis continues to try to break the stranglehold of centralized authority by placing emphasis on meeting the needs of the local church.  That is very important for all regions, but it is especially hopeful when looking at regions like the Amazon and Germany where local bishops are ready to move forward on issues that had very little chance of gaining traction in prior decades.

Finally, FutureChurch congratulates the women who participated and voted in the Synod. They created sacred space as they prophetically embraced and encouraged new paths for women’s ministry and authority and the inclusion of LGBTQ+ people and other marginalized peoples.

Prophetic Pioneers of Faith

We are also profoundly grateful for those who made this historical year possible.  Women

having the vote would have not been possible without people like Sr. Sally Hodgdon, CSJ, Kate McElwee, Sr. Nathalie Becquart, the Benedictine nuns from Fahr Monastery near Basel, Switzerland and so many more who worked at the grassroots level and behind the scenes to open this door for women in the Church.

Our Church will never be the same as women religious who have practiced synodality and offered ministry to the most despised for centuries, as well as lay women who embody justice, empathy, and radical love in their ministries, advance the Gospel within a church that has been blinded by patriarchy and clericalism — constricting the flow of God’s radical love in our lives.

For the faith, love, and tenacity of women in our Church, we are forever grateful.

A Tribute to The Women of the Synod

To find FutureChurch’s tribute to the Women of the Synod go to: https://youtu.be/cAfoJENIM-8?si=Mf4b1jzEyN86o0gD

Learn more about the final synthesis

Curious to learn more about the final synthesis document?  Join us on November 9 at 7pm ET as we spend 90 minutes discussing the final document and creating ideas for what we can do to advance women’s authority, preaching, and ministry as we head towards the second meeting of the Synod on Synodality in October 2024.

Sign up at:  https://futurechurch.org/civicrm/event/register/?reset=1&id=273

Today the synod members had the opportunity to read the final document, heard it read in the assembly, and vote on it paragraph by paragraph.

The document is forty pages long  and while a consensus was achieved, the document was tragically lacking. It should have been much bolder given the input received from around the world during the past two years. One can’t help but feel that in this winnowing down process where the voices and wisdom of  the laity and women fall away and bishops become the great majority of decision makers, we are forever being held back from our full potential by those who like things just the way they are. Our efforts to evolve toward a more synodal church have just begun, but if we keep the same players and structures in place, can we actually do what the Spirit is calling us to do?  And if Paolo Ruffini is correct, it looks like the same players will be back next year.  That makes sense in many ways, but it would be a more authentically synodal process if they increased the number and percentage of women who participate and vote.  We certainly need them.

The Final Synthesis

You can read the official Vatican Synthesis report which was in Italian along with the voting results.  I have also uploaded an unofficial translated version in English.  An official version the English will come out, but sometimes that takes a while.

Women Deacons Forward but Not a Word About Women Priests

Here is what was discerned about women:

b) In Christ women and men are clothed with the same baptismal dignity and receive equally the variety of gifts of the Spirit (cf. Gal 3:28). Men and women are called to a communion characterized by non-competitive co-responsibility, to be embodied at every level of the Church’s life. As Pope Francis has told us, together we are “People summoned and called by the power of the Beatitudes.”

c) During the Assembly we experienced the beauty of reciprocity between women and men. Together we revive the call of the previous stages of the synod process, and ask the Church to grow in its commitment to understand and accompany women, pastorally and sacramentally. Women desire to share the spiritual experience of walking toward holiness in the different stages of life: as young people, as mothers, in friendship relationships, in family life at all ages, in the world of work and in consecrated life. They claim justice in societies still deeply marked by sexual violence and economic inequality, and the tendency to treat them as objects. They bear the scars of human trafficking, forced migration and wars. Accompaniment and determined advocacy for women go hand in hand.

d) Women constitute the majority of those who attend churches and are often the first missionaries of the faith in the family. Consecrated women, in contemplative and apostolic life, constitute a gift, sign and witness of fundamental importance in our midst. The long history of women missionaries, saints, theologians and mystics is a powerful source of inspiration and nourishment for the women and men of our time.

e) Mary of Nazareth, a woman of faith and mother of God, remains for all an extraordinary source of meaning theologically, ecclesially and spiritually. Mary reminds us of the universal call to listen attentively to God and to remain open to the Holy Spirit. She has known the joy of giving birth and making grow and has endured pain and suffering. She gave birth in precarious conditions, experienced being a refugee, and experienced the heartbreak of the brutal killing of her Son. But she has also known the splendor of the resurrection and the glory of Pentecost.

f) Many women expressed deep gratitude for the work of priests and bishops, but they also spoke of a Church that wounds. Clericalism, machismo and inappropriate use of authority continue to scar the face of the Church and damage communion. A deep spiritual conversion is needed as the basis for any structural change. Sexual, power and economic abuses continue to demand justice, healing and reconciliation. We ask how the Church can become a space capable of protecting all.

g) When dignity and justice in relationships between men and women are harmed in the Church, the credibility of the proclamation we address to the world is weakened. The synod process shows that there is a need for a renewal of relationships and structural changes. In this way we will be better able to welcome the participation and contribution of all – lay men and women, consecrated men and women, deacons, priests and bishops – as co-responsible disciples of the mission.

h) The Assembly asks that we avoid repeating the mistake of talking about women as an issue or problem. Instead, we wish to promote a Church in which men and women dialogue for the purpose of better understanding the depth of God’s plan, in which they appear together as protagonists, without subordination, exclusion, or competition.

Issues to be addressed

i) Churches around the world have clearly formulated the call for greater recognition and enhancement of women’s contributions and growth in the pastoral responsibilities entrusted to them in all areas of the Church’s life and mission. In order to give better expression to everyone’s charisms and better respond to pastoral needs, how can the Church include more women in existing roles and ministries? If new ministries are needed, whose responsibility is it to discern, at what level and in what ways?

j) Different positions have been expressed regarding women’s access to diaconal ministry. Some consider that this step would be unacceptable as it would be in discontinuity with Tradition. For others, however, granting women access to the diaconate would restore a practice of the early Church. Still others discern in this step an appropriate and necessary response to the signs of the times, faithful to Tradition and capable of finding an echo in the hearts of many who seek renewed vitality and energy in the Church. Some express fear that this request is an expression of a dangerous anthropological confusion, embracing which the Church would align itself with the spirit of the times.

k) The discussion in this regard is also connected to the broader reflection on the theology of the diaconate (see infra ch. 11, h – i).

Proposals

l) Local churches in particular are encouraged to broaden their service of listening, accompanying and caring for women who are most marginalized in different social contexts.

m) There is an urgent need to ensure that women can participate in decision-making processes and assume roles o f responsibility in pastoral care and ministry. The Holy Father has significantly increased the number of women in positions of responsibility in the Roman Curia. The same should happen at other levels of Church life. Canon law should be adapted accordingly.

n) Theological and pastoral research on women’s access to the diaconate should be continued, taking advantage of the results of the commissions specially established by the Holy Father and the theological, historical and exegetical research already carried out. If possible, the results should be presented at the next Session of the Assembly.

o) Cases of employment discrimination and unequal remuneration within the Church be addressed and resolved, particularly with regard to consecrated women who are too often considered cheap labor.

p) There is a need to expand women’s access to training programs and theological studies. Let women be included in seminary teaching and training programs to foster better formation for ordained ministry.

q) Let liturgical texts and Church documents be more attentive not only to the use of language that holds men and women equally, but also to the inclusion of a range of words, images and narratives that draw with greater vitality on women’s experience.

r) We propose that properly trained women can be judges in all canonical trials.

There are a lot of ways that we can foster the issues that are on the table including advocacy and education on the women who are missing or misrepresented in the Lectionary and a vocabulary that uses inclusive language, promoting women preaching, educating Catholics in the parish about women deacons, educating and advocating for women’s ordination to the priesthood, and advocating for women’s authority and inclusion at every level, but especially at the parish and diocesan levels.

