Synod Interim Stage Synthesis
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.