A Crushing Blow on LGBTQ Justice

After some very heartwarming  meetings between LGBTQ+ advocates at DignityUSA/Rainbow Catholics Coalition and New Ways Ministry and Pope Francis, the discernment of the synod’s participants fell flat.  And that felt crushing…again.

It was with tears in my eyes that I read Frank DeBernardo’s words:

With no positive statement on LGBTQ+ issues in the document, and with only two references which simply state what was known when the Synod began, Catholics globally will be greatly disappointed. After two years of calling on the church to have a more positive approach to LGBTQ+ people, repeated over and over around the globe and in every phase of the Synod consultations, it is clear that Catholics want a more inclusive church.

Stating LGBTQ+ issues are controversial in the church does not raise new questions, as the report suggests, for this fact was known well before the Synod even began. Church leaders have had decades to learn about scientific and theological developments about gender and sexuality. Likewise, acknowledging people excluded by the church because of identity or sexuality seek to be heard is well-known. The questions the report claims are now are not, in fact, new.

The only acknowledgment that the church needs to grow is a single sentence which admits that current Catholic anthropological categories do not sufficiently respond to new information which is being discovered from experience or scientific knowledge. Yet the vagueness with which this acknowledgement is described does not provide sufficient confidence that change can be envisioned.

While LGBTQ+ Catholics and their supporters will be disappointed, we pray that they will not also become discouraged. When New Ways Ministry’s co-founder and staff met with Pope Francis this month during the Synod assembly, he counseled us never to give up hope, quoting St. Paul: “Hope does not disappoint” (Romans 5:5).

The Catholic LGBTQ+ community must take Pope Francis’ message to heart. The report’s shortcomings are an invitation to speak anew about their joys, their sorrows, and their faith during the remaining year of this synodal journey.

When will the bishops of this church learn to love our LGBTQ+ family?  I pray for their redemption.

Other important articles:

By Cindy Wooden: https://www.usccb.org/news/2023/synod-synthesis-shows-agreement-divergences-including-synodality

By Christopher White: https://www.ncronline.org/vatican/vatican-news/popes-major-vatican-summit-ends-without-action-women-deacons-mention-lgbtq

Stay tuned

FutureChurch will offer an overview of the final synthesis along with a time for reflection and discussion of the synod process thus far.  Join us as we talk about the ways we can use this next 11 months to advance the issues that are important to us and important for the life of the church.

I remember going on a mission trip in my forties when the children were still pretty small.  I travelled with a group to Honduras visiting everyone from bishops to the people who lived in cardboard shacks in a muddy field.  I was totally transformed by the experience, a transformation that continues to stay with me today.  Yet, there is no doubt that the daily grind of regular life can blur a beautiful, transforming experience.

As I hear the accolades of so many participants at the synod testifying to the transformative power of a community who listens and participates in authentic dialogue, I like many of you wonder how this will be translated on the ground.  What structures will be put in place to make this new way of being church a reality.  It’s still early to be sure, but it is also true that if structures are not created to bring this way of being together, discerning together, deciding together, and ministering together are not formulated early on, this too shall crash under the weight of too many ordained members who’d rather smile and see it quietly sink into oblivion.  Fr. Thomas Reese has asked several times at the press briefings about how they will disseminate this work, how they will structure the practice going forward, but the answers he received did not reassure.

And I’ve also grown slightly testy with panelists responding to actual issues like women’s ordination, LGBTQ+ inclusion, clergy sex abuse, even war and peace, etc. with “this is a synod on synodality, and not a synod on ____ (fill in the blank).”   I know the experience of a deepening communion and find it beautiful too.  But, like Tom Reese, I want to see practical elements to advance this synodal process put in place.  We’ll need structure and we’ll need canon law that backs the authority of lay persons as co-equals in this process.  There is no doubt, any movement forward will be uneven at best, but, I dare say, there won’t be substantive progress without firm structures and laws in place.

How the Voting Will Go

Today at the press conference, Paolo Ruffini gave us the overview of what will happen today and tomorrow.

Ruffini offered this outline.

At the general congregation of this morning, there were 320 members. Some absences were due to other commitments and meetings.  After the prayer and before discussion in the small groups, the interventions which aimed at collecting question proposals and comments for the next stage of the synodal process up until next October took place.  Also some other information was given.

First of all, Cardinal Grech reminded us of that today’s a day of fasting and prayer for peace. 

He also gave us some information concerning the final drafting of the synthesis document.

Yesterday at the end of the discussion on the first draft of the report, 1025 amendments were collected from every small group and 126 individual amendments presented by the individual members of the synod.

Friday (today)

All the amendments were and shall be taken into consideration in order to respect those who have submitted them. And they’re still being read.

The writers and the experts were given a round of applause by the Assembly are also working in the evening to prepare the updated version of the text.  The goal is to include all the amendments that were approved.

The after receiving the amendments, the text is going to be examined this evening during the meeting of the drafting commission who is responsible for drafting the final synthesis report.  According to the instructions, the commission is going to be called upon to approve the text with an absolute majority. Afterwards, between tonight and tomorrow morning, the final version of the document will be prepared. 

Saturday

Tomorrow morning, there will not be a general congregation, but the members will receive the document mid-morning. The official versions of the document will be in English and in Italian.

In the afternoon at 3:30 there will be the general congregation to vote for the document. This is in order to ensure that everybody has enough time to read the synthesis report in advance in its final version and to prepare themselves in the best way to the afternoon vote.

The text given to the members is strictly confidential and it cannot be circulated.

In the first part of the general congregation of tomorrow afternoon, the entire synthesis document will be read out. After the members have read the text individually, it will be read again in the assembly. And after that, there will be an electronic voting, which will make it possible for persons to express themselves concerning every paragraph in the document.

This morning, at the end of the general congregation, a simulation of vote was carried out. And again, this morning we also reaffirmed the secrecy of the voting.  In fact, the data is encrypted, so it cannot be said who has voted for what. To be even clearer, on every tablet that the members of the Synod have, they will have the number of every chapter in the report and all the paragraphs marked by letters of the alphabet.

Every member will have to vote either yes or no for every paragraph to approve it or not. Based on Article 35, paragraph three of the instruction on the Synodal Assembly, abstention is not possible. And according to paragraph four of the same article 35 of the instructions,  individual paragraphs are considered approved with a majority of two thirds of the members who are voting.

Sunday

On Sunday, October 29, there will be the Eucharistic celebration at the end of the General Assembly which will be held at 10am at the Basilica of St. Peter’s.

Ruffini then reminded everyone of the time change taking place between Saturday and Sunday.

Sheila Pires reported on the topics being discussed.

This morning we did continue our work sessions in the small groups, but, obviously with the focus on the next stage of the Synod in October, 2024. So there were discussions and sharing as to what and how we can proceed between now and October 2024.

Several participants suggested that the duration of the next assembly be three weeks instead of four. There was also a proposal to have more time for personal reflection for meditation, especially during the sessions, and also to enable better participation for speeches. In the assembly hall, there was a request for more group meetings organized, not based on language, but on backgrounds. As you may know, some of the issues that we face in Africa may not be the same as in Europe. So there was that request that every now and then we can meet, as different groups just to assess where we are during that period.

Two of the spiritual leaders joined the panel, Fr. Timothy Radcliffe and Sister Maria Grazia Angelini, OSB joined the panel.  They did not join the small groups and they will not be voting, but they shared their perspective on the synod.  Brother Alois Löser, prior of Taize was also on the panel.

Revolutionary, Extremely Innovative

Sr. Angelini observed:

This event was very significant and almost, I’d dare say, revolutionary in terms of changing the pace, in the life of the church.  In terms of including, and the  openness of listening and the ability to listen to differences and the ability to look at reality.

We are in a moment in history, which is incredibly complex and difficult to understand. And this requires a faith to have a vision starting from the highest perspective, that of the presence of God. That became flesh through human flesh too. When human history and the flesh of human beings is more obscure and more tormented, the Scriptures give us luminous criteria to interpret such terrible times. So the fact that bishops, cardinals and lay persons, religious men, men and women, religious with different experiences and coming from all over the world, belonging to different cultures — the fact that they got together and got together to pray and listen to each other and to open visions for the future is something that, for me, was extremely innovative.

Better for Bishops

Fr. Timothy made some unique observations.

Synodality is part of my being. I’m a Dominican, and ever since we were founded 800 years ago, we’ve had a synodal form of government, listening and taking decisions together. This is my fourth synod of the church, my fourth synod of bishops. And it’s quite unlike any of the ones I’ve been to before. At the first synods that I went to, you had the pope in the middle, you had the cardinals around him, you had the bishops around him, and then you had the final circle of people with no hats on like me. And there was not so much real dialogue.

Most people prepared their speeches before they ever arrived at the synod. So this is an extraordinary change in how we are church together. I think the mere fact of seeing curial cardinals, young women from Latin America or Asia sitting together, talking together, is profoundly transformative in people’s experience of being church.

Now, some people have said, is it still therefore really a Synod of Bishops? And I would say very much so. I think this way of holding a synod reveals much more clearly than any previous synod I’ve been to what it means to be a bishop, because there’s a gathering of bishops, a gathering of representatives of the College of Bishops. But it also shows the bishop not as a solitary individual, but immersed in the conversation of his people, listening, talking, learning together. So I think that this synod is far more expressive of what it means to be a bishop than anyone I’ve ever been to before.

Q & A

One journalist asked Fr. Radcliffe about his influence in the synodal model.

I recently read some of your books written in the 1990s, and I found there are many pastoral ideas and also ideas for communication that Pope Francis draws inspiration from, and also many ideas on which the synod is based. Did you also notice this yourself or perhaps you personally suggested this to the Pope? I know that soon after your appointment, Pope Francis invited you at the Vatican for a long meeting. And I would like to ask you if you consider yourself one of the builders of the synod and of the method with which it has worked?

As expected, Radcliffe denied have that kind of influence.

Christopher Lamb of The Tablet asked, Brother Alois, “It’s clear that there are some inside the church who are very skeptical and opposed to the Synod reforms and the Synod.  But we saw at the beginning of this gathering, a prayer vigil with many other Christian leaders. So to what extent do you think this synod can bring about a new moment for Christian unity? And would that mean that those who resist the synod, perhaps that oppose it… just might walk away?  But there are new opportunities for relations with other Christians?

Brother Alois responded:

I can only say that during these weeks, I saw that there was an evolution and a change in people because there was true listening. And in these three weeks, yes, there was this opening. And I think that at the end of this synod, we are no longer the same persons. There was truly a transformation. And there was an opening to listening. There is a huge diversity within the church. This is clear. There are so many different cultures, and this has its impact or importance, but we need to move forward. We must try to understand each other more and more. And also we must understand the different cultures, including collegial cultures. This is a journey to be made, but we are doing this. 

Tomorrow we see the document.  Let’s pray it is worthy.

Some Would Rather Talk Than Listen

Christopher White of National Catholic Reporter gave us some insights into the inner workings of the synod today.  All is not harmonious.  This listening project is getting under the skin of some bishops who, truth be told, would rather preach and decree than listen.  White reported, “As the month has grinded along, there have been multiple reports of synod delegates complaining that the emphasis on listening.”

Another incident that White reported involved a priest following what a bishop, the secretary for the table, was putting to paper.

Another delegate recalled an incident at their roundtable where a priest was watching a bishop — who was serving as the roundtable’s secretary — take notes to later report back to the full assembly. The bishop, apparently irritated that a priest was looking over his shoulder, snapped that if he refused to stop monitoring him, he would throw him out.  “The bishop didn’t seem to understand that in this environment, he didn’t have the authority to do that,” the delegate said. 

But the lay participants get it.  In fact, the head of the synod office, Cardinal Grech told White some time ago that lay people are better at this.  He said, “Synodality is ingrained in the nature of the people of God,” he said. “In the laity, I felt we are not bringing something new. To the contrary, we were harping a chord in their heart and they were ready to sing and to dance to this music.”

The Examination of the Draft Document Begins

There were 349 present in the Assembly in the morning session.

Sheila Pires talked about the voting process on the Letter to the People of God.  

Yesterday, in the afternoon, with 348 members.  Everyone voted on the Letter to the People of God with 336 in favor, 12 against.  After that a debate was opened on the draft synthesis report.

The pope also intervened.

Among the topics discussed were the sensus fidelium, the role of women and the women who accompanied Jesus and it was said that women must be subject, not an object in the church.  Abuse of women was also discussed.  Vatican II was also discussed, ecumenism, and forms of cultural colonialism.

Paolo Ruffini explained, “this morning, the examination of the draft Synthesis Report began by the Small Circles for the presentation of the collective ‘modi’, which can be integrations or eliminations.  “Before the start of the work in the Circles, after the prayer, the Commission for the drafting of the Synthesis Document shared with the Assembly the criteria underlying the Document that will be submitted for a vote on Saturday, and which we are now examining,” said Ruffini. After this process, the document that will be submitted to the Pope as the outcome of the Synod will be the one approved for the second Assembly in October 2024.”

Joining the press briefing were Cardinal Kurt Koch, Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, Opuku Onyinah, a representative of the World Pentecostal Federation and former president of the Church of Pentecost in Ghana, also present at the Synod as a fraternal delegate, Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, the Archbishop of Poznań and the President of the Polish Episcopal Conference, and Dr Catherine Clifford, a Canadian and a professor of systematic and historical theology at St. Paul University in Ottawa, and His Eminence Joseph (Pop) of the Romanian Orthodox Metropolitanate of Western and Southern Europe.

Several that joined were fraternal delegates, people who are invited to participate actively but who do not have a vote.  Twelve fraternal delegates from the four major Christian traditions were invited: three from the Orthodox Church, three from the Oriental Orthodox Churches, three from historic Protestant Communions, and three from Pentecostal-Evangelical communities.

Cardinal Kurt Koch, Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, said that the  ecumenical dimension of the Synod was a centerpiece for strengthening ecumenism.

Opuku Onyinah, also present at the Synod as a fraternal delegate and member of the International Catholic-Pentecostal Joint Commission, observed that the openness of the synodal path was his is “a sign of maturity at the highest level that has been demonstrated by the Catholic Church.”

Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, President of the Polish Episcopal Conference seemed to be amazed that harmony was maintained even though a diverse group of those outside the Catholic tradition were participating.

A Lesson in Ecumenism

Catherine Clifford commented that, “The whole ecumenical movement is a movement of church reform.”

She gave a brilliant exposition on the powerful relationship between Vatican II, Ecumenism, and Synodality.

Pope Francis first spoke about synodality soon after his election as the bishop of Rome in 2013. He mentioned the important work contained in the Ravenna Document of the joint Orthodox Catholic Theological Commission that explored the conciliar or synodal nature of the church and the exercise of authority.  Francis observed and as Cardinal Koch just reminded us that the Catholic Church has much to receive and to learn from the Orthodox Church concerning the practice of synodality.  This perspective was repeated several months later in his apostolic exhortation on The Joy of the Gospel.  Already in 1995, John Paul II in his encyclical letter, Ut Unum Sint, On the Catholic Commitment to Ecumenism committed himself and his successors to “the request made of him“ by ecumenical partners to find a way of exercising the Roman primacy, which while in no way renouncing what is essential to its mission, could better serve the bonds of communion between the churches.

And in the years since 1995 many Christian communion‘s have responded with constructive observations and suggestions concerning this renewal of the exercise of primacy in response to his invitation for dialogue and study on this matter.  And I’m very aware that our colleagues in the Dicastery for Unity has been studying these suggestions.  And the work of many official bilateral dialogue’s, the work of scholars and church leaders who have been studying the question of the exercise of authority in the church, and pointing to the need for primacy to be balanced by collegiality.

The cooperation of all the bishops in church governance and synodality with the development of structures, for gathering all the baptized faithful and encouraging their full participation at every level of church life.  The desire of all the worlds’ bishops to take on the theme of synodality, as the priority, for the presents and synodal process is the fruit of decades of reflection, in a long process of maturation that has been nourished by the dialogues that go on on a regular basis between ecumenical partners.

An important feature of the synodal assembly as we’ve heard is the presence of fraternal delegates from other Christian world communions. This is not a new practice, but it is to me one the perhaps we take too much for granted.  The contributions of the fraternal delegates to reflections this past month have been very important.

Very helpful in the Canadian context when we were going through the synodal process and the consultation at the local level across Canada, important exchanges took place between representatives of other Christian churches who shared their own experiences with us concerning their practices of synodal church governance. This is an important example of what we call receptive ecumenism, learning from one another’s best practices — each church, recognizing the need for renewal and growth, so that we might all better live the Gospel.

Finally synodality has also become a preferred image or paradigm for our common journey toward becoming a church that is fully reconciled. The faith that we share in Jesus Christ, the source of salvation, for all humankind is much greater than the questions that continue to divide us. Humanity has need of our united witness, a credible witness to the possibility of healing and reconciliation.  So by walking together, sharing, God’s abundant love for all humanity and all creation, we are growing closer and learning to live again as one.  The witness of the leaders of the Christian world communions to gather together in prayer with us at the opening of the Synod was a powerful sign of our commitment to walk together, and to receive the gift of unity, so deeply desired by Christ. He’s prayed for all his followers to be made one so that we might be a prophetic sign in a divided world.

Q & A

A journalist asked Professor Clifford,

Pope Francis said that he wishes to see the church as the faithful people of God reminding us of Vatican Council too. I would like to know if this theology of the people of God refers to that ecumenical dimension which is deepened in the faculties of theology.

Clifford responded:

Your first question has to do with the importance of Pope Francis invitation for us to take more seriously the understanding of the church as the People of God. For, I think the last 30 years, there have been important conversations between theologians at the international level on the common understanding of the church. And it’s quite remarkable to see the parallels between the teaching of the Second Vatican Council that understands the church as a mystery of communion and as a People of God. This is echoed in the work of the International Faith and Order Commission in its document “The Church: Towards a Common Vision.” So I would say, it’s a very biblical ecclesiology. It’s one we certainly share with other Christian churches. So, these approaches help us to grow in a common understanding of the church.

The same journalist also asked about the priest abuse scandals and how synodality might help.

Clifford responded,

How do we help,  seminarians to become more attuned to a synodal culture in the church? I think that has been often raised in our conversations through this last month the importance of formation —  formation and education for every member of the baptized faithful.  But with special attention on the formation for candidates for ordination in the seminaries. So this notion of the church that is a synodal body and taking seriously the equal dignity of all the baptized is at the heart of this.

Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki of Poland said they have lengthened the time of formation and are including sciences in the curriculum for future priests…. In order to be synodal, the candidates must learn a, a new way of discussing and a new way of establishing relationships with other people.

No Talk on Married Priests?

Fr. Tom Reese from Religion News Service asked

In the preparation for this session of the synod in the consultations, there was a lot of concern in various parts of the world about the shortage of priests, and there was suggestions for ordaining married men. This doesn’t seem to have been discussed hardly at all at this synod, and I’m wondering why.

Ruffini gave an evasive answer saying, “We shall see because this document is still being drafted. We talked about the topic of celibacy so it wasn’t a missed debate topics.”

Koch added:

I remember that during the synod on the Amazon we spoke about priestly vocations and  we spoke about the need for celibacy. And at the end, the Holy Father did not decide wfor a very interesting reason . He said, I listened to many voices, but I did not hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. So it was an excessively political discussion and very little theological and spiritual. And that is why, um, it seems to me that I, he pointed at the way to follow, to deal with these issues in a synod and not in a political and democratic way. 

And in listening to other traditions, I am reminded how much infighting there over this issue.  For His Eminence Joseph (Pop) of the Romanian Orthodox, this is normal and he offered the wisdom of a tried and true tradition.

To answer this question, we, the Orthodox Church, after thousands of a millennium of thousands of years of priests who were married remind the Catholic church that this is a  possibility.

Finally, Clifford weighed in.

There have been wide open exchanges between Eastern Catholic bishops and bishops of the Latin church concerning married priests.  I think it’s a conversation that’s worth pursuing.  To hear the lived tradition in the Eastern churches and the gift and the ministry of married priests is something I think that’s an open question for consideration. It’s not absent from the conversation that we’ve heard in these weeks.

Next Synod: Same Members

A journalist asked if the members of the synod this year will be the same members that go to the 2024 synod.  Dr. Ruffini replied that they would be the same members.

So the people featured in the main photo for this post will be back in 2024.  That is really important to know,  especially as participants go about their business this next year while under the same restrictions about not speaking with journalists that Pope Francis called for at the beginning of the synod.

No Fancy Lace Please

Pope Francis delivered a message to synod participants.

While the metaphors about women never fail to underwhelm me, his distaste for clericalism is right on target.

When ministers go too far in their service and mistreat the people of God, they disfigure the face of the Church with macho and dictatorial attitudes (it is enough to recall the intervention of Sr. Liliana Franco). It is painful to find in some parish offices the “price list” of sacramental services in the manner of a supermarket. Either the Church is the faithful people of God on the way, saint and sinner, or it ends up being a company of various services. And when pastoral workers take this second path, the Church becomes the supermarket of salvation and the priests mere employees of a multinational corporation. This is the great defeat to which clericalism leads us. And this is very sad and scandalous (it is enough to go to ecclesiastical tailor’s shops in Rome to see the scandal of young priests trying on cassocks and hats or albs and lace-covered robes).

Clericalism is a whip, it is a scourge, it is a form of worldliness that defiles and damages the face of the Lord’s bride; it enslaves God’s holy and faithful people.

“Get Out of Class” Note

On a humorous note, Justin McLellan reported that Wyatt Olivas, the youngest synod member  at age 19 and an undergraduate at the University of Wyoming, got Pope Francis to sign a note asking that he be excused from his classes for a few days.

Now that is fun!

This has been a big day filled with lots of news.  Much of it is exciting and joyful, and some of it will stick in your throat.  Yet, it is such a gift to be a part of history in the making in this monolith of an institution.  And, in the end, women will find justice and equality.

At the press briefing today Dr. Paolo Ruffini and Sheila Pires were joined by Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, J.C.D. (I am not a fan), President of the USCCB, Cardinal Dieudonné Nzapalainga, C.S.Sp., Archbishop of Bangui, the first Central African Republic cardinal, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, O.S.A.  who previously served as Bishop of Chiclayo and is currently prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops  and observer, Professor and theologian Nora K Nonterah Lecturer at Kwame Nkrumah’​ University of Science and Technology.

Today, the Letter to the People of God” was released.  It was intended to be a summary of participants’ experience detailing the work of the past few weeks, and expressing the hope that in the coming months, everyone will be able to “concretely participate in the dynamism of missionary communion indicated by the word ‘synod'”.  The full text of the letter is below.

The Synod Secretary Must Have Gotten the Message about Applause Voting

Today, the Letter to the People of God” was released.  It was intended to be a summary of participants’ experience detailing the work of the past few weeks, and expressing the hope that in the coming months, everyone will be able to “concretely participate in the dynamism of missionary communion indicated by the word ‘synod'”.  The full text of the letter is below.

Sheila Pires explained the process for the final approval vote for the Letter to the People of God.  Yesterday, Colleen Dulle had asked some important questions about how the final votes were going to be conducted indicating that at least one participant was opposed to the vote by clapping method.  But Sheila explained today that, because there were amendments, it was voted on.

This morning (October 25) the letter to the people of God was distributed. It was amended based on the suggestions made by the assembly through verbal or written interventions. The letter was translated into several languages, and it’s going to be voted this afternoon. The letter is a very simple text whose aim consists in sharing the positive experience we are making in during these days. At first, we thought we could approve it by acclamation to leave more time for discussion on the synthesis report. And as we said during the last briefing on Monday, this letter was received with a general round of applause. But because some changes were requested in the different languages, the Synod Secretariat decided that the letter would be voted on this afternoon (Tuesday).  Proposals made during the general congregation up until 6pm (on Monday) were included. So the letter was read this morning (Tuesday morning). It’s going to be voted in the afternoon (Tuesday afternoon), and only the members of the Synod are authorized to vote. The vote is going to be electronic and secret so as to ensure the personal freedom of everyone.

So, the person(s) who was rightly dissatisfied with an applause based vote was heard and the voting process was corrected to make sure every vote counted.  It is good to know that those who dissent from a process are getting a say.

The Draft Synthesis Report Distributed for Discussion

A Synodal church must be willing to sit at the feet of women, especially lay women who are from the global south

Nora K Nonterah was a breath of fresh air after Broglio.  I loved her sure presence on the panel and her wise and insightful words.  She would make a great Pope.

We need to give a preferential option for the laity

She continued.

Also important to this same issue is my conviction, that we need to give a preferential option for the laity in the educational fields of the church, like theology, canon law, social teachings of the church, ministry of leadership. This should become the norm and practice of a synodal church — to turn to the fruits of baptism as the starting point, the starting place for imagining how to be a relevant church for our world today.

Why do we have to turn to baptism as a starting point? Because we need to create the awareness of core responsibility. We need to foster a culture of co-responsibility, which is at the basis of synodality, and which in fact is how to be a church — how to be a missionary church.

Again, being aware of the experiences of women in most parts of Africa as those who build.  In fact, they are the strength, the strength in the mission of the church through various activities — through their participation in small Christian communities, their participation in parish council councils and many other activities that they organize.

I wish to state from this experience that when women become the major participants in the decision making process of the church at all levels, the church will be enriched. And Pope Francis has led away.

But what is my hope? I have some hopes, but what is that hope? It is that synodality would help us to discover the need for the role of women in governance and decision making structures of the church at all levels.

It is also my hope that synodality would help us to discover the need to prioritize education of women, education of youth, especially in the African continent.

It is also my hope that synodality would help us to discover that as a church, we need to allow ourselves as a church to be students at the table of wisdom where African women are sharers of the spiritual, cultural and ecclesial wisdom.

It is a woman who gave birth to that hero. How then can the woman be left behind? 

Professor Nonterah extolls the wisdom found in an African song (which I could not understand).  She boils down what we have often heard about Mary.

It is a woman who gave birth to that hero. How then can the woman be left behind? 

As a theologian friend of mine recently reminded me, Fr. Tissa Ballasuriya, OMI, who was clobbered by Ratzinger at the time, had a similar observation, “How can the womb which enabled the incarnation be viewed as an obstacle to ordination?”

Q & A

Are U.S. Bishops Responsible?

How did you three hear Prof. Nora’s call?

Here is the Letter to the People of God

Read it, share your thoughts

Letter of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops to the People of God

Whereas the pope has shut the door to the female priesthood in the past, Francis recently opened an unprecedented opportunity for debate on the topic. Answering a series of questions, or dubia, sent by conservative prelates regarding the synodal discussions, Francis said there is no “clear and authoritative doctrine” on the question of ordination, and it can be “a subject of study.”

For some synod participants, the solution is already there: allowing women to become priests or deacons. A significant push toward this solution came from the religious sisters within the synod. A “cohort” of nuns favoring female ordination, and especially female deacons, has formed at the synod, said participants. The women, mainly from Latin America and some from Europe, are said to have initially bonded because they all spoke Spanish.

Nuns from Italy to India have come forward in recent years to denounce unfair treatment by male clergy who, they claim, often regard them as nothing more than free labor. Cases of nuns being sexually abused by priests or bishops also have emerged in recent books and reports.

Liberal-minded nuns at the synod have enthusiastically embraced the cause of a female diaconate, participants said, with some pushing the envelope further by asking for the elimination of titles reserved for clergy, such as “your eminence” or “your excellency,” which they see as promoting clericalism.

But to some, the idea of women being allowed to become priests remains beyond the pale. One synod participant said he felt “violated” by the idea of female priests, while another, Eastern Orthodox, attendant voiced surprise at the Western “obsession” with female clergy. The argument that the ordination of women would fill the emptying seminaries of Europe was challenged by representatives from Africa and Asia who take pride in their growing number of priests.

At the tail end of the synod, the question of whether female ordination will make it into the final document remains uncertain, participants said. The goal of this synod is not to come up with solutions, after all, but to pose questions and foster a feeling of communion. Attendants are likely to vote on an amorphous or scaled-down version of the vibrant debates on women’s ordination that have filled the Vatican halls this month.

It would be very sad to find that women’s ordination is not in the final document.  Let’s hope that advocates already see how this injustice has corrupted the unity in the church.

Tears of Joy

This report by Joshua McElwee from National Catholic Reporter is center stage today because it is so full of Good News about Pope Francis’ healing presence in a church that has too long disdained our LGBTQ+ family.

Pope Francis greeted the leaders of an international association for LGBTQ Catholics at the end of his weekly audience in St. Peter’s Square on Oct. 25.

The pontiff spoke with the co-chairs of the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics, a coalition that draws together LGBTQ Catholic organizations from across six continents. Among U.S.-based members are DignityUSA, New Ways Ministry and Fortunate Families.

In an interview with National Catholic Reporter shortly after the encounter, co-chair Marianne Duddy-Burke said Francis was “incredibly gracious” and spent several minutes speaking with the group, which included co-chair Christopher Vella and two others.

Duddy-Burke, who is also the longtime leader of DignityUSA, said the four together thanked the pope for his comments earlier this year condemning countries that continue to criminalize homosexuality. She called the meeting “a big day for LGBTQ Catholics.”

“I was in tears,” she said. “We have great hope for what he is trying to do to make the church more inclusive.”

Duddy-Burke spoke at a conference over the summer about how she had not been invited to speak inside a Catholic Church in more than three decades because of her LGBTQ Catholic advocacy.

Upon seeing the pope on Oct. 25, she handed him a gift: a T-shirt with the Spanish words “todos, todos, todos” printed on it — from the pope’s now often-cited mantra that the Catholic Church is open to “everyone, everyone, everyone.” 

Duddy-Burke said the pontiff immediately laughed at receiving the shirt.

Francis has focused on LGBTQ Catholics in an uncommon way over the past few

weeks.

On Oct. 17, the pope held an historic, 50-minute meeting with Loretto Sr. Jeannine Gramick, a lifelong advocate for LGBTQ ministry who had previously been reprimanded by the Vatican and several U.S. bishops for her work.

Francis also met on Sept. 29 with Jesuit Fr. James Martin, editor of the LGBTQ Catholic publication Outreach, and indicated in a letter released on Oct. 2 that he is open to allowing Catholic blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples.

The pope also recently wrote a note to the executive director of Fortunate Families, a Lexington, Kentucky-based Catholic ministry for the LGBTQ community that is part of the Rainbow Catholics coalition.

“Thank you for your ministry,” Francis told Stan “JR” Zerkowski. “I pray for you, please continue to do so for me.”

DignityUSA put out it owns release about the meeting.

What joy! My heart is full!  I am so touched and happy for my brilliant friend, Marianne Duddy Burke.  She is a sister in the work of inclusion and a fierce advocate for LGBTQ+ people.  She is beloved by all who know her and her work is finally being recognized by the Pope.  The whole community rejoices!

There has been no posting of a press briefing today.  Tomorrow we expect to receive the “Letter to the People of God” that was drafted and approved a few days ago.

Can We Get Real?

There has been much written about the way the synod has closed its doors to the media.  It is next to impossible to get anyone to talk about what is going on inside the hall, and when journalists manage to get someone on the line, it is hard to get anything useful in terms of authentic discussions or evolving tensions.  Most of what is being told is at the press briefings and otherwise tends to be overly sentimental and frankly dull soundbites.  As Thomas Reese SJ writes,

A Vote that Blurs the Voice of Women

And while there is no direct news from the synod, Colleen Dulle has discovered at least one woman is not thrilled with the method of approval used for the letter that will be released tomorrow.

According to Dulle:

The letter will likely be fairly anodyne…But the unusual, and unexpected, method of voting by applause has raised questions about whether the synod will approve the final document, which is expected to be more substantial—outlining convergences, divergences, questions for further consideration and ideas for moving forward—in the same way.

One woman, I am told, refused to clap for the letter yesterday, not because she opposed the content but because she was concerned about the method for approval. When the European continental synod assembly approved its document by applause, some of the same concerns were raised: With the applause method, there is no way to register how many people are actually approving or rejecting the document. It is also unclear exactly what the participants are approving if edits are being made afterward. That is not to mention the message it sends to women when the first synod to include them as full, voting members opts to forgo an actual vote in favor of approval by applause.

Dulle reminds readers,

In past synods, the final document was voted on paragraph by paragraph, and sometimes, sentence by sentence. Asked yesterday about whether synod participants would vote on the forthcoming synthesis document in the same way, Vatican spokesman Paolo Ruffini said he could not answer the question because he had not yet seen the final document, and the way that the document is written would determine how voting is done. “It’s being drafted, so at the moment I cannot tell you if we are going to vote [for example] paragraph by paragraph or bullet points. I would imagine that every part would be voted on; I don’t know what we will call each part.”

The Vatican’s schedule for the event refers to Saturday’s session as “approval” of the final document, whereas it referred to yesterday’s approval of the letter to the people of God as “voting.” What will happen? We do not know, but after a two-year process of listening and synthesis, I think the precision that comes from voting on each of the document’s ideas would be the best way to communicate to the church what has happened in this historic moment, and what we are being called to discern in the next 11 months.

Praying for a New World for Migrants and Refugees

In other news, Joshua McElwee and Christopher White of National Catholic Reporter’s “The Vatican Briefing” took a deep dive into the synod work with Cardinal Michael Czerny, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

Czerny told McElwee and White that the prayer service for migrants and refugees was upper most in his heart and mind.

I was … moved by just the feeling of gathering, the bringing together of God’s people,” said the Jesuit cardinal about the prayer. “This feeling that we are church, and not because we’re identical, which maybe was a false concept of Catholicity in the past; not because we’re identical, but because we’re so different, and yet called by the one Lord to follow him and guided by the one spirit whom he promised to us.

A Take on Women’s Equality at the Synod

Finally, in case you missed it, our friend in the work of women’s equality from India, Virginia Saldanha writes regularly for UCA News, a media outlet that focuses on Catholicism in Asia.

Here is her take on the synod.

Several lay people groups from all parts of the world have been congregating in Rome several days before the start of the Synod on Synodality and continue to do so, to try to get their voices heard.

The first was a group of survivors and advocates of Ending Clergy Abuse (ECA) in the Catholic Church. A few made a pilgrimage from Montefiascone to Rome carrying a cross with the words, “Zero Tolerance” emblazoned across it.

Their demand to Pope Francis is to implement zero tolerance to end clergy sex abuse as he promised.

From Oct 3 to 6, the Women’s Ordination Conference (WOC), Women’s Ordination Worldwide (WOW), Roman Catholic Women Priests (RCWP), and women supporters representing all continents began their campaign with a Prayer Vigil entitled “Let Her Voice Carry.” About 30 women gathered at the Basilica of St. Praxedis, where four women shared their powerful testimonies of how they as women felt oppressed by the socialization they received in the Catholic Church, and their struggles to break out of the mold and find freedom to be who they felt called to be, faithful followers of Jesus and Ministers of his Mission.

Early in the morning of Oct. 4, before the beginning of the synod’s inaugural Eucharist, women gathered in front of the Castle San Angelo to unfurl a giant purple banner, with the words, “Ordain women,” painted across it.

“We urge all members of the Church to be unafraid of pursuing new paths that empower women as equals”

WOC director, Kate McElwee, said, “We hope our voice is heard in the synod hall. We know that women’s role in the Church is on the agenda. We are here in support of those conversations. We hope that they continue to be courageous, bold and inclusive.”

A small group of WOC officials wanted to deliver this piece of material to the synod office with the message: “Enlarge the space of your tent to include women in the ordained ministry of the Church.”

But they were forbidden from entering Vatican territory.  A few of the women wearing the characteristic pink shirt worn at the event attempted to join the inaugural Mass but were stopped by police and their passports examined.

At the crack of dawn on Oct. 5, Jamie Manson, president of Catholics for Choice, dropped a banner over a bridge on the banks of the Tiber with the words, “Faithful Catholics have abortions.” A stark message to the celibate men who make decisions for, and condemn women whose shoes they will never walk in.

On Oct. 6, more than 50 women’s ordination supporters from around the globe present in Rome gathered at a church containing the relic of St. Mary Magdalene’s foot to walk in her footsteps, urging the Church to listen to the voices of women calling out for equality.

“In the spirit of conversion called for by the synod, we urge all members of the Church to be unafraid of pursuing new paths that empower women as equals. Walk with us,” urged McElwee.

Later, seven women from the Catholic Women’s Council met with a group of Italian and Latin American theologians who were providing theological support to the synod participants, at their office. We pointed out the stark difference between the Synod on Amazonia and the Synod on Synodality.

The first was open, where participants could freely interact with those outside the synod hall, while the Synod on Synodality is a closed-door discussion with participants discreetly told not to interact with those outside of the synod.

“Where is participation if Catholics outside are kept at bay and their voices muted?”

The senior priest at the office encouraged us to continue to work to make our voices heard as the synod will only end in 2024.

Beginning on Oct. 8, Spirit Unbounded, a network of all reform organizations began a virtual synod which will continue through this week with 115 voices from all continents. The speakers represent the diversity of the global Church at this hybrid event from Rome and Bristol. They will present “Human Rights in the Emerging Catholic Church” at this lay-led synodal assembly coinciding with the synod in Rome.

Our experiences thus far make us wonder about the meaningfulness of the logo of the Synod on Synodality, where Communion, Participation and Mission are the hallmarks of synodality.

But where is communion if interactions of those inside are restricted with those on the outside?  Where is participation if Catholics outside are kept at bay and their voices muted? Are we all not on a mission together?  Is the Holy Spirit only with those inside and not with us on the outside?

While the weeks ahead will see some more groups coming to Rome to raise their voices on important issues, will the voices on the outside be heard inside?  What about those of us whose voices were never heard at our parish, diocese, or national levels?

Will all voices be really heard at the synod? Especially voices who have no representation inside the synod hall like LGBTQI+ persons and survivors of clergy abuse?

Today begins the final week of the synod.   A draft of the “Letter to the People of God” was read and applauded by the participants.  They can make additional comments until 6pm today, and then the final text is going to be approved and published on Wednesday.

The work this week for Module 5, will be making changes to the final document – the map that will be used for the next year as we head to the 2024 Synod on Synodality.

Sr. Maria Grazia Angelini O.S.B gave a beautiful spiritual reflection today about the new stories, new parables, and new narratives  we are telling in the church today.  She ended with:

I pray that this Synod will receive the art of new narratives, the radical humility of those who learn to recognize the likeness of the Kingdom in the truest, most vital dynamisms of the human, of the primary bonds, of the life that pulses mysteriously in all the worlds and spheres of human existence, in an admirable hidden harmony. With such patience. The ability to peer into the night.

Wishing you good final work: in the telling of new parables that help you to think, grow, hope, walk – together.

Dominican Timothy Radcliffe also offered some thoughtful, tender remarks.  Anybody who quotes Rilke has my attention.

In a few days’ time, we shall go home for eleven months. This will be apparently a time of empty waiting. But it will be probably the most fertile time of the Synod, the time of germination. Jesus tells us: ‘The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how’.

We have listened to hundreds of thousands of words during the last three weeks. Sometimes we have thought: ‘Too many!’  Most of these have been positive words, words of hope and aspiration. These are the seeds that are sown in the soil of the Church. They will be at work in our lives, in our imagination and our subconscious, during these months. When the moment is right, they will bear fruit.

The poet Austrian Rainer Maria Rilke wrote:

In spite of all the farmer’s work and worry,
He can’t reach down to where the seed is slowly
‘Transmuted into summer’. The earth bestows.[1]

Then he continued:

These eleven months will be like a pregnancy…

So this is a time of quiet pregnancy…

This is a time of active waiting. Let me repeat the words of Simone Weil I quoted during the retreat. ‘We do not obtain the most precious gifts by going in search of them but by waiting for them…This way of looking is, in the first place, attentive. The soul empties itself of all its own contents in order to receive the human being it is looking at, just as he or she is, in all their truth.[3]’

This is profoundly countercultural. The global culture of our time is often polarised, aggressive and dismissive of other people’s views. The cry is: Whose side are you on? When we go home, people will ask, ‘Did you fight for our side? Did you oppose those unenlightened other people?’ We shall need be profoundly prayerful to resist the temptation to succumb to this party-political way of thinking. That would be to fall back into the sterile, barren language of much of our society. It is not the synodal way. The synodal process is organic and ecological rather than competitive. It is more like planting a tree than winning a battle, and as such will be hard for many to understand, sometimes including ourselves!

These are beautiful and gentle words.  But if we can use a metaphor like pregnancy, it will be all the more heartbreaking — and the metaphor will be all the more empty — if we do not see genuine and clear movement toward full equality for women in our church.  And while I do understand the counsel for waiting for the seeds of the synod to grow, I can’t imagine anything other than continued action for justice.  Martin Luther King Jr. may have recognized that that seeds for racial justice were beginning to sprout, but would not have counseled waiting, but moving and working with hearts full of love for the church, for women, for LGBTQ+ people, for those women, children, and men who live at the edges of poverty and war, and more.

God is Waiting for Your Reply

Father Ormond Rush from Australia gave a synthesis report reminding participants of the theological tensions at the Second Vatican Council and what we can learn for the Synod today.  He liberally cites Joseph Ratizinger who was very much about moving the church forward in those days and using Ratzinger he directly addresses those who hold a rigid claim to truth as well as those who need a way out of that mindset.  But the line I love most is, “God is waiting for your reply.”

Having listened to you over these past three weeks, I have had the impression that some of you are struggling with the notion of tradition, in the light of your love of truth. You are not the first to struggle with this. It was a major point of discussion at the Second Vatican Council. I thought it might be helpful to recall the questions they debated, and the answers they came up with. Their answers are, for us, the authority for guiding our reflections on the issues that confront us today. So, maybe Vatican II has some lessons for this synod, as you now bring to synthesis your discernment regarding the future of the church.

Over the four sessions of the council, one of the major recurring points of tension was this matter of “tradition”. In the first 1962 session, a draft text was presented to the assembly on “the sources of revelation”; it was styled in the categories of neo-scholasticism, which spoke of revelation, faith, scripture and tradition in a mostly one-dimensional way: in terms only of propositional doctrinal statements. When put to the council, the bishops virtually rejected it. The next day, Pope John XXIII agreed that a new text was indeed needed. On the historic significance of this debate, as well as the pope’s decision to intervene, the council peritus Joseph Ratzinger wrote at that time:

The real question behind the discussion could be put this way: Was the intellectual position of “anti-Modernism”—the old policy of exclusiveness, condemnation and defense leading to an almost neurotic denial of all that was new—to be continued? Or would the Church, after it had taken all the necessary precautions to protect the faith, turn over a new leaf and move on into a new and positive encounter with its own origins, with its [fellow human beings] and with the world of today? Since a clear majority of the fathers opted for the second alternative, we may even speak of the Council as a new beginning. We may also say that with this decision there was a major advance over Vatican Council I. Both Trent and Vatican Council I set up bulwarks for the faith to assure it and to protect it; Vatican Council II turned itself to a new task, building on the work of the two previous Councils.[1]

That new task was an engagement of Christian faith with history. What Joseph Ratzinger saw during Vatican II as the source of tension here were basically two approaches to tradition. He calls them a “static” understanding of tradition and a “dynamic” understanding.[2] The former is legalistic, propositional, and ahistorical (i.e., relevant for all times and places); the latter is personalist, sacramental and rooted in history, and therefore to be interpreted with an historical consciousness. The former tends to focus on the past, the latter on seeing the past being realised in the present, and yet open to a future yet to be revealed. The council used the phrase “living tradition” to describe the latter (DV, 12). In speaking of the dynamic rather than a static understanding of “the apostolic tradition”, Dei Verbum 8 teaches: “The tradition that comes from the apostles makes progress [proficit, “develops”] in the church, with the help of the Holy Spirit. There is a growth in insight into the realities and words that are being passed on.” And it goes on to speak of three interrelated ways through which the Holy Spirit guides the development of the apostolic tradition: the work of theologians; the lived experience of the faithful; and the oversight of the magisterium. Sounds like a synodal church, doesn’t it?

According to a dynamic understanding of tradition, says Ratzinger: “Not everything that exists in the Church must for that reason be also a legitimate tradition; in other words, not every tradition that arises in the Church is a true celebration and keeping present of the mystery of Christ. There is a distorting, as well as a legitimate, tradition… Consequently, tradition must not be considered only affirmatively, but also critically; we have Scripture as a criterion for this indispensable criticism of tradition, and tradition must therefore always be related back to it and measured by it.”[3] Pope Francis alluded to these two different ways of understanding tradition, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “Tradition is a living reality and only a partial vision regards the ‘deposit of faith’ as something static. The word of God cannot be moth-balled like some old blanket in an attempt to keep insects at bay! No. The word of God is a dynamic and living reality that develops and grows because it is aimed at a fulfilment that none can halt”.[4]

At the heart of Dei Verbum’s retrieval of a dynamic understanding of tradition was its retrieval of a personalist understanding of revelation, as found in the Bible and in the patristic writings of the early centuries of the church. Revelation is not only a communication of truths about God and human living, which is articulated in Scripture and in the statements of doctrine at particular times in the church’s history, in response to time-conditioned questions put to the tradition. Revelation is primarily a communication of God’s love, an encounter with God the Father in Christ through the Holy Spirit. Dei Verbum speaks of divine revelation in terms personal friendship and encounter, and especially in terms of love and truth. Let me quote DV 2: “By this revelation, then, the invisible God, from the fullness of his love, addresses men and women as his friends, and lives among them, in order to invite and receive them into his own company… The most intimate truth [intima veritas] thus revealed about God and human salvation shines forth for us in Christ, who is himself both the mediator and the sum total of revelation.”

In Dei Verbum—and this is important for understanding synodality and the very purpose of this Synod—this divine revelation is presented as an ongoing encounter in the present, and not just something that happened in the past. The event of God’s self-revealing (always in Christ, through the Holy Spirit) and God’s offer of relationship, continues to be a living reality here and now. That doesn’t mean there can be some new revelation of who God is. But, the same God, in the same Jesus Christ, through the enlightenment and empowerment of the same Holy Spirit, is forever engaging with, and dialoguing with, human beings in the ever-new here and now of history that relentlessly moves humanity into new perceptions, new questions and new insights, in diverse cultures and places, as the world-church courses through time into an unknown future until the eschaton.

We see this present-nature of the divine-human dialogue in Dei Verbum 8: “God, who spoke in the past, continues to dialogue with the spouse of his beloved Son [the church]. And the Holy Spirit, through whom the living voice of the Gospel rings out in the church—and through it in the world—leads believers to the full truth and makes the word of Christ dwell in them in all its richness.” Therefore, according to Joseph Ratzinger, in Dei Verbum we are given “an understanding of revelation that is seen basically as dialogue… [T]he reading of Scripture is described as a colloquium inter Deum et hominem [a dialogue between God and human beings]… The dialogue of God is always carried on in the present… with the intention of forcing us to reply.”[5]

This Synod is a dialogue with God. That has been the privilege and challenge of your “conversations in the Spirit.” God is waiting for your reply. At the end of this week of synthesis, you might well want to begin that synthesis by saying, as did that first Council of Jerusalem, described in Acts 15: “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…” In their time, their letter to the churches then went on to address an issue on which Jesus himself had left no specific directions. They and the Holy Spirit together had to come to a new adaptation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ regarding that new question, which had not been envisaged before.

Vatican II, accordingly, urged the church to be ever attentive to the movements of the revealing and saving God present and active in the flow of history, by attending to “the signs of the times” in the light of the living Gospel.[6] Discernment of the signs of the times in the present seeks to determine what God is urging us to see—with the eyes of Jesus—in new times; but also urging us to be attentive to the traps—where we could be being drawn into ways of thinking that are not “of God”. These traps could lie in being anchored exclusively in the past, or exclusively in the present, or not being open to the future fulness of divine truth to which the Spirit of Truth is leading the church. Discerning the difference between opportunities and traps is the task of all the faithful—laity, bishops, and theologians—everyone, as Gaudium et Spes 44 teaches: “With the help of the Holy Spirit, it is the task of the entire People of God, especially pastors and theologians, to hear, distinguish and interpret the many voices of our age, and to judge them in the light of the divine word, so that revealed truth can always be more deeply penetrated, better understood and set forth to greater advantage.”[7] That “revealed truth” is a person, Jesus Christ. So, as we move to discernment of our final synthesis, may we be guided by the injunction of the Letter to the Hebrews 12: 2: “Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus.”

This is just brilliant.  He reminded participants that at the Council of Jerusalem they addressed “an issue on which Jesus himself had left no specific directions. They and the Holy Spirit together had to come to a new adaptation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ regarding that new question, which had not been envisaged before.”

May the Synod produce such good results as we look forward to a genuine conversion when to comes to women in the Church, LGBTQ people, and more.

Press briefing

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Austria, Mexican Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes, Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, Metropolitan Archbishop of Marseille, France, and Sr. Samuela Maria Rigon, General Superior of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother who is a psychologist and professor at the Gregorian.  She was appointed by Pope Francis to participate in the synod.

Cardinal Schönborn commented on what will come out of the synod.  He said, “If out of this council, faith, hope, and charity do not increase, this whole council has been in vain.”

He also spoke about the movement away from a Eurocentric church to a global church where synodality is already much more present in the structures.

A very strong impression for me comes not so much from decentralization, but the fact that Europe is no longer the main center of the church. There are other centers, and this is evident from the daily meetings at the synod with Latin America and Africa.  The Commission of the European conferences have been unable to have the potential that the FABC has developed or CELAM. It hasn’t been enabled to, to develop as they have. So, it is a bit of a criticism that we are lugging behind in the way in which we live synodality among the local, local churches in Europe.  I think we need some stimulus to, to go further, to move on.

Now I have to say that the cardinal has one of the most synodal leaders right within his reach.  Fr. Helmut Schuller has been working with lay persons to create a vibrant synodal church for years and in 2013 shared his message with Catholics in the United States.  The cardinal should learn from one of his own master teachers.

Q & A

Saturday is the Big Day

A journalist began with the question, “When is the final synthesis report going to be published? Is it going to be voted paragraph by paragraph? And when is it going to be published?

The voting of the document is going to take place on Saturday evening. The document is going to be published Saturday evening. It’s perhaps not very convenient in terms of timing, but this is how it’s going to take place because we don’t have the synthesis report yet.  It’s been drafted, so at the moment, I cannot tell you if  we’re going to vote by paragraphs or bullet points. I don’t know. But I imagine that every part is going to be voted on.

He also asked the cardinals on the panel, “In your opinion, will the future conclave have to consider what was said during this month?  And if so, in what way?

Cardinal Retes responded.

My answer if very simple.  If we put into practice what we have defined here, what we have discussed, and what we have experienced, I think that there is a path before us, unless we do this, if we just listen and we, we do not reach the daily life with our responsibilities where nothing is going to happen. So everything really depends on us and on what we do when we go back to our own dioceses, when we put into practice what we have been saying, what we expect as as a church in the future.

The Schönborn Fest

Most of the questions were directed to Cardinal Schönborn.  Another journalist asked the cardinal:

Of all the synods you took part in, it seems to me evident that this assembly is not going to come up with concrete decisions concerning the individual issues and topics that were discussed also, because there’s going to be another assembly next year.  But I would like to ask if a consensus is emerging concerning this method. So we can imagine that  in the near future, in the church at all levels, this synodal system is going to be adopted from the parish level to the diocese level. Are you going to adopt this system of an assembly that includes laypersons and women voting on decisions, even though at the end it is a pastor…or the bishop who takes the final decision. Can we imagine that the synodal method, which is the model of the second Vatican Council — discussion, vote, and then the Pope who decides — can this method be adopted also in a binding and structural way at all in all levels of the church? Or this method going to be limited to synodal assemblies and it’s not going to be introduced in the concrete life of the church?

Cardinal Schönborn responded,

Starting from the Council of Jerusalem, which is as old as a church, the method is listening.  First of all, what type of listening?  Listening to what God is showing us through the experience of journeying. First, Peter speaks about his experience and after Paul and Barnabas speak, in turn, the decision comes from this common listening and discernment.  I am used to a similar method that we adopted in the Archdiocese of Viena since 2012, up to the present day.  We have had five diocesan assemblies with 1,400 participants – with priests, bishops, laypersons, everyone, well, the People of God. And, we did not vote, but we experienced listening and communion. And, of course, we must come to some decisions. 

Christopher Lamb of The Tablet asked:

We have heard the integrity of the Synod Assembly questioned by some because the synod includes lay members as delegates. As someone who has attended many synods, what would you say to the claim that this synod is somehow lesser or can be questioned because it’s not really a synod of bishops?

Schönborn was quick to respond:

I can’t see, I can’t see the problem.  It remains an episcopal synod with real participation of non bishops. But it’s a real participation. The fundamental position of the episcopal synod was created by Pope Paul VI. It is a consultative organ for the exercise of the papal ministry. This does not at all diminish synod votes.  Whenever we have voted in the synod, we have voted for something we consider to be important that the Holy Father should consider for his own magisterium, in collegiality with the bishops, in a communion with the whole church, and mainly in communion with the faith of the church, which is neither invented by the Pope, nor invented by the synod, which is the faith of the apostles we all share…So it has not changed in nature. It has been enlarged. And my experience is that it is a very positive experience…And I remember some interventions of lay experts that have been of great importance.

The Sins of Our Fathers

Another journalist asked if the Catechism could be changed to reduce the damage it causes to LGBTQ+ people because the language of “instrinsically disordered” is used.

Here is the text:

Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,¹⁴¹ tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.”¹⁴² They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

Schönborn gave a disappointing response saying that the Pope has changed the Catechism on the death penalty but not on this.  He said it is up to the Pope.  It is hard to imagine how this atrocious language can stand and that fact that it does is just plain sinful.

A journalist from Catholic News Agency asked Schönborn:

This morning in the Synod Hall delegates heard from theologian Fr. Orman Rush about the Synod being in dialogue with God and that God “is waiting for your reply.”  This week, as you work on the synthesis document, Rush also quoted extensively from Vatican II’s Dei Verbum on divine revelation, which says there’s no new public revelation before Christ returned.  What, your eminence, is the proper relationship between the authority of the magisterium and bishops to teach and preserve the deposit of faith, and the contribution of theologians and the sensus fidelium? And what role will the latter, the theologians and the laity, have in the determining of church teaching going forward? And how is the synod exploring structures and processes to incorporate this? 

The cardinal replied

That would need a whole lecture on fundamental theology. But it is clear that there are two elements. Look at the talk of Saint John XXIII at the opening of Vatican II where he spoke about the immutability of the doctrine and the way to present the doctrine. There is a big development in deepening the understanding. But there is immutability of our faith. What we believe in can never change — the Holy Trinity or in the Incarnation, or the institution of the Eucharist by Jesus. These are beliefs that are immutable, as the creed says. That is valid everywhere in the world.  The cultures may very different, but the substance of the faith cannot be changed. 

I was kind of glad to have the Schönborn fest come to an end.  He has a wealth of knowledge, but his instincts are, too often, to stay safe rather than lead.